An Army of Normal Folks - Kim Emch: The Only 3 Generation Family ESL Program (Pt 2)

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.

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 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 Your Way Days podcast, reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the MeatEater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West.

I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday May 6th where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley,

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Inc. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good

Plus on Apple 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western

box. And return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit,

and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate

and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So I wrote a letter to the 22 churches and six called me and said, we want to help. A third? What do you want us to do?

Do we need to call out the other 16 that didn't? No, I'm kidding. Go ahead. They started coming. It took some time, but I'm just being right away. Six called right away. Six called right away. And one church said, we actually knew about this problem, but we didn't know what to do. And the other five said, we were shocked just like you were Kim. We didn't know there

was even a problem. And so they said, what do you want us to do? And I said, well, clearly I'm going to set up a free summer lunch camp like what exists in the urban communities for the children. And so how about if you help with that? Are the urban city free lunch camp things, are they typically city run or are they private organizations too? They're usually nonprofits. So whether it's a religious organization or a nonprofit, a city community center, they're

usually run by nonprofits. Many of them are under the USDA summer food service program. But they, yes. And the concept in my mind was, oh, I could just receive a free lunch and hand it to a child. Okay, I could do that. That seems easy, but nothing is as easy as it seems. I think it's interesting though, that you said that like in the urban areas,

there were three different places children go from the suburban none, but here's the thing. And that's why I asked if it was like a public or a private nonprofit, you said nonprofits, they went where the need was, but the need has shifted. So now there's no one meeting the shifting need, which I found really interesting. And so you get these churches to meet this need, what do you need? And you said, well, I'll just get a free lunch and give a free lunch.

It'll be easy. Yeah. Yeah. And I have to say, I feel like I'm the perfect person to say out loud, there literally is no such thing as a free lunch. That was Econ 101 first day, I think. Literally there isn't. So I recruited about 11 people. There were 12 of us to help and sort of lead this as volunteers.

With five churches, six churches. Yeah. Yep. And like I found a man who had just retired at our church, that senior pastor I reported to connected me with him. And he said, you had me at Hungry Children. What do you want me to do? He ran an international company, had just retired. He brought two retired men with him. Cool. There was a stay at home dad that joined us, some other moms that I knew from the community who joined us. So there's, we're this group of 12 people,

just volunteers who wanted to feed children in our town. And so- During the summer. Yes. When they didn't have a free lunch. And again, I learned on March 14th and summer starts in June. So of course I needed to start this summer. So we April, May, June, you had three months. Yeah, three months, three months, four churches,

12 people to love, serve and feed 2100 kids and bring the community with you. No problem. Yeah, no problem. And again, we weren't an organization, so we don't own a building. We don't have a board of directors. We don't, we don't. I mean, I kind of pictured myself slapping together peanut butter and jellies out of the back of my van, which my children will tell you is insane because I don't, I'm not, I cook because I need to eat. I don't cook for any other reason. And quite honestly, once I started

this, my husband started cooking. My children would honestly say to me, how are you feeding people for a living when you hardly are cooking for us? So the fact that I'd be called to feed people is the irony is insane. Got it. Truly. I'm not a foodie. I'm the opposite of a foodie. So then I learned, well, you could order in. And I thought, that's perfect. I'm going to order in. So we, and none of us, by the way, had ever seen a free lunch program because we didn't know about this the summer previous. So we couldn't go visit one. And so we just pictured in our minds what it could look like. And long story short, we found a strip mall.

We would walk around the city kind of praying, like, where should we have this? It should be at a place. And the superintendent, one of the assistant superintendents of schools, he had worked in Columbus and he knew poverty better than I did. And he said, Kim, if I was gonna do this in Hilliard,

I would go to this intersection right here, because there's a bunch of apartment complexes and the children could walk to you. So we just walked that intersection, the 12 people and I, looking for any space. And we found strip malls and none of them were full. And so we thought, well, we could use an empty storefront of a strip mall. So there was a grocery store, a local grocery store that had gone under, and it was the anchor of a strip mall. So there was a grocery store, a local grocery store that had gone under, and it was the anchor of this strip mall in this intersection. And it was empty for eight years. So we found the out-of-state property owner who was a woman living in Chicago. She'd only been to Columbus once to sign the papers to buy the

strip mall. And I found her and she took my call, amazingly. And I said, I'm this lady in this town who wants to feed 2158 children this summer. Would you let me use one of your empty storefronts for free? Because I don't have any money. And she said, I have two children. I can't imagine if they were hungry. So yes. So you're kidding. Just like that. Just like that. We never met. I couldn't tell you her name right now if I tried. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

And she said, well, how about the end unit because it had been a pizza shop. So, you know, lunch, pizza, you could use that. Now, if I lease it, then all bets are off. I'm gonna have to say you have to stop. And I said, well, I'm just going to risk that. I'm going to pray you don't lease it for 12 weeks of the summer. And so she called me back. So we figured out how to order lunch in under Columbus Parks and Rec. They said they'd sponsor us and they'd send us the

food. We started recruiting volunteers. We started telling families we're going to be at this intersection, at this strip mall, come at this time every day for 10 weeks and we'll serve lunch. And I'm at the grocery store personally just doing my shopping and I get a call from the strip mall lady and she says, Kim, bad news. I leased the pizza shop. You can't run it. And this was Memorial Day weekend and we were supposed to start the first week in June. Lovely. So I hung up the phone and I just started crying there in the grocery store with my cart.

And I called that first volunteer, the man who was the retired CEO, his name is John. And I called him and I was crying and he said, Kim, are these happy tears or sad tears? I said, they're sad tears. And he said, what's going on? I told him, and he said, no, I'm gonna pound on your desk, Bill. He said, no, you call her back and you tell her we

are feeding hungry children and we need to use a different one of her empty spaces. If we can't use that one, there's other empty spaces in her strip mall. We need one of them. And so I called her back and call her ID. She knew it was me. She took the call. And I said, no, I have to feed hungry children. Can I have a different space? And she said, well, what space do you want? And he's over here saying to me, ask her for the old grocery store, the cart storage area. And I said, what? He said, the cart storage area, it's like a thousand square feet. So I said to her, could we use the cart storage area of the old grocery store? It's a thousand square feet. And she said, yeah, you could use it. Wow. So a church

donated those cafeteria style tables you see in a lunch room of a school, 10 of them, they fit perfectly in the cart storage area. And so early June, we started Free Summer Lunch Camp. And the day it started, I had to drive maybe three miles to the lunch site. And it took me about 40 minutes because I drove two miles an hour. Why? Because I was having a total tantrum fit with God in the car. What was that all about?

I was telling him I didn't want to go. Why? Well, because I knew, I mean, my skill set is to rally groups of people, administrative, I can vision cast and get her done. And I had done that. And I knew if I went there and I had to look into the faces of the children, that my life would never be the same. And I was scared about that.

But you were. Yeah, I felt like, you know, God like let me tantrum. And then he just said to me, I felt like, you know, God like let me tantrum. And then He just said to me, I know, go. And so I went dragging my feet, but I went and we were both right. So I looked into the faces of these beautiful, amazing, gifted, talented children. Hungry children. Who were hungry, but very similar to the amazingness of my own children. And I knew my life was never going to be the same because I just, I had a love for them

that I couldn't explain. Did you ever go hungry? I never went physically hungry. You were close. If you're coming up in a five times divorce thing, you're not that far away. I would say that's probably true. I didn't know that as a child though. I never feared.

Yeah, well these kids also didn't know they were not supposed to have lunch on summers, but it doesn't make it right. Yeah, yeah. First day. Just tell me what the first day was. Well, we honestly didn't even know if anyone would come. I mean, we put flyers, we had grassroots flyers all over town. We had an article in the Columbus Dispatch,

all these things. But we just really didn't know. We didn't have registration. We didn't know who would come. And we served 246 children that summer with over 170 volunteers. And they just walked along the edges of the strip mall and they just came to us. Ages? Oh, babies to 18 year olds. Babies? Moms brought their children, their littles with them. They would sit and help their little ones eat. They would chat with us. We realized very quickly.

And then the library came and said, hey, we really want to expose this demographic of children to books, but guess what? They don't come to the library. Could we just come and bring the summer reading program here to your lunch site? We said, sure. Another church, a woman who's one of my dearest friends now, Pastor Irma, she brought her youth group. She said, we. Another church, a woman who's one of my dearest friends now, Pastor Irma, she brought her youth group. She said, we heard you were feeding hungry children. We brought face pain and balloon animals. We thought maybe we could do something on the sidewalk after they leave lunch. So quickly we could see what camp could look like. And quickly we realized that simply handing food to a child might help them live better in poverty,

but it was probably not gonna help them out of poverty. And we couldn't look in the faces of our new friends, these beautiful children and their families. Who also happen to be your neighbors. That's it, our exact neighbors. I mean, children were saying, my children, the volunteers' children were saying, oh, I know, I know Mohammed from school. We go to the same school. I mean, they were saying, my children, the volunteers' children were saying, oh, I know, I know Mohammed from school.

We go to the same school. I mean, they knew each other. The children knew each other. Were these Somalian kids? You know, they were children from, it's interesting. I knew. When I say Somalian kids, let's be candid, Somalian refugees. We came to understand over the course of the summer that they were children from all over

the globe. I knew that we would see all different beautiful skin tones and ethnic groups and cultures and races and religions. I didn't anticipate that we would meet parents who were foreign born. That surprised me. I didn't know that until the last day when we threw a big party and the children's whole families came. When I heard the accents of the parents' voices, when I saw their clothing, that's when it hit me. Oh, you weren't born in this country.

Not 100%, but the majority. What does that look like? It looks like heaven. It looks like the community of the United Nations. It does. It literally is the United Nations. Then when we started saying, you know, what's your family's country of origin?

Where were your parents and your grandparents born? We were blown away. 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.

A way that it 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 iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the meat eater podcast network hosted

by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here.

And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine.

My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. When we step beyond the edge of what we know... To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple. To find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor. You're strongest

when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on Good Company, into your favorite shows. streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences

with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide, and hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. That had to have been, I've got to be careful here. As we think about the vitriol, and I want to be real careful, from both sides of the aisle regarding immigration and everything else, and all we have dealt with, and in fairness, not only this administration, but the four administrations before this one, I have a real thing on the whole immigration deal. As you're sitting there feeding hungry children and meeting these families and parents and people and everything

else, did you have maybe some, and I don't mean ill willed preconceived notions, but did you have some notions that you thought you understood about our culture destroyed in that moment? You know, I realized that there was a huge mosque in Toledo and I grew up not ever knowing one Muslim person. And I remember the first day that I had a significant conversation with a Muslim mother. And it's strange because I even have a picture of it. Someone just happened to snap a picture right before the conversation. But she was walking to me, straight to me, because I was in charge of this lunch program.

And she had a question. And I remember thinking to myself as she approached me, oh my word, I don't know what I have in common with this woman who is walking toward me and I'm about to have a full conversation with. Was she wearing a headdress or a parka or whatever? Yep, and I just thought I don't have any life experience to prepare me for this moment right here.

Yeah, because you're suburbanite white Christian mommy with a van. With a van. With a minivan. Who's never lived outside of Ohio, who's never left the country. Yeah, so what was that chat like? I felt again a whisper in my ear from God Who's never lived outside of Ohio, who's never left the country. Yeah. So what was that chat like?

I felt again, a whisper in my ear from God that just said, I know, go. She's a mom like you. Just talk to her. And we talked and she had a question about her children. And I introduced her to my children because they were right there. And we had a full, really great conversation. And I felt like I had things in common with her beyond what I could have dreamed or imagined, quite honestly. That is not what CNN and Fox tell us we're supposed to do. What is wrong with you? You're

so weird, Kim, you know, being human. Yeah, I feel like, you know, there's a lot to my Christian faith, but love God, love your neighbor is a pretty key verse for me. And I feel like once I've mastered those two things, I'll go on to the next. And my neighbor, I mean, I've asked dozens of five-year-old kindergartners, what is, when I say neighbor, what does that mean to you? They can explain it really easily to me. It's that person right there. It's the person who lives right next to me.

It's the person who lives above me, beside me, below me, who goes to school with me, who's driving the car next to me, those are my neighbors. And so, you know, those two calls on my life, love, feed, and serve your neighbor and bring the community with you. It's just pretty simple. I mean, it's complex, but it's also simple. And I came to realize that all of the children, all of the volunteers, all of these people were my neighbors. And I didn't know most of them before this.

2100 or so of which were living in poverty. Yeah. And hungry. So that's first year. Yep. Take us through it. So at the end of the summer, the parents said at that party, what are you doing next? We like this. Literally. What are you doing next? Because this was amazing. This didn't feel like charity. We didn't feel ashamed

and embarrassed to pull up here. Our children couldn't wait to come every day and they didn't have to come. It wasn't school. What are you doing next?" And I said, well, maybe we'll come back and do this next summer. How about that? And they said, that's lovely. And you've identified a significant issue, this summer hunger. It is significant. Thank you so much. But the parents said, we have another really big problem we want to talk to you about." I said, okay. And they said, we believe in education. We know education is our children's way out of poverty. We get that. Which is why we're here in the first place.

That's what they said. That's why we're here. I know. That's why we came as refugees. I wish so bad everybody listening to us would understand people are not Uprooting their families listen, of course, there are bad actors and yada yada yada It's the smallest smallest percentage people are not uprooting their lives and walking away from everybody they know look like worship like and speak like and

Risking life and limb to come to this country because they're trying to get free crap. No. They're doing it simply because they want opportunity for their kids. The same exact things I want for my children. So let me ask you a question.

Not you, yes you, but everybody listening. Every parent out there, ask yourself this question. Right now, if you were surrounded by gang violence to the point that you were afraid to go outside, you could not find enough money to put a roof over your head other than a dirt floor, and you feared for your children's life, and you knew that just to make ends meet by your child's 12th, 13th, or 14th birthday, they

would have to quit going to whatever kind of remedial education they were getting and go to work. If you knew that that was the existence for you and probably generationally the only opportunity for your children and their children, would you try to do something different? Would you be willing to live that way your whole life if there was opportunity elsewhere? Would you take that risk to better the possibilities

for yourself and your children? Would you? And I mean, I think every parent would say, of course I'd do everything I could. Even though it's wrought with misunderstanding and cultural norms and desperation and everything else, I would do that for my children. So it's not at all surprising that you met people

that said, we need help with education because the whole reason they're here is to try to better their lives, the vast, vast, vast majority. Yeah. I have a restaurateur who works closely with me as a mentor, and he says it this way, you know, what if bombs started going off in my city, in my state, in this country, and I had to leave? How about in Hillard, if people started dropping bombs all over you, would you leave?

And I had to escape, yeah, and leave this country and start over with my wife and my children and not know the language or the culture or have any connections in that country. Would I want someone to help in any way? And I think that's what it comes down to. I mean, I know families, a beloved family to me, if I call them my family of 10, but they're from Africa and they came as refugees after living in a refugee camp for 11 years and 11 years in a refugee camp. They left the Congo and we're in Burundi. And that's civil war and ethnic cleansing which is still going on today. And they got the magic golden ticket from the UN, not Australia, not England, the United States was the golden ticket and they got it and they got to come here.

So yeah, I think the parents said- To live in poverty. Yeah. Right. Which is comparatively to a refugee camp. Infinitely better than where they came from. Infinitely better. And so when the parents said, we believe in education, we want education for our children, we are going to this great suburban school district. But guess what,

Kim? They said to me, our children are falling behind in this school district, unlike yours, Kim. And I said, why? Why in a great school district are your children falling behind? They said, because of our own illiteracy, lack of English, lack of knowledge, work schedules, and lack of technology. They were naming the fourth utility back in 2007. They said, those are the reasons we can't help our children with homework. And they said, Kim, how much do you help your child with homework? And I'm thinking, you know, the 10 o'clock run to Walmart for the poster board, a lot. And they said, we can't help our children with homework. They're falling behind in school every year and they're not going to be able to compete or catch up. Could

you help us with that? We can't afford a private tutor. And I thought, okay, that makes sense to me. That falls under love, Serve. Yeah. And feed the educational mind of the children. Because we'll start with the body. If you're hungry, physically you can't learn. But once that need is met, feeding the mind is next for the longevity of the thriving

of this beautiful child. And so I had, again, tutored for years, but I never ran a tutoring program and I'm not a teacher or a social worker. So I was like, let me get back to you on that. Let me look into that. So I went back to the volunteers and the team. And again, we had 170 more volunteers that summer. And I said, how do we run a tutoring program that's free? That's effective? Are we still in the basket area in the abandoned grocery store at this point?

Well, we'd moved out because she just said for the summer. So now we had no physical location at this point. And so I spent the whole fall trying to figure out how do you run a tutoring program that's, again, effective and helps children with their homework, but also safe for children above reproach. So I figured that out. In January of 2008, we started afterschool tutoring and homework help. And I went to, because in Ohio, it's kind of chilly in the winter, so I didn't want to be outside.

I went to one of the biggest apartment complexes in that intersection, and I went to the manager and said, Hey, can we use this leasing office and do some tutoring after school? And she was like, who are you again? I said, yeah, I'm just this lady. Did you like care of children going to summer lunch camp? That was me. And she's like, who do you work for? I was like, not really anyone that would help you trust me better. So I said, we're going to bring volunteers, background checked volunteers, we'll be here in your leasing office. She said, how about one afternoon a week? We'll see how this goes. And so we started after school tutoring every Wednesday, January through May of 2008. And in about two months, we had

so many children, we could not pack them in like sardines in this leasing office. So we started praying for decent weather in Ohio on Wednesday afternoons. And I'm here to say that from March until May, it didn't rain on a Wednesday afternoon and it wasn't bitter cold. So we would take half the children outside and blow some steam off,

play some soccer and jump ropes and tutor the other children and then flip them half and half. And- How many kids were we talking about? We had over a hundred. Holy smokes. Again, scratched an itch.

And so then the next summer we went back to summer lunch camp and we had two locations this time, one in a church, one across the street in a different strip mall. And again, half-day camp now, official half-day camp. And very quickly, children, we noticed translating for their parents to talk to us this whole time. You're kidding. Very quickly. And then parents started saying,

where can we learn English? Can you help us find a place? We are desperate to learn English. Can you help us find some place? Nah, but maybe we create it. And we looked around. In fact, today, Columbus is the 14th largest city in the country, bigger than San Francisco. I like to tell people because my mom lives in California. And a fastest growing in the city or in the country, fastest growing city in the country, Columbus. And there are so few adult English programs that 4% of foreign born people can find one. Really? So what'd you do about that?

I found a couple English programs and God bless them. It was a lovely, caring human who ordered some books online and was like, I'm going to give this a whirl. Again, God bless them. But it was sort of like Laura Ingalls Wilder one room schoolhouse, which there's a reason we don't do that. There's a reason we don't do that. It's like perfect for two people and too hard and too easy for everyone else. And so I again didn't want and here I'm again, families are in poverty, food on the table for their children.

They want to learn as fast as they can. Laura Ingalls One Room Schoolhouse is not fast. It's the slow boat. And so I started saying, well, we could do better than that. What if we found a way to do better than that? And there was one English program in our town that I had sent people to that the community, a technical school was running with a church, adults only English. I had sent some parents there. They came back the next summer and I could have a little more conversation with them. So I thought, oh, I think it works. I think the class is pretty good. So I went the summer of 2008 to see that class because after summer number two, we were going back to do afterschool

homework help. And I didn't know where to go because we ran out of space at the leasing office. We had to go somewhere bigger. So I went to the church that we ran summer camp in and said, could I do it here? The pastor said, yes, we built this to be full and it's empty more than it's full. So come and bring as many people as you want." And so we started doing that. And I went to see the English program at the same time. And when I went there, I heard these wee small voices in the hallway, Ms. Kim. And I turned around and I saw a ton of children from the summer because that's what they call me. And they were hanging out at this English program in the church nursery by themselves while their parents were learning

English. And I'm a mom first, number one. And I thought that does not look so good. You know, like 20 children, ages two to 15, hanging out in church nursery by themselves, night after night, not bad things could happen. I mean, from toddlers falling over and six year olds not being able to find something to do and getting bored and 15 year olds not being able to get their homework done. So I went to the leaders of the program, but the English classes looked good.

So I went to the leaders of the program, the church and the technical school, and I said, what's going on here in your nursery? And they said, yeah, it's kind of a problem. We have all these children because parents don't have a sitter or family to watch them. And I said, so take me down the path. What happens? They said, people start and then they quit.

I said, okay, what if we brought our after school tutoring program and we combined with your adult English program and we took care of all the children? And they said, oh, thank God. Yes, please. Could you do that? That would be amazing. And so we said, we'll care for the children, babies to 18 year olds. You teach English and we'll work together. And the church and the school, the technical school had been working together for 10 years. They had 55 adults coming, which is the biggest English class I had found, by the way. Wow. Three, four different classrooms.

We started in the fall. By January of 2009, 121 adults were coming. Because they had a place for their kids. Phenomenal. We'll be right back. across the world. Life from the underground you'll discover no rules fighting, Japanese street racing, resilient 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. Aadey 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 Underbelly on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the meat eater podcast network hosted by me,

writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves.

So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel.

I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying. When we step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that Western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I in that Western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes.

My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple, to find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he

cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything

but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide.

And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let me ask you something as I'm listening to this story because we got more to go, but I want to ask you this. One of the biggest gripes, cultural gripes is, you know, we're a nation of immigrants. We want people to come, but you know what? They need to assimilate to our culture when they get here.

My question is, if you don't speak the English, you don't know the culture, your kids are kind of ostracized exactly what can you assimilate to. However, if you see a program like this that's caring for your children, and you're learning the language, an interviewer and an attorney are supposed to adhere to one basic fundamental, which is never ask a question you don't know the answer to yet. And so I'm breaking that right now, because I really don't know the answer to yet. And so I'm breaking that right now because I really don't know the answer to this, but I'm curious as you see these adults and families go through the

English classes and go through these programs, do you see them become quote, more American assimilated because they're able to? Have you seen a cultural shift at all? Like someone said to me, it's like Have you seen a cultural shift at all? Like someone said to me, it's like eating like beef stew, where you've got chunks of beef, chunks of potatoes, chunks of carrots, but it's all in this really delicious broth called stew. I would say people keep the parts of their culture that they love that define who they are as a person. And they add on things from our amazing country called the United States of America into that because- See, I think that's awesome.

And I don't think that's any different than the Italians and Irish that settled here 150 years ago. I don't think that's any different than the large Swedish community that is in Wisconsin and Minnesota from, they, I think as a bunch of mutts, the melting pot we are, we're always, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Swiss German. You're an American, but you still honor that culture

and that heritage. And that's what you're saying these people are doing. Right. My mom- What's the difference except that they're from Africa, not Asia. I mean, Africa, not Europe. There's no difference.

That's right. And until we see that, we're not being all we should be in our mind. Yeah, my Mexican godfather, we had tamales most times when we went to eat at his house. My mom's Polish. I still get piadogi at Easter. I mean, these are parts of who make us who,

the parts that make us who we are. And they're beautiful, amazing. But they're not anti-American. No. They're just part of our culture. But if we can learn the English and our children can grow and become educated and become taxpaying members of society, then the quote assimilation looks

like the very thing that quote assimilation looked like 100 years ago, just from Europeans. That's right. And let me be clear. People that I have met in the last 18 years are desperate to learn English and learn how it works in America. You absolutely learn how our education system works and our medical system works and our legal system works and they're desperate to learn. In fact, I've had women who I've become friends with who say to me, I want to hang out with more Americans because I want to learn. I want to understand. I want to know more. The curiosity is there and it's

beautiful. People are hungry to learn it. Being from one culture and being an American are not mutually exclusive agreed so it's so interesting that we're having this conversation on the heels of simply wanting to feed some hungry kids right it's phenomenal where this goes how deep this can go. I mean, we've gone from feeding a few hungry kids to cultural assimilation, which is one of the things that our country is struggling with right this very second.

Okay, you keep saying 18 years, get me there. So we partnered in that way for about four years. Get me there. So we partnered in that way for about four years. We ran out of space at that church to run what became a three generation family English program. So we moved it to what is my home church, again, one of the biggest Lutheran churches in the country, which has 158,000 square foot building. We moved it there in 2012 and it just exploded. We kept serving free summer lunch camp and we started adding adult English to it. In 2009 though, I had met with hundreds of people in Columbus trying to figure out how to structure this, how to

put some infrastructure around it. And about 80 people said to me, you need to start a nonprofit. I thought I should just go under another nonprofit's umbrella, economic brain. I didn't think the world needed another nonprofit, quite honestly. I thought we should like work together better. But they all said, wait, suburban poverty, hundreds of volunteers, no building, and you're running, serving hundreds of people, we'll squelch you. You need to start your own thing because it's so unique what you're doing and how you're doing it. You need to start your own thing. And so most of them said they'd help me. So in 2009, we started our own nonprofit

called Serving Our Neighbors Ministries. People called us Sun Ministries for short. We rebranded to Festa in 2021, but we got some infrastructure because I started feeling like if I follow the turnip truck, what happens? How does this continue to sustain? And so we just continued to all through the years, build real relationships with each other. So volunteers with children, families being served relationships that went far beyond the lunch camp or the family English program where people met that went into their own living rooms, into the parks, into the PTO meetings, people building relationships across every line of difference you can think of.

You mean bringing that community along. That's it. That's what it was. And the community coming that whole piece isn't sprinkles on the cupcake. It's the sugar in the cupcake. Because if children get education and food, and then they go into a community, a workforce, a school district where people don't understand them, have prejudice against them. That's not that helpful. So if they go into those places and they know someone because that guy came in and taught business skills at their summer lunch camp, and now they need a job and they're asking him to hire them. That's great. That's all the better. And so we knew that the volunteers, just like me standing on the tar roof, needed to be

prayed for. The surgeon general says says, American epidemic is loneliness. I mean, the volunteers need relationships with their neighbors, people who look different, sound different, but have a lot in common with them. We talk about almost every episode that the payoff to all of this is you get a thousand times more out of it than you put into it. And that's what you're saying. You know, moving into the most recent of the years, tell me about Ukrainian and Afghani families. That's crazy to me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, whoever, wherever the problems in the world, wherever we see those problems,

we then within the next year to three years see those people at our programs. And so we had, in the very beginning, we had lots of Iraqi refugees. Really? Lots of Iraqi refugees. In fact, more than Somalian refugees. By the time we started, we had more Iraqi refugees and heard all kinds of stories of dads who knew English helping the American soldiers. And then all of a sudden it became really dangerous for them to be there because they got found out and had to get moved so they wouldn't be killed. I know that happened with Afghani interpreters.

Same thing. Oh my gosh. We had 80 that December of 22, I think December of 22, we all went home for our Christmas break and I felt like God was saying, you've got to let Afghan families into this family English program. And by then, Bill, we had over 700 people coming to one program. 700. You know, the next time you scrunch up your face or look down your nose at somebody

that looks like they might be from Iraq or Afghanistan, you might want to remember that it's very possible that a member of their family saved Americans' lives by translating for our troops. That is true. You better get your arms around the facts about that. And I will tell you, the oddest thing in the world is retired American military service people

that served in Afghanistan are the very first to stand up for these Afghanistan-y people. We have a donor who was in the Marines and that is why he donates to us. Because of his Afghani interpreters and the people that he made friends with. Another thing, boy, I'm way off your subject, but another thing I learned,

there were a very big misconception is, when we were in Afghanistan, there were far more Afghans fighting than there were American military personnel. And once we left the country and abandoned it, Afghanistan's fighting than there were American military personnel. And once we left the country and abandoned it, especially in the way we did, all of those people's guns were taken from them and they ended up being the enemy of the state and were hunted.

They fought alongside us. We left and left them and their families to be hunted. And now they end up in Hillard, Ohio with hungry children, not knowing how to speak English. Literally. And we're not supposed to do something about this. Literally. You know these things to be true.

You serve these people. That's it. I mean, and so that Christmas, I thought, oh gosh, well, we had 89 people that we let into the program that January, even though we were full and had a waiting list. And it was nine families, 89 people. Afghanistan. And there were some families that were from rural Afghanistan, like you said, helping our soldiers. And we had to start in our adult English part of the family English program, we have seven classrooms, six levels of English. And two of the true beginner classrooms, one is if you're literate in another language,

one is if you're not literate in any other language. They were literate in everything. We had Afghani refugees who were from rural Afghanistan who couldn't read or write in Pashto their language. Wow. And they were farmers. I mean, they didn't, we even learned over the months of getting to know them in the beginning that they didn't have the mental construct of a calendar.

Living in suburban Ohio, for goodness sakes. And we want these folks to quote assimilate. Right. They're just trying to get through a day. Yeah. And then we throw their kids in an American school and say, hey, Lauren, free education, what's wrong with you? Right.

Right. Right. And we watched, and Ukrainian, I mean, same thing. We do this registration night in the falls when we start our family English program. And again, let me be clear, at this point, we take 800 people in our large program. People start coming hours before to get registered. And there was a Ukrainian couple two years ago, and they were at the beginning of when I had to start a waiting list. And the wife started crying because they were so desperate to get into an English

program. And I said, we're opening a second site in two weeks. Here's the address, come to that one. And then long story short, they got into the second program. And every single time I saw her at that program, biggest smile on her face. She would come and hug me. Thank you. Thank you. The camaraderie that people have with one another, with a Ukrainian, with an Afghani, with Iraqi, the friendships. Somali. Yeah.

The relationships that people build together because they have a common life experience of moving to America. Speaking of the registration line, given you went there, can you talk about how you always make sure that you're at the registration line and why? Yeah. So now our three generation family English program, picture your own family, Bill. So infants to grandparents, everyone comes to the same place at the same time. And every single person in the family gets the education they need to go from surviving to thriving. So babies, toddlers, and preschoolers get preschool. Their best way out of poverty is to be ready for kindergarten. Kindergarten through eighth grade

get homework help. Two-year-olds to 18-year-olds get dinner every night that they come. 18-year-olds are teen interns. They're gaining work experience. Second to eighth graders run their own business inside of the program. And then adults have seven levels of English. So they're exactly where they need to be to learn as fast as their brain can learn English. So that's what the three generation family English program model is that we have honed since 2009 and want to scale. So when we start registration, clearly we could do online registration. We choose not to because we want to serve the people who are struggling the most in poverty and you have to be able to get to our location to come anyway.

So we have people come in person. And in 10 minutes, the last two years of opening our registration, we have brought in 800 people, which is full for that program. And I, as the founder, stand at that line to start the waiting list line. Quite frankly, my coworkers just cry. They just, they can't do it. And so I... Because you have to say no. Yeah. And we have to say no to another 500 people. You could serve 1,300, 1,300 to 1,500 a year.

What's prohibiting you from opening more? Yeah. So we have a second site and we are serving 1,166 people right now. Kim, do you take a second to realize what you just said? You fed 80 kids one summer. Yeah. 1,000, what? Yeah.

How much? 1,166 people were in our two family English programs this school year. Are you still doing the summer feed? Yeah. We serve about 800 children and then parents with adult English in the summer. Yep.

How many volunteers? Over a thousand a year. In Hillard, Ohio. It's Columbus wide now because people come from 48 countries and 49 zip codes to come to our programs because there isn't anything else like it. They are desperate and they come. Please tell me someone wants you to scale this elsewhere. That's what is on my heart.

We want to scale it across the country. How does that happen? We have started to teach other communities how to do this. I don't think I need to rent them all, Bill. I could just teach other people. We spent five years with the AmeriCorps VISTA program documenting everything we do and how we do it. Because clearly when you bring people in from 91 countries, including the United States, into the same space, whether it's a gymnasium to play soccer or an adult English class, and you just hope it goes well, it's

not quite that easy. But we have written down how we create the environment that's built on respect, built on honor, built on relationships and community. So we have started teaching other communities how to do this. We taught Springfield, Ohio last year. 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 straightforward on the ground reporting. We're taking you deep into the dirt without the usual airs and graces of legacy media. Awayy 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 Underbelly on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the meat eater podcast network posted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser

known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Steven Ronella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

experience the region today. Listen to the American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti-tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel. I just remember everything getting dark.

I'm dying. We step beyond the edge of what we know. To open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I in that Western box. In return. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating. Which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush.

My mission is simple, to find, explore, and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off.

Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary.

We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How old were you when you're standing on that roof, tarring it? I would say 15. Yeah. It's funny that two things that you mentioned in our short talk that were really obviously imprinted on your mind, what country was that in? Where were you? Appalachia. I mean, what state was that in? We were in West Virginia. West Virginia.

Is a West Virginia man with an oxygen mask on when you're 15 years old, slopping tar on his roof, and a Mexican godfather. I just wonder if without those two, one was a long-term and one was kind of an instant influence on your life. And of course, your stepdad taking you to church. I mean, isn't it weird how three separate, very innocuous seeming events culminate themselves into what become one's life's work? Yeah. You can't underestimate the power you can have in someone's life, whether it's one moment or days and months and years, it's to encourage another person, to serve another person, to see another person, really see who they are and care about them is hugely impactful. After 18 years, you have to have kids that you

served those first couple years that are now adults that you know. Tell me a story. Give me a heartwarming, they were hungry and you fed them and what they're doing now story. I know you have to have those. I have so many that I, in fact, I love your job here, Bill, because just to talk to people about their stories is pretty much my life dream. I love your job here, Bill, because just to talk to people about their stories is pretty much my life dream.

I love stories. I love people's stories. So you have a lovely, a lovely role here that I'm honored to be a part of. Well, I appreciate it, but Alex is the whole reason I do all this. Alex is lovely. Yeah, I mean, I was minding my own business about two years ago when he came up with this idea and told me it would take about two hours a week, which is a complete and utter lie. But anyway, tell me.

So, um, thank you. By the way, it's gracious to say, but it's not hard to just talk to cool people and let them tell their stories and try to stay out of the way, which I do a poor job of. Oh, shut up. Hey Cassius, would you pull the sheet back so he's no longer in the room? but shut up. Hey, Cassius, would you pull the sheet back? So he's no longer in the room. Just shut up. It's like the wizard of Oz. He's the guy back there. Right. It's an irritating dude behind the curtain. Go ahead. What'd you say? So she's about to tell us a cool story. There's a young man that I am just over the moon proud of who I met when he was in elementary school.

In fact, he's the star of one of our videos. So in 2012, he was in elementary school coming to our summer lunch camp with his siblings and his neighbors and just a lovely, lovely young man. And he was part of 11 children at one of our summer lunch sites who came to me. Actually the leader that summer said to me, Kim, the children are getting, they're just, I'm trying to swim upstream, they're swimming downstream. Every activity I plan, they poo poo it. Will you come talk to this group of about 11 children within who are sort of spearheading the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish here?

Yeah, 11 butt holes, which is what kids are. Yeah, I was like, okay, let's chit chat. And she said, you know them. She was just hired for the summer. She said, you know them better than me. So I sat down with these 11 children and they're sort of second to fifth graders. And I said, you know, what's the deal? Why are you not really wanting to do the activities we planned for you this summer. And I said, you know, what's the deal? Why are you not really wanting to do the activities we planned for you this summer? And they said, they looked at each other and they said, we're bored.

I said, okay, I respect that. I mean, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a social worker. I plan these activities, but you know, I didn't get it right. So what do you wanna do here? Cause we're gonna be together every day for the next seven weeks. what do you want to do here? Because we're going to be together every day for the next seven weeks. What would you like to do here at camp

if you don't like the things we planned? Because we could do that. What is it? And they kind of looked at each other. I said, no, seriously, I'm seriously asking you. And they said, well, they started brainstorming. And they said, well, what if we ran a restaurant? What if we ran it ourselves

and made the food? And I said, well, who would you serve? And they said, maybe the younger kids at camp, like the kindergarten and first graders. And I'm thinking, I order lunch every day. I don't think that's going to work. So I said, well, you know, that'd be fun. But like, what if I brought you real customers that you could serve, like the mayor and the head of BMW financial services and the guy who sells insurance down the street? What if they have to eat lunch? What if they came to your restaurant to eat lunch?

I brought you real customers and they started just squealing. They said, we could use our family recipes and we could do the whole thing. We could run it again, second to fifth graders, fourth graders, second to fifth grade. Love it. And I said, okay, so when would you like to start? And it was the Monday before fourth of July and we were closed for fourth of July. And they said, well, how about next Monday? And I said, in one week? And they were like, yeah. I said, okay. So I told the leader of the camp, this is what they want to do, will you help them do it? And I'll go find people to come eat. So I called all my friends and said, you know, will you come? I don't know what you're going to find, but you should

come. So that day we came back on Monday and one of the little boys met me in the hallway and said, um, welcome to Taco Bell Jr. Miss Kim. Taco Bell Jr.'s? And I was like, what, what? And they said, it's a Mexican restaurant. And I said, okay. He was in a three piece suit and it was July. That's hilarious. So they started a full restaurant. They had like the plastic silverware and the napkins

with little twirly ribbon on it. I mean, the whole thing, they had music. They had some of the best beans and rice I've ever had. I mean, it was great. And so that exploded. So this young man was one of those inventors of what we now affectionately call Taco Bell Jr. at our company. And he grew up and he became a teen intern for us, which we affectionately call orange shirts because we buy them orange Festa t-shirts. And so he was a teen intern with us and volunteered and served the younger children at camp and

family ESL. And then he got hired at McDonald's and got a paid job in town. And he started believing that he could do more. In fact, like I said, he's in one of our videos with the microphone like this in front of him. And I said, someday you're gonna have a microphone because he just picked it up as a young child and started talking on our video.

No practice was amazing. And so he decided he was gonna go to college, lives in the trailer park, the least expensive place in all of central Ohio for a family to live. And so he applied himself at school, got good grades, applied to the Ohio State University, got in. He just graduated two years ago with a double degree in mathematics and meteorology, microphone, and kept working

at McDonald's. He was working there all through school. And because of the things like the Pell Grant, he was able to go to school with no payment. He banked all the money that he made at McDonald's because he didn't need it for school and he could live at home while he went to college. And so when he got out of college, he decided to buy a house. And he bought a house in Hilliard with a pool in the backyard, and he's 22 years old. And what's he do now? He still works for McDonald's. He's a regional manager, and they have treated him well, and

he's very happy there. And so he stayed. He has stayed. Without showing up for a free lunch one day, what do the demographics say he'd be doing now? Yeah, I mean, he's clearly the first person in his family to go to school to dream of something much bigger. Can I ask a question? Yeah. What's more American than a house with a swimming pool where he's a regional manager for McDonald's?

Isn't it the best? It's the American dream. Literally. And I asked him, what do you love about your job? And he said, I love, because, you know, you've been to McDonald's, you've got adults and you've got teenagers who work there. He said, I love to work with young people and pour into them and challenge them about what they could do and what their dreams are. And clearly English is not his family's first language, Spanish is, and so he's able to be completely multilingual

in this franchisee's business, which helps tremendously on every level. McDonald's is actually a great business. Most people don't know this. I've interviewed the former CEO and the chairman and two thirds of their executives had their first job at McDonald's and rose up within the company. The thing is though, this kid grew up in a trailer and suburban poverty,

the phrase we now need to normalize the sub in suburban poverty and showed up one day at a vacant grocery store for free free lunch and look where he is now. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there is any better way to love, serve, and feed a human being than that. And it goes far beyond a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. That's it. That's it. And the relationships that get built, the friendships that he still has today with so many of the children he spent all of his summers in school years with at our programs are thick and beautiful. How do people hear more about FESTA? Yeah. You go to our website or contact me. So our website is we are Festa.org and

We are Festa.org Yeah, we are Festa.org and our phone number our address. Everything is on there ways to contact us But like you said, we want to scale this across country. We can't you know, how do people find you? Oh, it's Kay and then my last last name, EMCH, at wearefesta.org. We can't find anyone else doing three generation family English across the country. We're working with a national group who's also searched and they have not found it either. And so we know that every major city needs this and we can teach it to them. What's so cool about that part of it too, Bill, is so many people cannot go to these literacy classes

if there's nobody to watch their kids. So, I mean, the three generation is just so huge. It's just amazing that just from a, I found out that these kids don't have anything to eat during the summers has evolved into what it is today. And it just speaks to just go across the street, open the door and try, and you never know what can evolve and happen as a result of the effort. And the person behind all this is the daughter of five divorces who grew up with trauma,

who had no family, that ever really been to college, who stupidly went to college because she got one piece of mail from a questionnaire she left in an offering plate, who was living the two kids and married life working at a bank, who simply felt called to love, serve and feed their neighbors and bring their community along and now look at the lives that are being changed. If it is not the quintessential story of what an army of normal folks is supposed to be about, I don't know what is. Do you allow yourself is supposed to be about? I don't know what is. Do you allow yourself when taking stock of the last 18 years, do you allow yourself to celebrate what you've done? I think I love most to celebrate with my friends, the families that I've met through doing this. I mean, that gentleman I called in tears at the grocery

store who said, call her back. You know, he became a father for me. One of the men he brought with him, John and Bob, were two fathers to me. Thank God I knew I needed that. I'm going this summer for a month in June to Jordan with a family I've known for 12 years through this nonprofit ministry work who want me to come to their country and meet their family. And it's an honor of my life. So that's the way it looks like to celebrate. My Thanksgiving dinner table is full of children and families that we serve. We have served and gotten to be in close relationship with. And I think the biggest joy for me is watching families thrive, seeing when we meet them, whether it's depressed and sad and full of

grief and not enough food on the table to running their own restaurant, employing 10 other immigrants to work for them. I mean, that's the celebration for me to watch people thrive. I'm in awe of you. It has been just an honor to meet you. And somehow I kind of believe that you are going to scale this. It just doesn't seem like you have a stop button. I can't not stop. And anybody who wants to support Kim or learn more, you know how to go there now. And anybody who's thinking, my goodness,

this would be great in the community, you have her email address, reach out. And I would imagine you're the kind of person that would say, come see what we do. We'll teach you everything. Absolutely. And like Alex said, there might be people who have an ESL classroom, a one-room schoolhouse, or even a couple, but they see their students drop off and quit through the year. Or they might be doing an afterschool program and seeing foreign born children coming to their afterschool program. And they just want to figure out how to

put the whole thing together. I mean, that's the family model. I'll say it this way. It's not, it doesn't, I'm not lost on how amazing it is that people from Eastern culture, which I consider the whole world, except for America and Europe, which is all the countries that we are serving. Except for Australia and New Zealand, but the rest of it. But the rest of the whole planet Earth, who love hospitality so much, who are so dedicated to family, would come to America to teach us to keep families together. And this family model of serving the whole family together is so simple, but yet we've missed it pretty categorically in serving people, whether it's workforce development or anything else.

We've missed keeping the family together and serving them together. And that's the model that we've perfected and we just want to scale. Kim Imch, I still don't know if I'm saying it right. You're doing great, Bill. Founder of Festa. What an amazing legacy you've left on your community. And there's just so many lessons to have been learned from this starting with suburban poverty and all the way through all the lives can be affected. You're awesome.

And I just can't tell you how much I thank you for joining me and telling your story. Oh, Bill, it's truly an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you. It's my honor. Just sorry you had to spend so much of the time with Alex. Alex is great.

Alex is great, but I gotta have somebody to poke at, right? I can't poke my gas, so what am I gonna do? Thanks for being here, Kim. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining us this week. If Kim Imch has inspired you in general, or better yet, take action by starting something like Festa in your community, donating to them,

or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at NormalFolks.us and I promise I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the Army at NormalFolks.us. Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow. An Army of Normal

Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, 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, resilient favela life and much more. All real, completely uncensored. Listen to the away days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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