An Army of Normal Folks - Susan Ramirez: Foster Families Need Angels Too (Pt 1)

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Susan knew almost nothing about foster care. And when the blinders came off at 27 years old, her whole life completely changed. She started what is now National Angels, whose 19 chapters have volunteers doing life with 3,000 kids experiencing foster care and their foster parents! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was this research done that said if you're standing at the bottom of a mountain and you're looking up at that mountain, if you're all by yourself, you would say to yourself, there's no way I can climb that mountain. But the sheer presence of another human being, even if their back is faced to you, that you then look at that mountain and you say, oh, there's a 20% probability that I can get through that. When that person turns around and if you know them, that shoots up to like 50%. And the closer that they get to you, if they will stand beside you and literally say nothing

in your mind, you believe I have a hundred percent probability that I'm going to scale this mountain. And it's this idea, this research that was done that says there is no mountain too high, no valley too low. There is nothing that we as human beings can't get over or through if we have a consistent, healthy, supportive relationship that will navigate life with us. Welcome to an army of normal folks. 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. And that last part, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team called Undefeated.

I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits using big words that nobody understands on CNN and Vox, but rather by an army of normal folks, us, just you and me deciding, hey, you know what? Maybe I can help. That's what Susan Ramirez, the voice we just heard, has done. Susan started standing alongside some boys experiencing foster care as they went up the mountain together and that

led her to create National Angels, which now has 19 chapters in 14 states, where volunteers are currently standing alongside 3,000 kids experiencing foster care, and their foster parents. I cannot wait for you to meet Susan right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the All New Public sponsors. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast There and Gone.

It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire.

It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son and in your eyes he's innocent, but in my eyes he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello.

Malcolm Gladwell here. I want to tell you about a new series we're launching at Pushkin Industries on the 1936 Olympic Games, Hitler's Olympics. On this season of Revisionist History, we'll bring you the full cast of characters, a room full of half-baked aristocrats, the visionary who built Chicago, the unknown story of Jesse Owens, a Nazi law student on an exchange trip to the deep south, a forgotten box of documents at the New York Historical Society, a woman who looked the young Hitler in the eyes and saw a madman, lynch mobs, tall tales,

fascist rituals, the Nazi PR men banging out football marches on the piano, all of it culminating in two tumultuous weeks in Berlin in August of 1936. And the United States went along for all of it. Why? Listen to this season of Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello. From Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One.

The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the US and around the world in the 1960s. The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice. The Mountaineer, known in the Chinese press

as the tallest woman in the world. And the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. with Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Susan Ramirez, Austin, Texas, South by Southwest was my first exposure to the entertainment world.

First time I'd ever been in Austin and you're from kind of a cool vibe place, you know? That's right. We have a tagline that says, keep it weird. I love this city so much because, well, this is the city that has really wrapped around the work that we do, but people are so good here and so kind here. It's funny because, you know, we've had a lot of transplants come in from all over the country and there was a time when there was a billboard when you'd get off the airport and you would come into Austin, there was a sign that said, welcome to Austin, but please don't move here. Because there's so much. Yeah, there's so much in the way of enticement to come to a city like this. The

food's great, music's great, culture's great, and it really is becoming a melting pot of people from all over the country that I believe make this city really special. In fact, my husband and I, we bought our home 12 years ago. We for sure couldn't afford the home that we're living in now just because of the real estate, how much things have just grown and expanded.

It's been unbelievable. I think they said there was like a thousand people that move here every day. Don't quote me on that, but. But you grew up in like Corpus Christi, is that right? Yes. Yeah, I grew up in Corpus Christi, was born and raised in the same home for 18 years.

It was a home that was filled with a lot of love, but not much of anything else. My two brothers and I, along with my mother and father, were in about a thousand square feet. My mom was a stay at home mom who grew up, really had a challenged childhood herself. And so she wanted to do things differently and kind of opened our doors to whoever needed a home. And so at any given moment, my brother would have a friend, we had a cousin live with us, and it was just like more is more is more in a very small but loving home.

So you were kind of raised to have, I mean, I guess not raised to have, but the illustration of life that you had coming up was someone, was from someone who nurtured people who sounded like they didn't have other places to go. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so here you are. Susan Ramirez from Corpus Christi, grew up, you know, middle class, middle of the world

thing, started the corporate dream, working, selling homes. Husband has a construction company, you have two sons, and you're living life and doing the good old-fashioned American living life thing. That's correct. And then all of a sudden my life completely changes in a matter of minutes. You know, spoiler alert, what you do now is called Austin Angels, but what Austin Angels is, excuse me, National Angels. So go back to that, how, why, and please really vividly illustrate for us the experience you had when you went to the conference

with the judge and he gave you the two opposing stories of the boys. Give us, let everybody know all of that, if you would. Yeah, so I had sold a home to a CPS worker, a state case worker, and had a conversation with her and she had invited me to a foster care and adoption conference. And I had always felt like in my life, adoption was gonna play some role, but didn't really know what that meant

or what that looked like. So this was in October of 2010. Now I'm working in corporate America. I have no vision whatsoever to be running a nonprofit, but my whole life changed when she invited me to this conference. And so I went and when I walked into the conference we had this little pamphlet that was given to us and you could circle and identify which classes and breakout sessions you wanted to go to.

And I had circled all of the adoption ones and she said, Susan I'd like for you to go and listen to this judge speak. He's gonna be speaking on foster care. And I said, no, I'm not really interested in that. I don't know how to love on babies and let them into my home and have them leave. I'm not interested in that. And she said, well, you know, Susan,

the interesting thing about foster care is that it's not really about you. And wouldn't it be nice for someone like you to open up your home to a child who so desperately needs it?" And it was kind of that kick in the pants moment where I said, oh, okay, well, sure, I'll go in and listen. And so I sat in this room, small classroom with the soft spoken judge who got up in front of the room and he said, I'm going to tell you a story about two little boys that have

come in and out of my courtroom. But it's so emotional for me that I'm just going to allow you to read their kind of case, their profile sheet, their rap sheet. I'm going to let you read it because I can't get through it without getting emotional. And so he puts this projection screen up and it was split right down the middle. And he had told one little boy's story on the left, Jimmy's story on the left, and Tommy's story on the right. And within minutes of what we were reading,

everybody began to grab tissues, because what you were reading was how many moves the boys had been in. So it had listed 22 and 23 different placement changes. It had listed all of the psychotropic meds that they were put on. And it had also listed all of the abuse that was documented in their profile sheet. And so it was really horrific and sad what you were reading.

And the judge says, before he begins his kind of presentation, if you will, he says, "'Not everybody's called to foster, says, not everybody's called to foster, and not everybody's called to adopt, but everyone can play a role and make a difference in a child's life, and we each should try to do something. And he said, the little boy on the left-hand side

of the screen, no matter how many times he moved, he did really well in school. Well, that's a novelty because most children in foster care will move on average seven times in two years. And so that's seven new mommies and daddies. Seven times in two years? Yeah, so a child will move so frequently

that every time they move, they're six months behind from an educational standpoint. And that's why children and youth who grow up in foster care, only about 50% of them will graduate high school. And it's not because they're not smart, it's because of the inconsistency in how many times they move. And we know that 97% of youth who age out of the foster care system, we know that 97% will not earn a college degree, even though in most states they have a full bride. And again, it's not because they're not smart. It's because by the time a child ages out at 18 years old, they don't have simple things like a driver's license. They've moved so often that they lose their social security and birth certificates,

that important paperwork, and they have nobody to navigate next steps with them. And so what happens is our system is set up that they provide care for kids until they're 18 and then the doors open up and they say figure it out best of luck. They may give them money, two, three hundred bucks for them to figure it out, but then they don't have any place to go and it's very hard to navigate what resources are available. Now this is going to be different and dependent on county to county and state to state. But the judge told a story about what happened to two little boys in central Texas. And so the judge says that no matter how many times the little boy on the left hand side of the screen, no matter how many times he moved, he always did really

well in school, which is like, how does that happen? I don't know. But the little boy was in foster care for six years. So we went into foster care at two years old. And then finally he would bounce back and forth for the next six years in and out of foster care from biological family. They would go back and he'd get put back into the system, go back. And then until he was eight years old at eight years old, the parental rights were finally terminated, which means that he was never going to go back to biological family and that now he was eligible for adoption.

Well, they have these things in central Texas and they have them all over the country. In fact, there was a movie made out of it called Instant Family with Mark Wahlberg. I don't know if you ever saw that movie, but it's a real life story about a set of caregivers who were looking to adopt and they would go to these picnics and you can meet children who are eligible to adoption at these picnics. And so there was a real life movie that was made to demonstrate that. And then what happened was that little Jimmy on the left-hand side of the screen at eight years old, when his parental rights were terminated, now he was eligible to go to these picnics and meet mommies and daddies.

Well, what ended up happening was that he would go to these picnics year after year after year. And when he would go to these picnics he was never chosen or adopted. And so it was pretty heartbreaking for him to go every year. And what ended up happening was he was like, how can I show that I'm worthy of being loved and being adopted? So he takes his report card and he puts it in the back of his pants pocket and he goes up to all the mommies and daddies and he hands him the report card and he says I make good grades, choose me,

I'm a good boy. And the judge says that this young man goes every single year starting at eight years old every year trying to prove that he's worthy of being loved but he never gets adopted. And right at 18 years old he's now living in a residential treatment center. He's about to age out of the foster care system. And the director comes to him and he says, son, you have been adopted. And he said, what do you mean I've been adopted?

I've wanted to be adopted my whole life. And the judge says that in that moment, the director tells him, your father will be here soon to get you. And so the young man irons his shirt and he's standing on the footsteps of the residential treatment center and the father comes to him and says,

son, I am sorry that it has taken me 18 years to find you, but you will never have to worry about where you go from here, that you are my son until the day that I die. And the judge spoke about how that dad moved that young man in with him at 18, had a new mom, dad, brother, and they just wrapped him with love and support and community and they end up putting him through school and he had a desire to go to seminary school and then he created a foster and adoption placement agency.

And the judge says that that young man grew up to place kids in healthy, happy homes and he contributed back to society and that there's even redemption at 18 years old. And he said to the classroom, but I want to reiterate that not everybody's called to foster and not everybody's called to adopt, but everyone can play a role and make a difference in a child's life. And he said, because the other little boy on the other side of the screen,

while his story looked virtually identical to the other little boy with the same amount of placement changes, psychotropic meds, abuse, literally an identical rap sheet, except for he turns 18 years old and there's no one there to rescue him. So what happens is the residential doors, the center opens, he walks out with his grocery sack full of belonging and he's got nowhere to go and so he just walks near the freeway and what the judge

believed was that he was walking to go to a homeless shelter. But because he had no hope and had no community whatsoever, he just begins to walk until he can find the nearest freeway and he throws himself in front of an 18-wheeler and he committed suicide. And the judge says, it is so problematic for us as a community to never understand what that young man's life was supposed to become, that it is a disservice to all of us that we will never see what he was supposed to grow up and become.

That that could have been a future teacher or mechanic or lawyer, we will never know and we're all robbed because of it. And just spoke from a place of like, we know that people have the ability to transform other people's lives through our words and through our actions. And I sat in that classroom, I walked in somebody different than when I left. It was this awareness, this, like, you know, the blinders had been taken off. I never knew anybody growing up that was in foster care. I didn't know the statistics that are plaguing the child welfare system, but in one hour, my whole life completely changed. And I felt I am a woman of faith and I believed that in that very moment

that God had said to me, now this is your burden to bear and I want you to do something about it. And so I left that conference feeling the weight of the world. And now a few messages from our gender sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join the Army at NormalFolks.us. By signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen

to miss an episode or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests. We'll be right back. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast, There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything. Did they run away? Was it an accident or were they murdered?

A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son. And in your eyes, he's innocent. But in my eyes, he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation. To find answers for the families.

And get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello. Malcolm Gladwell here. I want to tell you about a new series we're launching at Pushkin Industries on the 1936 Olympic Games, Hitler's Olympics. On this season of Revisionist History, we'll bring you the full cast of characters, a room

full of half-baked aristocrats, the visionary who built Chicago, the unknown story of Jesse Owens, a Nazi law student on an exchange trip to the Deep South, a forgotten box of documents at the New York Historical Society, a woman who looked the young Hitler in the eyes and saw a madman, lynch mobs, tall tales, fascist rituals, the Nazi PR men banging out football marches on the piano, all of it culminating in two tumultuous weeks in Berlin, in August of 1936. And the United States went along for all of it.

Why? Listen to this season of Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. This month, we're bringing you the stories of athletes. There's the Italian race car driver who courted danger and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record

and protested racism and discrimination in the US and around the world in the 1960s. The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice. The mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world. And the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman

to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One thing I've talked to, you know, we've highlighted stories of three or four different for different people working in and around the foster care system and what they do. And I really love what you guys do because you keep saying it and it's true. I mean, not everybody's called to foster children. And I gotta be honest with Susan, I'm not.

There's no way. I just don't even, it takes a really unique, special person to be able to open their home and bring in children who have already had years. And even if you bring in a seven-year-old, we know that the most formative years of a child's life are between three and six. And so you're bringing in a seven-year-old who looks like a little seven-year-old person that's gonna be perfectly malleable.

But the reality is, so much of what that children is, is the experiences they had those first seven years. And so when you bring that kid in, you're bringing in also their trauma, you're bringing in their abuse, you're bringing in all of the baggage that comes with them. And thank God there are people in this world that are willing to do that.

But that's hard. And that's opening yourself up to an enormous amount of stuff. And so we can have a heart for kids in foster care, but we can also be like, I just can't do that, but I want to help. And you've come up with a way to be involved in foster care without being a foster person, but be just as integral part,

which I love, and that's a little bit of a spoiler, which you're gonna get to. But to emphasize where you went from there and why it was so important, one of the demographics I know is there's, I think, 400,000 kids in foster care in the United States now. I think that's right, but share with us

some of the statistics of not only the kids, the numbers of kids in foster care, but what the statistics say about the people in our prisons, the people who are trafficked, the people who are in prostitution, the people who are homeless, the people who are addicts, and the percentages of all of these people that, and pragmatically we have to say,

when you're involved in that world, you're probably also involved in the criminal justice system. You're probably involved in a lot of the societal ills culturally that we're having all these arguments about, about the homeless and drug abuse and the revolving door of the prison system. I think the statistics you give us should wake us up to, you know, if we're not struck by the social impact of this, the pragmatic impact of this is we can better our culture by fixing the foster care system.

But share with the statistics that prove out what I just said. Yeah, you're absolutely right. So one of my most favorite quotes is by Desmond Tutu, who says, there comes a point in time where we have to stop pulling people out of the river. We have to go upstream and find out why they're falling in. And for us, what we know is that every social issue that our country faces, if we just go upstream, what we know is that it all started in foster care. And so what we know through data and stats is that our country will spend billions, with a B,

billions of dollars on an antiquated system that fails children more often than it does for them to succeed. We know through data that our caregivers, I have been in this work now for so many years and I have yet to come across a family who was in it quote unquote for the wrong reason. I'm telling you there is a this so often when I get out and I speak and I talk about caregivers, one of the very first questions that I get is, well, what do you do with the bad families that decide to foster? And I'm sure there are families that are out there. But what I have seen over and over and over again is that there are such good, good, good

people who are trying to do good work of loving kids, nurturing kids, and trying to set them on a path to reach their fullest potential. But so often, they can't. It's like when you become a foster parent, you become a piece of government-owned piece of property. And so 50% of our foster families that decide to foster, they will quit within the first year.

Over 50%. And so what happens is we've got this scenario where good-hearted people say, I can do this, but then it is so hard. They're not equipped and they're not supported. So then they close their home. So kids will bounce from home to home to home. And I told the story of little Jimmy and Tommy, and what happens is every time a child moves, that perpetuates this idea that, well, now they don't want me. And it's traumatic. Every single move is very traumatic on a child.

And it's traumatic on the caregivers too. And so what we know is that 50% of foster parents will close. We know that children will move on average seven times in two years. We know that 50% will not graduate high school, 97% will not earn a college degree. And it is this direct pipeline that says

by the time a child ages out at 18 years old, the majority will not have their driver's license, their social security, their bank account. They will not have the things, they will not be prepared for adult living. And that the majority of those who live on the streets, who are in prison today, who are human trafficked from the United States, all of those people come directly from the foster care. And so you may not be called to foster adopt. You may not even have a heart to play a role in this, but if you are a, if you pay

taxes in this country, then you are affected by this system. You are because your tax dollars pays to run these systems that fail people. Now there's still a lot of hope in this. So what I don't want to do is just talk about the hard without talking about the hope and the beauty of what is possible. Because every single statistic that I just said can be changed. We know that it can be changed.

We know it because in our work, we get to see it every day. And I will also say that there are so many good people across the country that want to play a part, but they don't even know where to begin. And that's where, where we come in is that we also believe when that judge said, not everybody's called to do this. We believe that too. But what we know is that there are so many good people in corporations and small groups and individuals all over the place that say, I may not be able to foster, but I can do something. And that's where we come in. And so our homeless population,

it's estimated that 50% or more of our homeless population, now think about that everybody, half of the homeless population is made up of former kids who were in foster care. 60% of child sex trafficking victims y'all. 60. Three in five are from former kids who are in foster care. 75% of our population in prison spent time in foster care. Three quarters. We also know that by the time a girl is 19 years old, she will be on her second pregnancy

from girls who came from foster care. And even worse, we talk all the time about the proverbial and overused revolving door. We also know that it's 80% likely that this 19-year-old who's on their first or second pregnancy after they come her first pregnancy, We also know that it's 80% likely that this 19-year-old who's on their first or second pregnancy after they come out of foster care, that their children will end up in the very place

they came from, which is foster care. And while I'm not saying that to be a Debbie Downer, but I'm saying that to qualify the enormity of the issue that is foster care. But, but it's not just foster care. It affects all of us like you just said, Susan. It is, it affects our prison systems. It affects our homeless populations and our urban centers. It affects crime.

It affects criminal justice. It affects everything. So it is a moral and societal issue. It is a pragmatic issue. And frankly, it's a fiscal issue because of the untold dollars that we continue to spend on a system that was designed in the 30s that we continue to spend on a system that was designed in the 30s that no longer fits today's world. And again, thank the Lord for people who are willing to open their home and accept in these children and when they bring in all the children they bring in all the trauma and the baggage and everything else and they're willing to do it. But it hadn't changed. It's not, it hadn't been evolving.

And so this is what, Susan, you found out. And back to the story, you leave this, first of all, you sold a house to a woman who got you somewhere you really weren't called to be, and then you went to a conference you didn't really think you wanted to hear, you had an aha moment, what happened in your life from there?

So I left that conference, I went back to work, I called all of my friends and I said, we're gonna change foster care, we're gonna change the way that children are experiencing the system. And we started to do service projects the way that children are experiencing this system. And we started to do service projects for the first three years, trying to bring joy and light and goodness and resources to kids who are experiencing foster care by doing

things like days of beauty for little girls at group homes. And we would do barbecues and picnics and back to school events where we would ensure that every child had a brand new backpack and school supplies. And we did that for three years. And all of a sudden, I had this real rustling in my heart that while things are good and needed,

the truth is that we were not changing the trajectory of anybody's life because what we were doing and how we were set up in the beginning was that we would show up, we would give a kid a backpack, and then we would never see them again. And so the truth is that we were not going to change any statistic. We were not going to change the way that children identified and looked at themselves. It was like, you know, what I have learned is that you'll hear a lot of talk around, and there was actually a bill passed in Texas that said children are no longer to receive trash bags to remove their belongings from home to home to home. We're going to make sure that our children are dignified and so therefore we're going

to give them a piece of luggage. And should any child have a trash bag? No, absolutely not. But they shouldn't also have a piece of luggage where they're moving seven times. You could give a child a Louis Vuitton bag and all of a sudden that doesn't make their self-worth improve. And so how do we keep children in placement? How do we wrap so much community support and consistency? So one of the things that I will often say is that I believe that every single child should have at least one healthy, consistent adult who knows the color

of their eyes and the passions of their heart. We'll be right back. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast, There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. Nobody hears anything. Nobody sees anything.

Did they run away? Was it an accident or were they murdered? A truck and two people just don't disappear. The FBI called it murder for hire. It was definitely murder for hire for Danielle, not for Richard. He's your son and in your eyes he's innocent, but in my eyes he's just some guy my sister was with. In this series, I dig into my own investigation

to find answers for the families and get justice for Richard and Danielle. Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello. Malcolm Gladwell here. I want to tell you about a new series we're launching up Bushkin Industries on the 1936 Olympic Games, Hitler's Olympics. On this season of Revisionist History, we'll bring you the full cast of characters, a room full of half-baked

aristocrats, the visionary who built Chicago, the unknown story of Jesse Owens. A Nazi law student on an exchange trip to the deep south. A forgotten box of documents. The New York Historical Society. A woman who looked the young Hitler in the eyes and saw a madman. Lynch mobs, tall tales, fascist rituals. The Nazi PR man banging out football marches on the piano. All of it culminating in two tumultuous weeks

in Berlin in August of 1936. And the United States went along for all of it. Why? Listen to this season of Revisionist History on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. and became the first woman to compete in Formula One. The sprinter who set a world record and protested racism and discrimination in the U.S. and around the world in the 1960s.

The diver who was barred from swimming clubs due to her race and went on to become the first Asian-American woman to win an Olympic medal. She won gold twice. The mountaineer known in the Chinese press as the tallest woman in the world. And the ancient Greek charioteer who exploited a loophole to become the first ever woman to compete at the Olympic Games. Listen to Wamanica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And so what happened was, as we were doing these service projects, I didn't know the color of any kid's eyes. I didn't know the passions of any of their heart. It was here's a backpack, here's an event. Great. And it felt good. And we had lots of community support. And then all of a sudden I kept thinking, yeah, but how do we prevent a kid from going

homeless, from being in prison? How do we reroute their own personal narrative? How do we change the way that families are radically supported in this journey and children are fully able to reach their fullest potential? While they cannot choose to be in foster care, I believe that they can choose to put a lot of effort and a lot of focus into what comes next.

And so we began to do that. So I called a placement agency that we were working with and I said, I have a desire to go deeper with a family, but I don't actually know what that looks like. Do you have a family who's really struggling? I know the statistics say that most foster parents will close their home. Give me a family that's really struggling." And so the placement agency said, I've got a woman, her name is Miss Esther. She lost her husband a few years ago and she has six teenage boys in her home. And Esther has fostered over 50 boys. And so I said, I know exactly who you're talking about

because I had seen her before at some of the events that we had thrown. And so they said, here's her phone number, call her. And they had called her and they said, Esther, Susan wants to know if she can like love on your family. And so she's like, well, I'm interested to take this call. And so I called Esther and I just said,

I don't know what this is gonna look like, but I just wanna help you in your fostering journey. But I don't know what that looks like. Would you allow me to come into your home and love on you and support you and these boys? And she said, Susan, I have fostered over 50 boys and I have never had not one person say, can I help you? So the answer is yes, you can help me. I cannot even begin to explain how incredible this woman

was. She had the perfect amount of love and also discipline. And I knew that the boys loved her because when I would come into her home, they would sit next to her and they would put their head on her shoulder. And I knew that she was doing the best that she could to provide a stable, loving, nurturing home. But also, Esther didn't have a lot of extra in the way of financial means. Her husband was the primary provider in her home and when he had passed away, she was not left with a lot of extra money, but had time and had a lot of love to give. And so when I first showed up to her home, I said, how can I best support you? I would like, now I'm still working full time.

And so there was an app that I could go on. It was like an online Costco. It was called Boxed. And I would just go onto my phone and I would order things like toilet paper, paper towels, paper products, all the things that six teenage boys are running through. Boxes of cereal, you name it. I would order it.

It would be shipped to my house. And every couple of weeks I would show up to her house with a huge box full of supplies for their home. And Esther is actually the one that named our program that we now do all over the country because I would show up with this box and she would say, "'Oh, here comes my love box.'" And I would say, yes, here comes your love box.

Oh, that's where the name comes from. So it was the love box, got it. Yeah, because it would show up in a box. And it was a moment for me where the more I would show up, the more I was building trust. So in the very beginning, the boys were like, what are you doing here? We don't understand why you're here.

What do you want from us? And I remember going to the home and I had, it was a Halloween time and I had packed six pumpkins and like a painting set and I was telling Esther, hey, I'm going to come over and I'm going to paint pumpkins with the boys. And she was like, Susan, in no world are these teenage boys going to paint pumpkins? And I was like, Esther, watch me work. And so I went to their house and I set up a little

pumpkin painting out front in the front yard. And I said, hey boys, we're gonna be painting pumpkins, but of course we're gonna make it a little competition. So whoever can paint the best pumpkin gets this gift card to buy pizza for the entire family. And you get to pick all the toppings and the dessert. And so all of a sudden, these kids who were teenagers had never done a simple activity before like painting pumpkins. And all of a sudden they

were like, you know, painting the best pumpkins and really trying to do it up. And then we did it again, you know, at Christmas time with gingerbread houses. And I would just grab these boys by the collar when I would leave them and I would tell them that they mattered and I would look at them in their eyes and I would tell them that I loved them because I did. The more I showed up, the more consistency, the more trust, and every time I would show up I would bring something special for each one of the boys. Well two things happened in this home.

Couple of things happened in this home that made me look at my life and and make the decision to leave corporate America. But in this home there was a little boy named Jonathan who had a great desire to make the football team. He was going into the seventh grade and but Jonathan had never made good grades before. He said to me, I want to make the football team but it's never gonna happen for me because I don't make good grades. And I said, Jonathan, I just want you to know that if you want to make the football team that we will see this through with you. We're gonna get you a tutor. We're gonna start just breathing life over you. Esther was a woman of faith and so this was a thing

that was allowable in her home that I would, I remember it was back to school time and we had gotten every single one of the boys a brand new backpack and all their school supplies. And in the front pocket we had written a handwritten card to each one of the boys and there was some Dr. Seuss quote that we had wrote in it. I don't even remember what we wrote but I told Jonathan, I want you to take this card and I want you to put it on your poster board bed and And before your feet even hit the floor, I want you to know that we have already prayed over you and before you, that we have asked God to just bless you and we're going to get you the

tutor. We're going to get you everything that you need. And what ended up happening was that Jonathan at six-week progress report card time after he had put so much effort into his schooling, came home waving his progress report card saying, mama, mama, mama, you're not gonna believe this. And he handed her the report card. And it had showed that he had made straight A's for the first time in his life.

And I was on the phone with Esther and she said, Susan, when Jonathan hand me the report card, he said, mama, they believed in me and I didn't want to make a liar out of them. And so he tried so hard and we were there for his very first football game. And it was a moment for me doing this kind of pilot of this program to say, can we make a difference?

Can we go deeper? And I just watched a young man who had no self-esteem whatsoever completely transformed the way that he looked at himself, transformed the way that he believed what was possible for himself through hard work and dedication and support. And so that's exactly what happened is that he grew up and kept playing football. And it was one of those moments for me that was a realization that we have the power to transform people's lives through our actions and our words. And in the same home, there was a little boy named Ryan. And what happened was that it was Ryan's birthday. And Ryan had grew up in foster care his whole childhood.

And when you are a caregiver, you don't get any additional stipend for things like Christmas or Halloween or birthdays. There's no additional resources given to caregivers to provide. You're given a very small monthly stipend to basically make ends meet. So Ryan, as he was growing up in foster care, had never been celebrated for his birthday

before. So when he got home from school that day, what ended up happening was that he had this big, he had this big, huge love box that was waiting for him. And when he opened up the box, balloons came out and he had all these goodies inside of it. And he called me and he said, Susan, I was so excited to get home from school today because this is the first time in my life that someone has celebrated me for my birthday. And I just want you to know that I love you. And I said, Oh, Ryan, I love you too. And hung up the phone and Esther went into another room and she called me and she said, Susan, Ryan, I love you too. And hung up the phone and Esther went into another room

and she called me and she said, Susan, I just want you to know what a big deal it is that Ryan said the words, I love you. That boy has been in foster care his whole life and has been failed time and time and time again. And it's one thing for a child to feel love and it is a whole other thing for them to be able to give their love away.

And so don't let those words, I love you, be lost on you. And it was a moment for me, I was standing at my kitchen sink, I was doing dishes and I put my hands down to kind of like just brace myself for what I had just heard. And I remember like tears rolling down my face because I thought, you know, here we are piloting a program to see,

can we make a difference as a community walking alongside this family? Can we make a difference? And what I was realizing in real time was that we have the power to transform foster care. And in the same home, Esther would say things like, what you're doing is you're helping me teach philanthropy. These kids now no longer hold on to their things

because they know that they're gonna be getting more from you. They know that their needs are gonna be met. They know that they're gonna be taken care of. So one of the things that Ryan did was we got him a huge thing of brownies, but instead of just having it there at home, he took them to school and he was so proud to share his brownies with the friends at school.

They had confidence, they were gaining confidence. What really was an unbelievable moment for me was that when children get put into foster care, they have what's a rating and it can be anything from basic to specialized and it's kind of a sliding scale. The more specialized and the higher needs a child would have behavioral, emotional, then the more compensation that a caregiver will get. And we had, Esther had had all the boys tested at the end of our pilot and they had actually all moved down levels of care. And so all 16 age boys, there was about a $200 per child stipend that Miss Esther was losing and she called me to tell me this and I said, Oh my gosh, Esther, have we just hurt

you because now you're not able to receive $1,200 a month. Like, oh my gosh, did we hurt you? And she said, absolutely not. I would rather have healthy, happy boys who behavioral has improved. Because, Susan, what your group is providing in the way of resources, what I would be spending this money on anyways, I would much rather have this than the financial support. And so I was like, oh my gosh, we just saved the government $1,200 in one household. What could that do to our country if we were able to support kids and support families? And you know, I said earlier that this country spends billions of dollars. There was some research that said if a child enters

into foster care, by the time they're 18 years old, so if they go in at newborn and they spend it until they're 18 years old, the government will spend over a million dollars in social services on that child. Well, most people are smart. If you spend a million dollars on something, you want to see a rate of return. But what we know is that the rate of return on a child's life, if they're not emotionally equipped and supported, that they will end up in one of these offshoots that say prison, homeless, human traffic, commit suicide, and so on and so forth. So that was a moment for me and a realization

for me when I saw us transforming Esther's life, these kids' lives, my life was being transformed, that we really had something. And I remember going back to my husband and I said, I believe that every child in central Texas should have this program. I believe that every child in central Texas should have this program. I believe that every family that fosters should be radically supported in their journey. I believe that every family should have resources like this. And it wasn't just the financial resources, it was the emotional resource. It was the, Esther, how are you doing? I mean, I would go in and I would kiss her on the cheek when I would see her and I would sit next to her

and I would hold her hand when things were hard. And I just kept loving on her and showing up for her and loving on these boys. There was this study that was done that said when human beings are faced with really hard things, oftentimes they feel like they can't get through it or over it if they're doing it alone. But there was this research done that said if you're standing at the bottom of a mountain and you're looking up at that mountain, if you're all by yourself you say to yourself, there's no way I can climb that mountain. But the sheer presence of another human being, even if their back is faced to you, that you then look at that mountain and you say, oh, there's a 20% probability that I can get through that. When that person turns around and if you know them, that shoots up

to like 50%. And the closer that they get to you, if they will stand beside you and literally say nothing, in your mind, you believe I have 100% probability that I'm going to scale this mountain. And it's this idea, this research that was done that says, there is no mountain too high, no valley too low. There is nothing that we as human beings can't get over or through if we have a consistent, healthy, supportive relationship that will navigate life with us. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Susan Ramirez. And I hope you don't miss part two that's now available to listen to.

Together guys, we can change this country, but it will start with you. I'll see you in part two. I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the all new podcast There and Gone. It's a real life story of two people who left a crowded Philadelphia bar, walked to their truck and vanished. A truck and two people just don't disappear.

The FBI called it murder for hire. But which victim was the intended target and why? Listen to There and Gone South Street on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello from Wonder Media Network I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. Who doesn't love a sports story? The rivalries, the feats of strength and stamina. But these tales go beyond the podium.

There's the teen table tennis champ, the ice skater who earned a medal and a medical degree, and the sprinter fighting for Aboriginal rights. Listen to a manica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello, Malcolm Gladwell here. I want to tell you about a new series we're launching at Pushkin Industries on the 1936 Olympic games.

Adolf Hitler's games. Fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, high Olympic ideals, craven self-interest, naked ambition, illusion, delusion, all collide in the long contentious lead up to the most controversial Olympics in history. The Germans put on a propaganda show and America went along with all of it. Why? Listen to this season of Revisionist History on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.