An Army of Normal Folks - Kim Emch: The Only 3 Generation Family ESL Program (Pt 1)

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

When Kim found out that thousands of kids in her suburban community were going hungry in the summer, she couldn’t look away from the problem. Her nonprofit Festa now feeds over 800 children in the summer, but as Kim puts it, they don’t just want to help people live in poverty a little bit better. So they serve 1,166 people with America's only 3-generation family English as a Second Language program, to help their families escape poverty .   Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All the tutoring I did at that inner city school, I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it. I never asked them, what are you doing in the summer? Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur and I've been a football

coach in inner city Memphis. That last part it's somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding, hey, you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Kim Imsh, the voice you just heard, has done. When she found out that thousands of kids

in her suburban community were going hungry in the summer, Kim couldn't look away from the problem and she dove in. Her nonprofit, Festa, now feeds over 800 children in the summer. But as Kim puts it, they don't just want to help people live a little bit better in poverty. So, they serve over 1,100 people with afterschool tutoring and English as a second language classes

to help their families escape poverty. I can't wait for you to meet Kim right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground, you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is unique access with straightforward on the ground reporting. We're taking you

deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade I've been going to places I shouldn't be meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the Away Days podcast, reporting from the underbelly, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kim Imsh, welcome to Memphis. Thank you so much, Bill. EMCH, pronounced Imsh. What on God's green

planet is that? My husband and I actually have whole conversations about this. His family swears it's Swiss, but I understand that half of the people in Swiss speak German. So I think it was that side. So your husband has no idea really? I tease them that they have no idea. So you're from a interesting place that I think when you grow up there, you have to drink scarlet and silver juice

just outside of this place called Columbus, Ohio, where they seem to worship a football team. They do, the Ohio State Buckeyes. Yeah, what's a buckeye? Isn't that like a pea or something? It's a nut from a tree. It's a what? It's a nut from a tree. It's a what? It's a nut from a tree.

See? Comes off of a tree. Yeah. And we also make them into candies of chocolate and peanut butter, which are delicious. Are they really? All right, well, Kim Imps everybody from the Columbus area. She's actually from Hillard, Ohio, which is a suburb.

And fair warning, we're to go through Kim's story, but you're going to hear some terminology today that you've probably never heard. And before I read all about you, I guess I probably knew this thing existed, but I wasn't really in tune with it. And I think not only the work that you do and all that's evolved, which obviously we're gonna unpack, I think is incredibly interesting,

but just the genesis of it is eye-opening. And I think something we can all learn from. But before we get to that, as everybody knows, we're gonna learn a little bit about you. Tell me about you, where you come from. And you and I, by the way, I don't know if you know my story, but you and I have something in very in common in terms of the way we came up. So go with little Kim.

Where from? What did growing up as Kim, what was your maiden name? Woods. Oh, you go from Woods to Ipsh. Oh my goodness. Tell me about what Kim Woods looks like coming up. I grew up in Mommy, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. And I experienced five divorces by my parents

by the time I was 17. And growing up in a suburb, I had godparents who were from Spanish was their first language. And I was completely unchurched until middle school. The godparents, was that from mom's friends, dad's friends, mom's friends? Mom's friends, yep. I don't know how old you are and I'm not gonna ask, but I would think back then that having Spanish-speaking friends was unique.

I think about that often because, you know, when you're a child, what is normal to you is normal to you. Right. When you grew up and meet people as an adult, you realize it was maybe unique. So I think it was unique. My godfather was from Mexico and he became a juvenile court judge in Toledo, Judge Joe Flores.

And so I remember every time he campaigned, we had these bright yellow shirts with the black writing vote for Judge Flores. And they actually, he's passed and there's a street named after him in downtown Toledo. So he was very passionate. He grew up at the YMCA. He grew up, that was the YMCA was his extracurricular, his group of friends, his safe place. And of course course then he wanted to give back and pour into young people. So that was definitely very, left a huge lasting impression on me.

Clearly, that's your godfather. So I am the product of five divorces on my mom's side and three on my father's side. So you said your parents had five divorces. What was that like for you? Yeah, very tumultuous. I mean, very life-shaking, trying to figure out who's here, who's coming, who's leaving. Lots of grief, lots of loss, and trying to navigate it and figure out where my place was in all of it and who could be trusted, who could be depended on. It was rough.

Did you experience in yourself an unwillingness to trust consistency? Hmm. That's a great question. I would say being expecting or being ready for the next big crisis became sort of a norm for me, for sure. My last stepfather from my mom took us to church when I was in middle school, and that was definitely life-changing for me because we didn't—even though I had Godparents, and I had been baptized when I was two or three, but we didn't go to church. We weren't around people who were Christians or I didn't know what I didn't know. And as he took us to church at a little Lutheran church in Maumee, later on I learned that it was called Youth Group, but I just knew it was this group of people who were inviting me to hang out with them.

And it was some youth leaders, some adults who actually were studying to become doctors. I don't know how they found the time to run this group. And then a bunch of teenagers, mostly from my school. But we hung out and it was a great community for me. And they started saying things to me like, oh my gosh, you are a natural leader. And started honing my leadership. They said, you're smart and you're studious. You could go to college. No one in my family had been to college. And

I just loved being there. I loved going there. We went to Appalachia to retar coal miners' homes for a service trip. And I'll never forget, I'm standing on the roof in the valley of the Appalachian Mountains. It's 110 degrees, no breeze, huge humidity. I'm standing on this roof, tarring this roof, and the owner comes out, little old man with white hair with an oxygen tank, and he's praying for me on the roof. And that's when I learned that serving God is this 360-degree circle where everyone has a need and everyone can give. That's kind of cool. Did that stepdad hang around for the rest of your life or was he another divorced person? They divorced, but I still have a relationship with him.

So, clearly not affluent. Nobody's graduated from college. You said, is that right? Right. My mom went to nurses training and so she was a registered nurse. She always had a good job. She could always find a job and it was always a good job. So we, I was never worried about food, clothing or shelter. I wasn't worried about those things. Got it. So a little bit of chaos, a little bit of trauma, probably some disassociation. And the only reason I'm saying all those things is because I'm just projecting on you what I experienced. And you're shaking your head up and down. So I guess that experience growing up that way leaves those impressions. Church obviously became integral in how it formed the way you thought. And clearly, which I didn't know, the relationship with your godparents, I think also was formulative, which is interesting.

So what do you do? Do you go to college? What happens? Yeah. So I'm in this Lutheran church going to this, again, what I learned later was a youth group getting confirmed because in middle school in Lutheran religion, they're teaching you everything.

And I knew nothing. So it was perfect timing, but I fit right in with the other young people because they were learning it all too. And I remember thinking to myself, I knew there was something else going on here. I knew it. I knew it wasn't just what I could see, that there was a bigger picture. I just felt like someone took me from the acorns in the forest up to the airplane level. And

it just completely, faith in God just completely made sense to me. And so I'm sitting in this Lutheran church every week and they had these cards about Capital University, this little Lutheran school, college in Columbus. Again, the youth leaders are saying, you should go to college. You should get a four-year degree. You could do it. You have good grades in school. So I fill out this card at church and put it in the offering plate and Capital University starts sending me back in the day, paper mail, saying, we would love to have you at our school.

So as I get into college or get into high school, I think to myself, well, Cavanaugh University wants me and I'm certainly going there. And I remember my guidance counselor had a meeting with me and she said, you know, what are you doing after high school? And I said, well, I'm going to go to Capital University. And she said, have you applied to Capital University? Because I don't see any paperwork. And I said, well, no, but I've been email or email snail mail corresponding with them for years. Certainly that's where I'm going. And she said, well, dear, you need to fill out an application. It's a private college, so it's expensive. I don't know if your family can afford that. You need to fill out some financial aid. So she really walked me through it and

encouraged me to go to other schools just in case I didn't go there, like apply to other schools just in case they didn't let me in. And so I went, I applied to Kent State, but I never went to visit because I just knew I was going to capital. So I got into capital and I say a lot, that was a whole testament of God because my parents, my dad never was able to pay anything for my school. My mom was single mom at that time. She could pay a little bit, but she could not have paid the full amount of a private school.

And they had said to me, if you keep your grades up, we'll make sure you can go here all four years. And so I got hell grants. I got scholarships from people that I wrote thank you letters to that I never met. Somehow I went to college for four years and had about $6,000 worth of debt when I left. It was amazing. And that was an amazing experience because I went to a new city, a much larger city than Toledo and met tons of people who really were influential in my life, professors and students.

And I didn't know what to study, but I liked economics and sociology and public speaking. So they said, well, why don't you just do all that? So that's what I studied and I just enjoyed it. So what's your degree in? My major was economics and then I had minors in public speaking and sociology. There's a minor in public speaking? That's very cool. I thought it was really fun.

I, cause people said, you know, most people don't want to speak in front of people. And I said, well, I'd love to. So they said, you should study that then. So what do you go do for a living out of college? What happens next? Economics. People thought banking seemed like a good next step for me. So I applied at Huntington National Bank and I worked there for eight years.

And again, great experience, met a ton of really wonderful mentors, people who poured into me and gave me advice on how to grow my career. Every nine to 12 months, I applied for another position and kept going in the bank. I went through a management training program. I finally got to corporate training. And I loved it. I got to corporate training and I really figured out that I enjoy explaining something to someone

when I can see the light bulb go off and they get it. That's kind of like right now, you with me. I'm like, oh, I get that. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, our next live interview in Memphis will be on June 12th with Father Mark Hanna Father Mark and a team of four other civilians saved over 50 lives on 9-eleven and the rest of his team died while trying to save more people

After 9-eleven mark became a Coptic priest and hence the Father title. It's part of our Lunch and Listen series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourse's Memphis Listening Lab and you can learn more and RSVP at fathermark.eventbrite. com. We hope to see you there. We'll be right back. I'm Jake Hanrahan, journalist and documentary filmmaker. Away Days is my new project, reporting on countercultures on the fringes of society all across the world. Live from the underground you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored.

This is Unique Access with straight forward on the ground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. Awadey showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade I've been going to places I shouldn't be, meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the Awadey's podcast, Reporting from the the underbelly on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So the point is you grow up, you overachieve where your life started and came from. You clearly have developed a faith that has helped guiding you. You have this interesting relationship with godparents and I assume somewhere along here you get married, right? Yep. Yep. Is that banking time?

Yeah, that was in college, my very final year in college. I went home in the summers to live with my mom in Toledo. And actually my dad, before he passed away, introduced me to who is now my husband for 31 years. Yeah, this imps thing. Yeah, the M sky. Yeah. What's the M sky's name?

Scott. Scott, Scott, the M sky. Yeah, that's be pretty great to overcome that last name. Yeah. So we're just establishing all of this is to simply set up kind of who you are. You're a person who grew up with a broken family, a godparent you loved, who had an impact on you, stepdad, I don't know if it's one, two, three, four,

or five stepparent, but one of them introduced you to the church and through the church who had an impact on you, stepdad, I don't know if it's one, two, three, four, or five stepparent, but one of them introduced you to the church, and through the church you end up in college, and you do a good job there, and you're in a bank, and you get married, and you're starting your family, and you have this quintessential normal folk

American life, flipping around up where they chocolate cover Buckeyes. Yep. I had two children then, a daughter and a son. And living in Lydia and Jared, they live in, and we lived in Hilliard. Again, that suburb of Columbus and just doing our thing. Doing your thing. Lovely, rewarding, blessed, but like most people, fairly unremarkable and nobody's really taking note of your life except you because that's what we all do. Yep.

A normal person, normal folks in the Midwest living an Ohio life and probably loving life. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was tutoring in the inner city at a school because one of my best friends was a principal there and she basically was begging for people to come help because over 90% of the children got a free or reduced lunch. They were facing poverty. She had some Somali Bantu children who came to town and they had never seen a flush toilet. They didn't know how to even use a bathroom.

So she was just begging people from her life, her church, to say, would you come and help tutor, mentor these children? They need more grownups in their lives who can just love them. So I've been doing that for some years. Speaking of children who probably came from trauma. Yeah. Somalian children, uprooted from Somalia,

dropped in Ohio. Yeah. And here's a toilet. This is toilet paper. And oh, by the way, the world is nothing like what you've grown up to. And let's be honest, Somalia is not the safest place in the world. So they'd probably seen all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I had been volunteering there for some years and then this… Again, in your unremarkable normal life, but just doing some give back at this point. Yeah, because after that experience in Appalachia, we went back and started a teen crisis telephone line as teenagers. I just… service and my religion went hand in hand for me from day one. And so I'd been, again,

volunteering in this inner city school. And that was 2006. I was starting back in the school year and I thought, well, I guess I can do that again. And I felt like God laid in my heart, bring your neighbors with you. And most of my neighbors were just like me, Caucasian, American women who had been raising their children for many years and most had not gone back to work yet. And so I felt like God was asking me to bring them. And I thought, well, I don't know if they're going to want to go. So I put it off. Finally, I asked them. They all said yes. So I drove them in my van every week to Tudor in the inner city. They weren't comfortable said yes. So I drove them in my van every week to tutor in the inner city. They weren't comfortable driving themselves. So I took them with me and we tutored. And then my dad died

suddenly, the Monday before Thanksgiving of 2006, suddenly. And we had been estranged. She was an alcoholic. I didn't really get to say goodbye. It was pretty, had a lot of grief with it. And one of the women that I was taking with me to tutor, she came to me in December and she said, what do you think happens when someone dies? Because her mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer and was terminal. And she knew my dad had just died. And I started telling her about my faith and where my hope comes from and what I believe happens when you die and what God had shown me about my dad. And so we had this whole conversation and I said to her, there's this thing in my church for people who have questions.

And you sound like you have questions. I've been a Christian since middle school. I still have questions. Would you want to come with me? It's called Alpha. It's dinner. We can kind of get away from our kids and our husbands and just have a night out once a week and have dinner. Would you want to come with me? It's called Alpha. It's dinner. We can kind of get away from our kids and our husbands and just have a night out once a week and have dinner. Would you want to come with me?" And she said, yes, I would want to come with you. And so we

started that in January. It's 18 weeks and accumulates in this Holy Spirit retreat at the end. And I thought, she's not going to want to go to the Holy Spirit retreat. She's completely unchurched lady. I thought that would seem too churchy for her. And she called me and said, hey, I want to go to that weekend at the end. And I thought, okay, we're going. So we went to the weekend and they challenged her, you know, after 18 weeks, lots of discussion, lots of information, would you want to just say a prayer that goes something like this? God, if you're real, show me, like show me that you're real. And she said, I'd like to do that. And then they said to people like me, who'd been a Christian

since middle school, maybe you'd like to pray, God, light my heart on fire in a whole new way. And I thought, okay, I've prayed a lot, but I haven't prayed like that. So I said that prayer, March 3rd of 2007. And I went home and didn't feel any different. Went back to work Monday, didn't feel any different. And then on March 14th, so 11 days later. I can't believe you remember the dates. So powerful the dates.

God has used those dates again in my life. That's why they're ingrained in my brain. It was a Saturday, March 3rd, by the way. And so March 11th, I learned that there were 2,158 children in my suburban town who were getting a free or reduced lunch. And I was completely blown away by that. So let's talk about that. This is the, at the top, I said there's a phrase that kind of turns the national narrative a little bit on its ear. And is this, what is it, suburban, what do you call it? Suburban poverty. Yeah, that doesn't sound right.

It's supposed to be urban poverty and white flight to the suburbs and everything's okay in the suburbs. And what you discovered is suburban poverty? poverty. Why don't you explain that? Yeah. I was sitting at a wooden desk in my house when I called the school district and said, how many children get a free lunch in the suburb of Hilliard, the ninth largest school district in the state of Ohio? And they said, well- Hilliard, a suburb of Columbus, a university town, state of Ohio. And they said, a suburb of Columbus, a university town, which typically means fairly affluent, well paid, clean sidewalks, no blight. And then a suburb of that place

should be really nice. Yeah. Yeah. And they said, well, good news. It's only 14.7%. And I said, well, I studied economics. You can do a lot with percentages. How many human beings is that? Because we're not talking about ballpoint pens here. We're talking about people, children with faces and names. And they said, well, we'll have to call you back. And they called back and said, well, it's 2,158. And I was shocked. I was grieved. I felt a call on my life in that exact instant to do two things. One, love, serve, and feed the children facing poverty in my town, body, mind, and spirit, and two, bring the community with me. Ty, the unchurched lady that went through the 18 weeks and said the prayer to the story.

She was really involved and helped. I mean, as this started happening in my life, I mean, she cared a lot about it. She has become a Christian. She's been involved in women's Bible study for years and years and years now. And her son even went to a Christian college in Michigan. And she's been an encourager to me since then. That's pretty incredible. All right. So I'm no economist. You are. So I got to be careful with what I say because you'll probably come up with some fancy economic statistic metrics that makes me stupid.

But here we go. 2000 what? 2007. No, no. 2100 and... Oh, 58 children. Suburban. Yeah.

Out of, if that's 14%... It's about 16,000 total students. Okay. 2,100-something is a big number. But when you think of it out of 16, that's one in eight. One in eight suburban children are growing up in poverty. Yeah. And now it's much higher. That can't be true. It's much higher. Now it's over 30%. But hang tight. That cannot be true.

The news doesn't say that. I know. The images we see all day, every day about children in poverty look like stuff on the inner city Memphis and Queens and Albuquerque, pick a town. And the movies depict heavily black and brown high schools where there's poverty and gangs

and that's where the free lunches are, not in suburbia. That's what I thought too. And this is 2007. So you said, I'm going back, but you said immediately you decided three things that you wanted to do here, which was? Yeah, I felt like God was calling me to love, serve, and feed those children, body, mind, and spirit. And secondly, to bring the community with me. Right there. Yeah.

Okay. So what happened when you told Mr. Oomph this? It's funny because I couldn't, I was so obsessed thinking about it. That's how I knew it was the answer to that prayer 11 days prior because I was, I couldn't, the last thing I thought of when I was falling asleep, the first thing I thought of when I woke up in the morning was could this possibly be true? And what am I going to do about it? Why you? I asked myself that for about a decade. Why me? And I felt like God showed me that. Why me? And it ties back to that community that the church youth group provided for me.

God taught me about the ACEs study now is lovely science that proves it, but a loving, supportive community like that can heal people from their trauma. And that's what God used to heal. How would you know? How would the child who grew up in trauma healed by a church community? How would you know that? It's a very personal thing, isn't it? Yeah. It's the blessing you don't know you need that you get exactly at the right moment of your life. And, and he showed me I taught you that community and I healed you in it. And I want you to create that exact community for thousands and thousands of people. We'll be right back. underground you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, Brazilian favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. This is unique access with straightforward underground reporting. We're taking you deep

into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. A way that showcases what the mainstream cannot access. Real underground reporting with real people, no excuses. For the past decade I've been going to places I shouldn't be, meeting people I shouldn't know. Now you can come along too. Listen to the Away Days podcast, reporting from the underbelly, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Your story, but I'm just going to tell you, people have had me on the back and congratulated me. They've actually made an Oscar winning movie about it.

I speak around the country about it. I've written a book about it. And people always want to pat me on the back about all this football coaching stuff that I've done. And I still don't think people really get it. I tell them it has been the salve to the trauma that damn near broke my spirit. I know you do. I can hear it and see it in your face when you talk about this and we haven't even gotten into it yet.

But I completely get why you. But I want our listeners to understand why you're crying. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay. You still feel it all, don't you? Yeah. So do I. So do I. It's something about that kind of trauma that you learn to cope with and deal with and compensate

for, but you never fully get over it. Yeah, just layers of grief. And I think that's, I've, as an adult, there's so many people for so many reasons that carry around layers of grief for all kinds of reasons. And it's a connection point that builds really deep relationships with lots of people. For sure. So, poverty stricken suburban kids, it's one thing to know a number, it's another thing to have a face. Yeah.

Tell me about how that happened. So I used my really big mouth to tell as many people. You have a minor in it. You're supposed to use your big mouth. You were educated in how. Yeah, teachers always throw. You didn't answer a question. I'm sorry.

I meant, what did Scott say? Because I know what my family, you have two beautiful children and a husband who loves you who's been married to for 30 years now, but less back then, but still I have the same. Did they understand what they were bargaining and reckoning for when you decided you were going to love certain

feed and bring the community along? I mean, what was their initial reaction? I don't think any of us knew clearly where this was headed, but I had said, God, if you're going to get a hold of my heart for this, you're going to need to get ahold of my immediate family's hearts for this because being a wife and a mother is of utmost importance to me. And I'm not going to sacrifice that for this. So I would need you to get a hold of their hearts too, if you really want me to do this. And that has definitely happened. It is, I say all the time, it's been a family affair. They have been with me arm in arm with me from day one and still are after 18 years. So, and I can motivate people, I hope, around things that are really important in life, but I can't motivate

things that are really important in life, but I can't motivate those three people. The only explanation is that God drew them as much as he drew me to this cause. So put a face to it. Now, okay, you're awakened to this. Yeah. You feel like it's an answer to a prayer, so now you feel called.

You have a goal that just popped in your head to love, serve, and feed, and bring the community with you. But right now, it's numbers. How does it first start becoming a face and fully, with the backdrop, understanding that you very deeply in your soul feel this because you know what that trauma is. I worked part-time for a church. So the timing of that was really perfect because it's a big church, one of the biggest Lutheran churches in the country. And so I reported directly

to the senior pastor. So I started straight away saying to him, I feel this call in my life. There's this huge problem in our town. I feel called to do something about it. And he was like, okay, let me know what you figure out. And so keep me abreast. And so then I wrote, I went to the Chamber of Commerce, learned there were 22 churches in town, because I thought, well, bring the community with me. What does that mean? I've always served at my church, but it didn't say bring your church with you in my mind. It was bring the community with you. So I wrote letters to 22 churches and said, here's a problem I found in our town, 2,158 children facing poverty, getting a free lunch, and then hungry all summer. Because I never asked Bill, all the tutoring I did at that

inner city school, I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it. I never asked Bill all the tutoring I did at that inner city school. I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it. I never asked them, what do you do in the summer? That's the big question. Oh my gosh. When you just said it, it's huge. Great. They get a free lunch during the school.

What do they do during the summer? It's 12 weeks. It is 12 weeks that it's gone. In fact, free and reduced lunch is the second best way we feed people in our country after food stamps. It works great. Now it's breakfast and lunch. It's lovely, but it stops for 12 weeks in the summer.

And that's where I knew the gap was in understanding this. Then I learned- And when they are gathering food, what kind of food is it? Yeah. I mean, it's cheese puffs and whatever you can get your hands on. Yeah. That's the other ugly underbelly. Yeah. It's the unhealthy food in the store. I mean, it's the cheap stuff at the cheapest grocery stores that the family can spread along the

summer. So the question is not just rhetorical. What did you find out that these kids do? Unrhetorically, what did you find out that kids do, poverty-stricken kids from the suburb who depend on that free lunch, probably the best meal they get the day, what do they do during the summer? Not rhetorically, actually, what did you find out? Well, I found out in the urban cities, there were these things called free summer lunch camps. And in fact, in the inner city where I had been tutoring, there were two or three within walking distance from the school where I was tutoring. So a child could choose. I could want to go to this one or this one, and they could get their hunger needs

and likely camp needs met in the urban city. Then I looked in suburbia, and there was nothing, literally nothing. Then I did some research. I learned that the Brookings Institute had done a study in 2005 that showed there were more human beings, children and families living in poverty in the suburbs than in the urban cities in the United States of America. Okay. When I read that, I was like, what? Come on. There are more poverty stricken children in the suburbs than there is the urban areas in our country. Since 2005, they proved it. How is that possible?

Well, I met a historian one time and I said to him, all of this, and he said, Kim, do you ever watch HGTV? I said, of course, guilty pleasure. He said, you ever watch the European version? I said, of course, guilty pleasure. And he said you ever watched the European version? I said, of course, guilty pleasure. And he said, so in Europe, when you're watching that show and someone's in England or France, what city are they in? I said, Paris and London. He said, exactly. He said, now the people on the show have money, otherwise they wouldn't be on the show.

And they're in the biggest cities in those countries. That's where they're looking for their housing. He said, Europe is older than America. Money started in the inner city. It moved out, Dout and Abbey. It's moved back in. He said, our country, United States, is young. This is the first time we've ever done it. When we started our country, money was in the inner city. Then it moved out, suburbia, and now it's moving back in. So wherever wealth moves, poverty moves in the opposite direction. Wow, that's interesting. So what this historian is telling you about economics, macroeconomics of our country is money moved out, now money is moving back in, and it's leaving behind poverty in suburbia.

Right. And pushing poverty out of the urban cities toward to new. Oh, oh, oh, I saw it wrong. It's not leaving it. It's pushing it. Because money's coming in, it's pushing, it's gentrification. It's right, that's right. It's, now I'm coming up with a phrase, but it's almost what, it's reversed gentrification. It's almost completely mind-shifted.

You think of gentrification as coming into some historical or older community, making the building so expensive that the people have to leave, right? But here's the question, where do they go? That's right. And you're saying they're getting pushed into, quote, suburbia. Right. That's really the fact.

That's it. That's it. That's right. So where are the kids from Hillard being pushed from? Columbus? Is that really it? Yes. Yep.

And all the other suburbs around. So there are another 9, 10 other suburbs around Columbus. And it the other suburbs around. So there are another nine, 10 other suburbs around Columbus and it's the same way. In fact, all the lovely little lines that people draw on maps. So half of the children who live in Columbus City proper go to suburban schools. Why? How? How does that work? District wise? I would think if you're registered for a district, how do you go to a suburban school? Yeah, it's all these lines on maps.

So the suburban town, for example, Hilliard is about 14.789 square miles. That's it. It's a tiny little town. The school district is 60 square miles. The Hilliard school district is four times the size of the town itself. So is it bringing in poverty stricken kids into the school system? So the map of the school districts, it used to be where the school and the city were perfectly lined up.

Yeah, and the families and the community were around it. Right. And we have lost that. Right. It's much, the school districts are much larger than the cities. And so they encompass a larger geographic area. And so you have some children living in Columbus who are facing poverty, who go to Hillier schools, but you also have apartment complex, trailer parks, duplexes, schools, but you also have apartment complex, trailer parks, duplexes, which again, I think is lovely city planning, quite honestly, because mixed socioeconomic environment is really healthy for everyone. But in that scenario in suburbia, there are people who live in the city of Hilliard who are facing poverty too. So it's not just the Columbus children, it's also some Hilliard children. But again, it's that re-gentrification of the urban community that is shifting, a huge population shift in our country.

All right. The study test as it pertains to you is Columbus-Hillard. But this has to be true then in Memphis and South Haven and Little Rock and North Little Rock or Jacksonville or I'm just trying to pick places I know, but pretty much every urban area has a suburban area. And you would argue then that this population shift is happening in all of these areas across our country, leaving poverty stricken suburban children. Yeah. And that's what Brookings Institute has shown. It wasn't just a study on Columbus. It was a national United States study that showed that poverty had moved from not a hundred percent. Let me be clear, there is still poverty in urban cities for sure. But their point

is there are more human beings living in poverty in the suburbs than in the urban cities, which again is an enormous population shift that our country has not seen before. Bill, an example like where your kids are at, I think there's actually a decent amount in Arlington and Alexandria too, outside of DC. Really? There's actually a decent amount of poverty in Arlington and Alexandria. And when you think of Arlington and Alexandria... Well, there's nice areas there too, but there's also a lot of poverty in Arlington and Alexandria. Wait, and when you think of Arlington and Alexandria. Well, there's nice, there's nice areas there too,

but there's also a lot of poverty, there's both. Yeah, I would just think when you hear that, you're like, really? Because you think of young white professionals. The city school districts are actually not good in a lot of Arlington and Alexandria. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I challenge people to just call their school district.

I mean, as a taxpayer, as a parent, you can call your school district and say, how many children get a free or reduced lunch? Not percentage, but number of human beings. And you might be shocked. I think you'd a hundred percent be shocked. I'm shocked. I'm standing here beside myself.

I am shocked. All right, so that sets up the facts about the problem. We still hadn't put a face to it. We still hadn't figured out what love, serve, and feed and bring the community means in Kim's world 18 years ago through today. And we will learn all of that and more in part two that's now available to listen to. Together guys, we can change the country, but it starts with you. I'll see in part two. This is an iHeart podcast.