An Army of Normal Folks - The 7 Things Every Person Needs to Flourish (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

What does it actually take for a person—and a whole community—to flourish? That's the nut that Joe Woodward from Stand Together is trying to crack in Wichita, as part of their goal to make it a model city for the country. In this episode, Joe shares the 7 conditions every person needs to thrive, why healthy families and communities matter more than we realize, and how ordinary people can solve problems that institutions can't. From a $500 e-bike that transformed a single dad's life to innovative efforts tackling foster care, housing, and poverty, this conversation will challenge the way you think about service, empowerment, and your role in helping your community flourish.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an Army of Normal Folks wearing my brand new Army of Normal Folks t-shirt. Now we're going to continue with part two of our conversation with Joe Woodward, right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. I-R. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including I-Hart Pride, Canada, your favorite hits and must-have party bangers. personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride come together celebrate love take pride with you anytime anywhere just ask your smart

speaker to play iHeart pride Canada stream us on your phone or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca Hey it's us the Jonas brothers and guess what we have some big news what's the news news news news we created our own podcast called hey Jonas we invented a podcast Well we didn't invent it we just contributed to it

First people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was...

This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast. could call in and say, hey Jonas, and then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it.

Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store. I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job.

I'm Akila Hughes, and Rebel Spirit Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies. We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent that? They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean.

Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of crude depictions of the unhoused. Stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We the In-House is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator, and host. And for years, I've created a space where the un-housed and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhouse parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence.

Weedian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wichler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weythian House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Joe, my mom and dad were divorced from I was four. My mom was married and divorced. fours five times and I grew up in apartments and I would have been considered from a economic standpoint, lower middle class in terms of our economic position. But as I sit here and listen to you, all four of those things were evident in my life. They were. Yeah. As I sit and listen to you and I put my own personal experience in that, every one of those four existed.

Everyone wasn't poor in my neighborhood, so I saw what money looked like. Most people in my neighborhood were married, so although I was experiencing dysfunction, I saw what functional families look like. I mean, all four of those. And even though maybe under the roof of my own home, things weren't set for my success, everything else in my environment was. and then I contrast that with some kids that I coach in football who none of those four things exist in their environment

and it's a miracle if the American dream is available to them. So the American dream is available with the right construct surrounding the individual seeking it. Yeah, I mean, it's this idea of, again, there's a ton of personal agency and your environment matters. like your community really matters. And so when we're actually trying to help, let's invest in the things that actually help people flourish, right?

Those four things. Those four things. Family, education, neighborhood, community. I've said long before I did this podcast, it's even in my book, that the zip code at the time of your birth should not determine the outcome of the success of your life. That's right.

But it, I mean, it may be unpopular to say it, but Harvard's data would suggest that, in fact, it can. If we don't fix those zip codes. Yeah, it's interesting. We have to be really precise with our language. So determinative. Yeah, and I'm not always great at that. So straighten me out.

Determinative, no, because there's always people who beat the odds. Certainly. There's no such thing as 100% anything anyway. That's right. But predictive, yes. A driver, a social. driver of health, right, versus a social determinant. Determinative versus predictive.

Yeah, that's right. I will think about that. I mean, it's probably doesn't matter. No, no, no, no. Don't discount that. That's really good because you can paint with too thick of a broad brush and eliminate the success stories that you need to illuminate. And so I get it.

But predictive, it's not necessarily determinative, but it is highly predictive. That's right. That's right. And then in terms of, again, these neighborhoods, is fixing them versus empowering the fixers who already live there, right? That's it. That's what it's about. That's an army of normal folk.

Yeah. And we've, you know, you just had Benny Santabanias on your podcast recently. That's what we're talking about. Good Lord, you know who's on my podcast better than I know who's on my podcast. I'm a big fan, man. I listen to it a lot. But, you know, Benny's a guy who was a part of the problem. He was one of the leaders of gangs in North Wichita,

and he had this radical conversion where now he's, part of the solution. And it's on us, people who, you know, don't have a ton of proximity to support guys like Benny who are finding the solutions. And then again, like, he's one of our biggest advisors. As we're thinking about our next investment, we're going to Benny and we're saying, hey, Benny, what do your people need more of? He's like, man, we're good on job training programs right now. We need more affordable housing and more transportation solutions. It's like, all right, let's go. People really misunderstand the vital importance of transportation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's huge. It's huge. And, you know, when you have systems designed by people who haven't experienced the problem, you don't even think about that at all. And again, we learned this from Darren. In Dallas, 45% of people live in South Dallas, 55% live in North Dallas. But 90% of the jobs are in North Dallas.

So how do you get that 45% to the work? Exactly, exactly. And they can't just dial up Uber. they don't have the money. That's right. And so there's like the way we solve for those things. I'll give you a great example. So again, how do we empower communities to solve problems? Andrea and I were looking through Care Portal recently in Wichita. And there was a need where a single dad was asking for an e-bike.

And we're like, well, that's kind of funny. Why would you need an e-bike? But then you read the story, it's a single dad with a special needs child. The other one needs to go to daycare and he's got to get to work. and he's got no car. And he's got a heart condition. So riding a bike is tricky for him. But he's got a little bike trailer where you can put a couple kids in the trailer,

this little bugging those things. And he was asking for $500. His caseworker was asking for $500 to help him get an e-bike to remove the barrier of transportation so he could take his kids to daycare and get himself to work. $500 solves transportation for a family. That is the best example of a hand-up instead of a hand-up. hand out. And it's actually people who want to help. That actually helps. That's awesome. Okay. There's so much here under the heading of every person empowered. I'm going to read some

stuff that Alex provided to me and maybe back into some of this stuff. Yeah, please. All right. So there's 100 plus nonprofits collaborating toward principal base shared vision in Wichita. It's a city movement, right? And we're just getting started. So tell us what all that is. Yeah, so back when I worked at Coke, Mr. Koch developed this management philosophy called market-based management. It's now called principal-based management. It's applying these principles to create value in an organization. Complex, difficult problems, walking through five dimensions for success.

So starting with shared vision, thinking, do we have the right people on the bus with the right capabilities? Do we have knowledge processes that help us know if we're winning or losing? Are people not only on the bus, but are they sitting in the right? seats and then are we winning and are people staying motivated and being rewarded for that success and all the rest it's similar you know to some different stuff you might read from john wooden um you know in the coaching literature mr coke applied that to business and we've tried to apply some of those same principles in community based work and it all starts with a shared vision so if if you want people to contribute in a in an organized way um you can do that a

couple different ways. You can regulate it or you can inspire it. So when we think about shared vision, Darren and others like Benny and Kevis Harding, they've said, man, we want to see people flourish in our communities. We want to be a model for the American dream. And that shared vision has really rallied people, those hundreds of nonprofits. People said, yes, we want to see every person empowered. We do not want to see old school charity. We want to see people contributing, getting out of poverty, living their best life. So that shared vision has got people

to innovate in all sorts of really interesting ways. One of the things we have going for us in Wichita is a really entrepreneurial culture. People say

they see a problem and they think it's on us to solve it. Like individuals. All right, we see a problem. Let's go solve it. And then anyway, as those things are coming together,

one of the things we've been asked for more and more is we actually, we know that it takes all of us to solve these problems. So an example, we're sitting in a room filled with 80 organizations trying to address the crisis of youth aging out of foster care.

Foster care in Wichita is three times the national average, and it's getting worse. It's up 50% in the last decade. There's 50% more kids in foster care today than there was a decade ago. And so people in Wichita have said, first of all, I didn't know that was the case. I thought Wichita was a great place to raise kids. could this be true in my city? And so when you elevate a problem like that, it gets people organized. And when you say, we're not going to solve it through control. It has to come through relationships. And so anyway, you've got the schools, you've got the police officers, you've got the churches,

you've got the nonprofits, you've got the neighborhood leaders, all in the same room thinking, how do we help these kids aging out of foster care? And more importantly, how do we help their parents? So more kids don't come into foster care. And as we started working on this, we realized that people actually wanted to work together. There's this myth that everybody's in their own silo and everybody thinks that their solution is the only way. But actually, at least in Wichita, people want to work together. And now we've started asking the question, well, how do we make it easier for people to work together to serve the people we're called to serve? So we're working on some measurement stuff.

And I could keep going on that. But tell me what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. The most difficult things for these youth aging out of foster care is twofold. One is a job and two is a healthy community. So you look at the stats. It seems to be a recurring thing. That's a healthy community. That's right. And everything you've said so far, you've always said, you've mentioned healthy community. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You know, the stats are something like 42% of youth who age out of foster care will experience homelessness before they're 21 years old. Oh, listen, when you're go into incarceration, drug use, human trafficking, it's wrought with the biggest numbers of those populations coming from foster care age outs. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's exactly. And that's national. That's exactly right. Yes. So when you see those stats, it's easy to think that the solution is a housing solution. But one of the things that we've learned from one of our partners, Family Promise is doing amazing work in this space. They taught us that people don't become

homeless because they run out of money. They become homeless because they run out of people. That's interesting. It's community. And so the reason why these youth are experiencing homelessness is because they've run out of people, right? And so how do we invest in community, number one, and how do we invest in jobs, number two? When you can actually earn your success and stand on your own two feet, that's a lot about somebody's success. So anyway, so we've got this group together. We're solving for these two things. All the other things come up, transportation and access to credit. The same seven things.

The same seven things over and over again. And then this group is actually innovating these solutions. Some of them already exist, and it's just hard to get access to them, and a lot of them don't exist. So we need more solutions when it comes to entry-level kind of therapeutic work. In Dallas, when Darren was doing the work, one of the reasons they were so successful is that they had this huge farm where somebody could show up on day and want to say, I'm ready to change my life and they say, welcome. We're glad you're here.

Let's get started to working together. We're going to put money in your pocket. We're going to give you a job. And as you're working, we're going to bring around these other solutions that we all depend on. And so applying some of the principles from Dallas in Wichita, we really think there's going to be a turnaround story with the issue of foster care, not because of better foster care, but because of better community. Okay. It's insane. Nibby stands for not in my backyard, but you've been interested in a movement that's called

In My Backyard. What's going on here? Yeah, yeah. So we've talked about it a little bit. But as you think about the increase in homelessness, there's chronic homelessness, which is what you might see on the street, there's also situational homelessness where there's a single mom who had a medical bill and couldn't afford rent and now she's evicted, right? So you see this on the rise. With her child. with her child, which again is a big reason why people go into foster care. It's things like that. And so you see a big problem like this, and many people believe that's somebody else's problem

to solve, you know, somebody really ought to do something about that, right, Bill? Somebody ought to do something about that one day. But when you see inspiration of people who are taking action and really solving the problem, and this actually came from, we mentioned Brindley earlier, the second grader who said, I can do something about this. I can build a tiny home. And Gabrielle from Settled, who was on the podcast recently, she said, you know, there's this movement of not only putting tiny homes on church property, what do they call it, in God's backyard, Igby, you're right?

Right. But there's actually a movement of people putting tiny homes in their own backyard where you're solving not only housing but also isolation. And you can welcome people into your family. You know, the other way to do it is to let people sleep in your basement. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. I don't know why I'd convince Mrs. Courtney of that one.

But the whole thing is in my backyard. That's right. So you can build a tiny home in your backyard. You can, again, mutual benefit. You can solve one unit of housing and community for one person or one family. Also, you can make a little bit of money along the way, too. Everybody can win. And because of the recent policy wins that's happened in Kansas,

anybody can do that. And so this similar thing happened in California about 15 years ago, and they went from a thousand accessory dwelling units, tiny homes in their backyards, to 22,000 in just a couple of years. Is that right? Really? It's wild. And so we believe that the same thing could happen in Kansas, but not only just more units of housing, but people intentionally using what they have to help people escape poverty. Are you seeing people willing to do this? 100%. It's on the Army and Normal

Folks Service Club right now. We've had about eight people who have said, I'm very interested in this. Really? I can't wait to talk about that. Oh, it's going to be so cool. It's going to be so cool. We'll be right back.

You feel it in your heart. IR Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in the day pride.

I'm going to celebrate with you. Anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone. Or listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. Hey, it's us to Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, next?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a... We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, a pretty wide range of podcasts.

We're starting a trend. but this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with a name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Oh, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band

before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say, hey Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad Hey Jonas and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast.

But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War.

To get to school, I had to go down Robert Ely Boulevard. Get to the grocery store, I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, Season 2 goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies.

We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you represent? that. They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit season two on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of crude depictions of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith.

We The InHouse is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host. And for years, I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. We do-in-house is a two-time webby and signal award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wichler, a street doctor turned influencer

whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Wey and Housed on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So the affordability crisis gets exacerbated by just in my backyard. Not exactly, it gets fixed by in my backyard. in my backyard. That's right. I mean, it's a supply demand issue. That's what it is. People aren't

building enough homes. And part of that is... Well, and then people aren't, well, and there's a market issue there. One of the reasons people aren't building enough homes is there's not a market for it because it's weird. I'm in the lumber business, right? It's very weird. All of the metrics from all the economists surrounding my industry have been screaming at the top of their lungs for really four, five, six years now that there's about, a 7 million unit deficit of housing in the United States today. Yeah. Meaning there's there's a need for 7 million more houses for everybody who needs a house

to have a house in the United States. And when I say house, that's multifamily as well. Apartments, condos, whatever, depending on, you know, the market. Because obviously there's more need for multifamily houses and places like Boston in New York than there are in places like Memphis. But the point is there are seven million. But when you dive deeper into that number, it's estimated that only two million of that seven million need

can be afforded by the market who needs it. So that's interesting to me that there's seven million people needing houses, but five million of those seven million cannot afford what the economy can build today. So where do they get? Yeah. So this is where it gets really fun is as an entrepreneur, I'm sure you've been in these situations before where the math just doesn't math. And it doesn't match up in this very instance. That's why we need innovation. That's why we need openness. Because what we see is the areas we care the most of the areas that our society cares the most about.

Education, health care, housing are the most regulated. Now that's interesting. which then produced the least amount of innovation. Education, housing, and health care is what the people need the most care about, and it is what builds healthy community. That's right, yeah. And it conversely is the most government-regulated stuff there is, which makes getting through it the most difficult.

That's exactly right. And so there's this principle of openness where we need to be open to new ways of solving problems. And again, something like a tiny home in your backyard is one different, way of solving it. That's not going to solve it for everybody, but it's one piece of that equation. You can build a tiny home. It's funny, my parents are actually doing this right now for my grandpa. And it's going to be, you know, 60 grand to build a one-bedroom tiny home and they can, like, all the math works. But you can buy a tiny home on Amazon for as little as $10,000. And again, everything in between. So you can build a very nice home that maybe rents for

$6, $700 a month, which is still a win-win for everybody. versus something less expensive. But what you're also seeing is not only do we need more homes, but another key thing is these homes need to be taken care of. There's a reason why, you know, you had Kevis Harding on the podcast recently from North Wichita, half the homes in his neighborhood are either vacant or boarded up or empty lots. And, you know, more houses are not just the problem.

You actually need them to be taken care of. the best way to help them to be taken care of is local ownership. I was going to say it is not these massive companies buying places and renting them. It's somebody having their own spot. They will take care of that. Yes. That's like economics 101 is like tragedy of the commons. If nobody owns it, nobody takes care of it.

And when there is local ownership, you get even better stewardship because you benefit from, anyway, getting wonky with positive externalities and negative externalities. we can cut this out of the podcast. So interesting. But the idea here is how do we get creative with more people being able to access homeownership? And again, it's going to require innovation. You know, we work with our local habitat for humanity, which is it is the industry leader in helping people become homeowners. They're amazing doing great work. And they help about 15 new people every year become homeowners in Wichita. And it's phenomenal. It's transformational for those families. but 15 per year, it's not enough to solve the problem.

And so we've got investors who are thinking of different ways where you can actually help more people become homeowners at a lower philanthropic cost. I'll share just one example of that. There's this thing called the rich uncle financing approach. All right. Rich uncle, all right? Okay.

And it's actually been picking up steam recently. When somebody covers your down payment for you, it is a game changer. Not only is your mortgage less, but you don't have to pay private mortgage insurance. And basically a 20% assistance buying a home actually leads to 30% lower monthly housing costs. People need to also understand PMI.

Yes. It gets interest tacked on top of it. PMI is so burdensome to a new homeowner. That's right. That's right. So there's these investors who have said, hey, we want to help more people become homeowners. Tell you what, we'll front your 20% down payment for you, all right? But hey, we want this to be sustainable. So what that means is we're going to

own a 20% equity stake in your home. We're going to get our money back in five years, 10 years, 20 years, when you take good care of that home and it appreciates in value, we're going to get our money back. So you don't have to pay us, but when you sell it, we get our 20%. That's exactly right. So again, just like if you were an entrepreneur on Shark Tank, hold it. Don't that, Back to the regulations, I thought that to qualify for a conventional home loan, you couldn't borrow or be lended the down payment because the government sees that as a loan on top of a loan. So somehow they've skirted that little rule. Yeah, I mean, it's not a loan. It's an equity investment, right?

So as you think about how to- That's how. Right? Yeah. So I always just think in terms of- It's a partnership. That's right. That's right.

Yep. So it's financing a new venture. not just through debt, but also through equity. And so then I assume this rich uncle thing, they have legal title to 20% of the value of home. And so then when it sells, they get their 20% plus growth back. And so it makes sense. And then a person who can handle the note but can't come up with the downstroke to get into a house can now get into a house. That's right.

That's right. And then they will take care of it because of the agency you just talked about. Yeah, yeah. That is a great idea. All right, so I get your day job. But tell us about a way you've kind of acted like a member of the Army or normal folks in your personal life. What is student startup? And why did you even get involved in that?

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, this is actually a really great example of the value of podcasts like this. I was watching a bunch of... Besides the obvious. Yeah. Because we're awesome. That's right. That's right.

Just kidding. But you get inspired. It's like, oh, wow, I care about that big problem, too, and somebody did something really creative. Well, let's go try it. That's the whole idea. And so Rodney Smith Jr. was on your podcast recently. He's awesome.

What a guy. What a guy. So we've actually had a friendship for the last boy, five, six years. So Rodney founded an organization called Raising Men and Women Lawn Care. They have something called the 50-yard Challenge, where, again, this idea of they see kids. not as passive consumers, but as contributors. And so kids who mow 50 yards for free for people in need, earn a brand new lawn mower.

That was actually part of my background. When I was in eighth grade, I started a lawn mowing business, and it was just this fun story and had a lot of fun. And I always thought about how running a business actually taught me a whole lot more about success than sitting in business school. And so I wanted to help more people start. start their own business. And we saw what Rodney was doing. And long story short, Rodney's program is our kind of training ground where we take 10, 11, 12-year-olds, and they start their

entrepreneurship journey with service because that's what business is, is it's serving people. Once they mow their 50 yards through Rodney's program, they earn brand new equipment. And then they're in our business coaching program at student startup where we're helping them get customers. How to use that equipment to actually do it. 100%. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been kind of fun. You just started this? Yeah, we started it. Andrea and I did about 10 years ago. How's it going? And it's been great. We've helped three or 400 students start their first business. We do lawn mowing and babysitting and all sorts of stuff. And again, it's a lot of trial and error. And so we saw how well Rodney's program was working. And we were able to add in sort of this local presence where instead of students out there mowing lawns on their own, they were actually able to meet at the church twice a week. Retired guys would give them rides. My sweet mom organizes all the the widows in the community who need free mowing and the, the, the, the 12-year-olds with their business coaches go out and mow for the widows, and then that's their training ground to then

go start their business and make real money later. That's awesome. It's been a blast. That's also simple. So simple. So simple. Anybody can do anywhere. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. Your church has adopted, I don't know how many kids, somewhere between 30 and 50, but specifically, two of those adoption are your own. Yeah. how did someone foster this culture of adoption inside your church, which, by the way, I think every church should be doing? And secondly, how do that work in your own loves? Yeah. So it's cool when you think about just taking what...

And by the way, you are a dadgum do-gooder. I actually think, like, in our community, we're just, we're pretty normal. Like, we're pretty average. Like, everybody is doing what they can, right? Well, so, but we talk about foster care and everything. And Alex is famous for saying, if every single house of worship in the United States adopted one foster kid, yeah. Yeah. That year's foster needs are over. Oh, yeah. I mean, so your church has adopted, what fosters that whole, what happened in your church to make that a thing?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then how's it work for you guys? Yes, as Christians, we have been adopted by Jesus. There's this myth out there that we're all born part of God's family. But when you read the Bible, we're actually born separated from God, and we had to be adopted at great price. God's own son had to die in order for us to be adopted into his family. And so we as Christians, we can't repay God, you know, but we can repay God by loving our neighbor.

And so we get the privilege of being involved in orphan care and foster care and adoption because that's what God has done for us. And we're actually getting the better end of that deal at the end of the day. And so it's been normal in our church to do adoption because of theological reasons. But there's actually been a great, you know, several churches that have done exactly what Alex talks about. Like, we'll just take all the kids in foster care. So there was a church in East Texas, Possentrat.

Oh. Pastor Bishop Martin. Has he really? Yeah. I didn't hear that episode. Yeah. Yeah. But what a guy. He came to Wichita.

You're not the fan you thought you were. Well, I got to turn it up. Yeah, but they did. They said, let's just take all the foster kids. So did you guys adopt babies or foster kids? What you do? Yeah, so this is. Or foster babies, I guess they can be both.

Yeah, so we were really fortunate. Both of our kiddos were healthy, beautiful babies that we got to pick up from the hospital. We've got a great relationship with both of their birth moms. But, you know, we haven't done anything special. Like the real heroes are the folks who adopt seven-year-olds with trauma out of the foster care system. Like, those are the real heroes. There's a special place in heaven. We've had people on the show that do that.

Yeah. And I got to be honest with you. I don't know if I could do that. It takes a really special human being to willingly, knowingly taking a child that's got so much trauma. I don't know what we do without people in our children. community that do that, but I don't know how they do that. That's phenomenal work to me. We'll be right back. Pride is like love. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must

have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists like back in the day pride. Come together, celebrate love. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone or listen now at iHartRadio.ca. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, new? Huge news.

We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a... We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas? guys. I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. We were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this.

We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remember. that guys listen to hey jonas on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast just listen we don't care where you hear it mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith we the unhouse is the podcast that's changing that i'm theo henderson creator and host and for years i've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories.

In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Woody Enhous is a two-time webby and signal award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Whitcher, a street doctor turned in florence, whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weeley &House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is. Getting a racist statue removed.

And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is. Getting a new one put up in its place. As long as there's a politics of race in America, there's going to be a politics of remembering the Civil War. To get to school, I had to go down Robert Lee Boulevard. Get to the grocery store. I had to go down Jefferson Davis Parkway. If you're an historian and you leave out half of what the history is, you're not doing your job. I'm Akila Hughes. In Rebel Spirit, season two goes deep on both of those things. The fights, the politics, the people who won, and my personal campaign to add something to the Kentucky State House that's actually worth the wall space. We are more than our bodies.

We contain essence. We contain spirit. How do you really? represent that. They are just fueling a fire that is really catching. You'll see what I mean. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We had a guest preacher at our church a couple weeks ago, and he reminded us, he just wrote a book called You're Only Human, Right? Like, do what you can, but you're only human. And he's like, when you read the New Testament, there's all these commands about do this and do this and do this. But what we forget is that these commands are given to a community of people who are working together. Right.

And so when we think of- If you can't do the seven-year-old adoption, you can support the person that does. Exactly. Exactly. That's the lesson there. And so, like, the role that we found is, you know, our passion and abilities, you talk about this bill. It's, you know, the area where your passion, your abilities and real needs come in. to play. You know, we've been able to do that for two kiddos of our own, who we've adopted. How old are they now? Six and two. And they are like, they're the best. Girls boys? Six-year-old girl, her name's Belle, two-year-old son named Miles. One of the best things

about adoption, our kids are ridiculously good-looking. And because they don't share our DNA, we can brag about their good looks with no, with no shame. Do you have biological children? We don't. You know, part of our story was infertility, which was, you know, it's hard, right? It is hard. But we wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah. That's phenomenal.

How old are you? 35. You're going to do one more or are you done? You know, I think two kids is what we're called to. We'll see. Maybe that'll change. The only reason I asked. Because you know what the replacement rate is, Joe.

It's because, well, there's a reason. There's a practical reason. Yeah. Because if you were going to do one more, you have to do two. Okay. And the reason is there's almost no way to get a table for five at any restaurant. They're table for four or table for six. Okay.

Have you ever seen a table set for five? No. That's the most weird thing on earth. So really either have two kids or you have four kids. Having three, you might as well just plan on another. Yeah, that's good. So if you do feel called to adopt one, just remember that's a two for one deal. All right.

Yeah, okay. I'm just letting you know over that. No problem. It's practical. I'll tell Andrea, you said two. two kids. It's only, but she heard me. It's only practical. So that's the deal. Well, I want to go back to that, though, so this idea that, you know, communities can solve problems, but we have to have the humility to know when we're winning and when we're losing. So I had an opportunity to speak with

one of these church leaders down Alabama who they just took all the kids. It was this great success story. And I said, hey, you know, we'd love to see something similar to that in Wichita. What are your lessons learned, you know? We're all. we're all flawed. Like, what are your lessons learned? And she said, you know what we learned is that they came in faster than we can pull them out? So we said yes to 500 young people, and they came in faster than we could foster and adopt them. And what we learned was the importance of going upstream.

You know, orphan care is important, but many of these kids are not orphans. They actually have parents who are good parents who, with their right support, could care for their own children. And so as we think about our calling, we're actually pretty excited about that, that moving upstream. And again, it's a both hand. We need foster families. We need adoptive families. But we also need folks to adopt the family. The family, right?

And so we've had just a ton of fun volunteering with care portal, safe families for children, where their situations. What's the name of the organization, Alex, that not long ago, that's exactly what they do is they support. The Foster Village, Memphis. Yes. Same exact. Yeah, yeah. You should talk about safe families for children, though, too, what you guys have done. Yeah, I mean, it is, you know, again, back to our previous conversation, the reason people become homeless is because they run out of not money, but they run out of people. The reason oftentimes that people go into foster care is because they run out of people as well.

There's an isolation and a lack of community. And so what Safe Families for Children does is when a mom or a dad, when they face a heart, hardship, whether they need to go to rehab for 30 days or they're in the hospital for a couple of of weeks. And they don't have a safe place for their kids. They connect them with local churches who will just voluntarily watch their kids for them for a week or a month or three months, whatever is needed, while the parents get back on their feet. Before actually getting systemized by foster care. That's exactly right. And again, you know, I've got a great mentor who sadly, we just lost about a year ago, Dr. William Polite,

good friends with Kevis Harding, grew up in the neighborhood, achieved success, and came back to rebuild the neighborhood he benefited from so much. And he taught me an important lesson. He's like, Joe, all this stuff that stand together is investing in, the new stuff is actually the old stuff. He's like, that's how we used to solve problems. He's like, when I was growing up, there was a ton of poverty, but we were rich in relationships. And so there wasn't a lot of foster care because if a family was in trouble, the matriarch on every corner made sure those kids were taking the new stuff is actually the old stuff. That's right. I love that. But it's true. Yes, yes. And candidly, an army of normal folks is really old stuff. It's just we the people. Yeah,

yeah. I mean, imagine that. Neighbors helping neighbors. God forbid. Imagine not being dependent on somebody who doesn't even know who you are. How about neighbors knowing neighbors? Let's start there. There's some community for you. Back in the day, I remember when I used to run around, and I'm 57, so nine years old. So 45 years ago, holy crap, I can't believe it came out of my mouth. I'm so old. But I'm going to tell you something. If I was screwing around throwing dog poop at somebody's front door or ringing doorbells and leaving or throwing eggs at cars or something, if one of my neighbor's moms saw me doing that, she'd have lit me up. And then she'd have taken to me, to my mom, to get my second help in a butt weapon.

You not only knew your neighbors, you knew your neighbor's kids, and families helped discipline the whole block. That's how it used to be, and I remember that, and that's old stuff. That's just an army and normal folks joining in community to make their communities better. Yeah, that's right. Some of the mention of that in today's world would make some of my kids. kids are idiots. They're 30, 29, 20, and 27. But I hear some of the conversations that go on among their contemporaries. And I'm like, my goodness, what did I do wrong that I didn't teach them better than that? But it is. It's so much of the tried and true tested old stuff about

community that fixes so much what else's. Yeah, yeah. Well, and what's really diabolical is this competing paradigm which says, I pay my taxes, I give to charity, the professionals will solve this problem for me. Oh, that's so bad. And again, these, these, like, everybody has their role. So government and nonprofits, the professionals, they have their role. But the reality is foster care is a situation that just shows you the limitations of top-down systems. That's a really good way to say that. It does. It absolutely highlights the limitations of systems. Yes, that's right. I mean, you think about it. Not that the systems don't matter, but systems alone, without people?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and if you can prevent foster care, again, in Wichita, it's up 50% in the last decade. You know what that means? That means that those kids who actually need foster care are not getting the care they need. Because there's a whole... The systems overrun. The systems overrun.

That's interesting, too. That's right. And so, again, you think about it, you know, if you're somebody who needs help, you're struggling with an addiction, are you going to go call the Department of Children and Families and say, hey, I need some help. Well, no, because you're worried they're going to come smack your kids. Right, right. And so what you do is you suffer in silence versus being able to go to a community solution

and saying like, hey, I'm struggling. And it's like, yeah, aren't we all? But we'd like to help you on this journey. And, hey, what do you need? You need some transportation. You need some housing. You need somebody to watch your kids for a month while you get back on your feet. Again, safety is super important.

But again, those solutions closest to home. are the ones that work best. You have an interesting reflection about spoiled rich kids and your realization that you are a spoiled rich kid. How'd you get there? Well, I'm a little ashamed of this story, actually, but it's true, right? It's a great story.

So I, you know, both my parents are teachers, and just, I just, I had this amazing upbringing. Anytime you can have parents for teachers, you're pretty lucky. But then I went to business school, and I saw some real money. And there's something about the human heart. Let me ask you something.

Coming up with two teachers, did you recognize that that's upper middle or middle class? Yeah. You know. Or you had everything. Life was great. And you thought that was it until your eyes were awakened to, holy moly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably some more of that. You know, Malcolm Gladwell talks about in one of his books that at the time he wrote it, It was something like $70,000 a year was like the optimal income for a family to raise children. So basically you had enough where you didn't lack anything, but you didn't have too much. That's right. That's right. And so I was probably in that. You were there. I was probably in that sweet spot growing up. My parents really believed in the power of Christian education. And so like I grew up. My dad was a fourth grade teacher. So I went to his elementary school,

which was a great experience for me to see people who didn't have all the advantages that I had. But then in middle school and high school, I got to go to a great Christian school. We couldn't afford the tuition. So my dad was the janitor at night and just all of these sacrifices for our family. But, you know, then I went to business school at Wichita State. And there's something about the human heart where we always want what we don't have. Like envy is one of those sins that people don't talk about. But it's a big deal.

So I remember kind of feeling envious of like, I thought people that had money were the doctors and lawyers. And I'm like, I had no idea we had so many doctors and lawyers. our city, you know? And I learned about business and entrepreneurship and wealth creation and all the rest. And I was like, man, I wish I had a trust fund, you know. I remember feeling some of that. And as I reflect back on it, I actually did have a trust fund, like in terms of like social and spiritual deposits. I mean, everybody in my life growing up, there was no fakers. Like people had lots of problems, but they were genuinely trying to do the best they could to follow Jesus and love people. My parents are great examples of that. My aunts, my grandpa, just all these amazing people,

my pastors, my coaches. And so I actually realized that when it comes to what really matters, I was one of those spoiled rich kids. And it's on all of us. If we have a lot, we should be ready to give a lot. And so that's probably a big motivator for what we're doing now. I love that story. I also love the story that you realized, wait, I do have a trust fund. It may not be measured in but look at this group of people around me and everything else. Same realization, a different way to me, happened when I was still whining the blues and feeling sorry for myself over my dad and I'd take an interest to me and my four stepfathers coming and leaving.

And things got a lot better for me when I was woke up and realized, told it I've had a father a whole long, a heavenly father. Amen. Let's go. And so it goes back to those four things that you talked about communities need and the basics. And your one three-seven thing. All of that forms up what it is going to take for the vast majority of us to reach the American dream. And if you don't care about it from an idealistic standpoint, there's a pragmatic part to it.

That is, as productive members of society, we need to make sure the 137 of these four things exist for people who may not have them so that they become contributors to this greater community that we need to build. Yeah, yeah. Well, I love the way you put that bill because this work, it's not people who have giving charity to those who don't have. when we think about it in terms of human dignity and empowerment, it's actually all of us who are missing out on their contributions. That's true. That's so true. If we can get more people contributing, everybody benefits.

And again, back to just very pragmatic. If communities can't solve problems bottom up, we will fall victim to top-down systems. We will lose our freedom. We will lose our agency. And we will lose our ability to solve problems. So there is an inflection point in this country, where whether it's the socialist left or the populist right,

most people see our big problems and they say, holy smokes, these big problems require big solutions, typically control-focused solutions. That doesn't work. It doesn't lead to human flourishing. But if we can't show a better way, our American experiment might be at risk, right? And it's ours.

That's right. So who better to fix it? That's right. That's right. All right. these dadgum things that Alex streamed up, these social clubs. Yeah.

Service clubs. Whatever they're called. Service clubs. We got one in Memphis. Alex got one in Oxford. There's one in Atlanta. There's one at some place I can't pronounce New York. But there's also one in Wichdoll.

That's right. And I think you or people that are with you have been instrumental. Tell me about how, tell me about how the service club in Wichdall is doing, what they're doing because it's so fresh. I mean, how long have these things been open, Alex? Like two months, but I think what's also interesting is, like, what role does it play in your strategy, too, John? And then, once you explain all that, I was going to say, and let's talk about the role

not only the Wichita ones, but the six we have, and I assume we're thinking more down the road, what role they play in the big picture. That's right. That's right. Well, let's start with what problem we're solving here. only about one in three Americans. One of them is Alex didn't have enough to do. So we saw that.

Can we just brag on Alex for a little bit? Not really. I thought we had a good thing going. We didn't have a good thing going. And then Alex has turned it up like crazy. But since you're from Kansas, you need to understand he is like Oz. Just pull the curtain and let him pull some levers back there. And that's it right over there.

There it is. And I'm like Dorothy, having to figure out what's going on behind the curtain half the time. he's a rock star. He is. And I think everybody knows his tongue in cheek when I poke fun at him. The guy has,

I mean, this whole thing was his idea. That's right. That's right. I'm along for the ride with him. So it's his passion. But go for the clubs about Wichdall,

kind of just let our listeners know how it's worked and how it's evolved in the last two months. And then under the greater concept of what it, the others we have, and hopefully ones we add,

fit with a whole army normal folks, stand-together thing. What's the big goal here? Yeah. Let's do that. Well, the reality is that people want to help. People want to contribute. There's some research that shows only one and three Americans are contributing to their

communities at the level they want to contribute to. So as an entrepreneur, you see, wow, that's a big opportunity. There is unmet demand here. People want to help. The problem is they don't know where to start. And at the same time, engagement in churches, the Rotary Club, the Moose Lodge, all the... At the same time, there's two-thirds of people

to say they want to engage more than they are, but at the same time, participation in all of those things as a historic loss. Yeah, is it the Moose Lodge or the Elks? Somebody, I don't know. It's something with some bunch of guys that get together wear fake antlers and do good stuff. That's right.

And then you've got the lions and all these different animals. Do you get the tigers, the bears? Oh, my. Yeah, I mean, a lot of these institutions I just saw an interesting kind of riff on the Boy Scouts, the YMCA. You know, a hundred years ago, we were at this inflection point where people said, like, is the American Dream attainable? That was when the American Dream idea came about.

It was the Great Depression. That was 100 years ago. Yeah, it hasn't been that long. Everybody gets exercised about a day. It's one of those questions. We will always ask ourselves. We actually did a shop talk on where you're about to go and do that. Yeah, but go.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing is, you know, a lot. of the same issues we're facing today. We faced 100 years ago. And the reason why we've had this golden age of the kind of American flourishing. And again, we got a lot of problems, but is because social entrepreneurs stepped up. They built community, whether it was the Rotary Club or the YMCA or the Boy Scouts or whatever it was, people forming community and solving problems. We have a similar opportunity today, but it's going to require more innovation. So when we think about service clubs, it's solving the problems of people wanting to help and not knowing where to start.

People who want to make a real difference and not knowing where to start. Especially when two-thirds of us say we want to and don't know how. That's right. That's right. And, you know, there's a lot of disillusionment and like what stuff really works. And I did this one thing, but it didn't really seem to work. And so it didn't fit my own passions. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And it goes back to all the stuff we've talked about. When we design one-size-fits-all solutions, It doesn't fit people. We'll be right back. You feel it in your heart. IR. Radio, Canada's number one streaming app for radio and podcasts, including IHart Pride Canada, your favorite hits and must have party bangers, plus personalized and curated playlists, like back in the day pride.

Come together, celebrate. Take pride with you anytime, anywhere. Just ask your smart speaker to play IHart Pride Canada. Stream us on your phone. Listen now at iHeartRadio.ca. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, name?

Huge news. We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The Un-House is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host. And for years, I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed Un-House parents.

immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Whedian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Gio Wichor. A street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Wiedley-Lowsehound. on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Keith Gianmanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea?

It seemed very crazy, but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No. I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man.

This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality, is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think of the Rotary Club. And I've spoken to Rotary Clubs all over the place,

and I think the Rotary Club is an amazing club, and they've worked hard on engagement, but their numbers are dropping. But I think it was in the 80s that the Rotary Club internationally said, we're going to cure childhood polio. And they raised money, and awareness, and all of these clubs, all of the, and by and large, if you look at the metrics of

when the Rotary Club decided as a group of a million people strong, they were going to fix polio, guess what? They did. They did. And that's a beautiful thing. But here's the thing. What if I want to do something in my community, and I really don't want to fix polio? Yeah, yeah. What do I do at the Rotary Club? And I'm not dissing the Rotary Club. I'm just saying, it is interesting that there's this large pool of people who want to do stuff don't have to get engaged, but so many of the things that we have to get engaged on are so singular in purpose that that doesn't match your passion, then you're unlikely to join it.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So let's lean in there, right? So maybe polio is not your jam, but maybe it's foster care or affordable housing or just in general. You want to see your neighbors flourishing. You want to see people live in their best life. it's impossible to do that alone. It requires community. And so the first thing is you can join the service club, and now you have a tribe of people that are working together towards shared principles to see people flourish.

So joining the service club is super low barrier. It takes nothing to join, right? But there's opportunities to give a ton. And so the first thing is, to your point, there's a service concierge. Locally, we've got Trey Hightower, who is just running circles around that, where he'll say,

Tell me what you're passionate about. What are your gifts? What are your passions? We've done a lot of vetting and curating where your gifts and passions can solve real problems in Wichita. And we know where and who. That's exactly right. And we can match you up. That's exactly right.

And some of these are programmatic solutions, like becoming a CASA to mentor and walk with a youth who's in the foster care system. Others are like what Andrea and I do with safe families for children or helping kids start lawnmowing businesses. but others actually need more innovation. So things like transportation solutions and healthy food, we're going to have people starting urban gardens and giving people's rides to work. And so a lot of these, the service clubs, are actually innovating solutions that don't yet exist yet.

So it starts with the service concieres. Let's find your unique way to contribute. There's also Army Activations, which are monthly or bi-monthly service opportunities where you can kind of get your hands dirty, building community because the way you build relationships is by serving together. So whether it's a bed build with sleep and heavenly peace, one of my favorites. One of the best.

Whether it's a bike build or a home build with Habitat for Humanity or Bike Walk Wichita, whether it is, there's a great program locally called the I Belong Project, which helps young people get adopted. And they make these really cool videos where kids tell their stories. And when kids are able to tell their stories on video, there's so many families who say like, oh, that kid, like we have a connection. I'd love to adopt that kid. Joe, you know he's going to sit in your seat tomorrow?

Who's that? The founder of America's Kids Belong. No way. That's incredible. That's incredible. Okay. Anyway, keep going. Yeah, so you've got things like the I belong project.

So you've got most of the group service things are either building things or it's building relationships. Those are typically the two ways those go. But then the third way after the individual service opportunities through the service concierge or the service. the group service opportunities through the Army activations. Also, a lot of these things do take money. And there's a lot of people out there that have a lot of money in a very little time.

And so you can give as little as $10 a month or much more than that. And then as a team, as a service club, you can actually pool your resources together and make really transformational investments in local nonprofit. So whether it's time, talent, treasure, ANF makes it easy for you to get in the game and start contributing. How's it going to Wichita after two months? Yeah, I mean, I think we're close to 100 members just off of a couple months going. And it is just like, people want this. Have you all had an activation yet?

Yes, we did a bed build just recently with Sleep and Heavenly Peace. How many beds did you build? They did a delivery. Yeah. Oh, you get deliveries. Yeah. I got it. But they build them on the delivery, too.

Is that right? Is that like they put them together? Okay. Oh, yeah. They put them together on the, yeah. Shows how much I know about construction. Yeah, but it's cool. Yeah, yeah.

It's amazing. And what's also cool about that is, It's typically going to be a group of people who before that didn't really know each other. That's right. Building that dreaded community work. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, across lines of difference.

So different politics, race, religious beliefs. When people are working together, you just don't care about that. That's right. It just doesn't matter anymore. So it's interesting. Some would say actually the work you do matters a lot less than the actual community that's built. We think they both matter a lot, you know. But yeah, so with these services.

clubs, what's fun is at the local level, you can see how all these pieces fit together. So sleep and heavenly peace, they're building beds for, but they've actually got a distribution problem locally where the beds they're building, they have a hard time connecting them to the people who really need the beds the most. And so that's where care portal comes in. I just got a message on Friday before I left for the week where somebody said, hey, I noticed, this is one of our army members who said, hey, I was on care portal at my church. And I noticed somebody was asking for a bed. And I know sleep in heavenly pieces building beds. How do we get those two things connected?

And those are the things that were in the works, but seeing them like come together at the local level is really fun. And it doesn't happen without a community of people that know each other. That's right. That's right. 100%. The other thing I'd say is

these problems are really big, right? Again, 1,500 kids in foster care. You know, 60,000 people battling addiction in Wichita. You know, we're short 25,000 homes of affordable housing in our city. you know, only 25% of third graders can read, right? These are big, big, big, big challenges. We believe that through the scale of Army of Normal folks,

like imagine hitting 20% of Wichita's. That'd be about 100,000 people. People say, boy, we don't have like, the only thing big enough is some top-down system, I would beg to differ. Community is way bigger. And if we can reach scale through something like A&F, we might be able to see some of these problems

really move the needle. It's incredible that three years ago we started a talk show podcast, and we're having these conversations now. It's amazing, and it's not about the show. It's about all the people listening and participating in this show. If any normal person who listened to us right now, I wanted to replicate what you guys are doing in Wichita, how would they start that? Yeah.

Well, Alex, what's the process for starting a new chapter? Well, you're going to normal folks out of us, and there's a start a club page there. We got six, right, Alex? And is there a stated goal amongst you smart people yet? I'm hoping around six more this year. This year? We've got to take it slow, yeah. Before the end of 2026?

We'll see. Wow, that would be interesting. You do have some people reaching out in some communities that are, yeah, But anybody listening to us right now, if they want to reach out to Alex and they think this is something they want to do in their community, Alex, he gets four or five hours of sleep right now. He can get down to three, four. He'll be fine.

That's right. That's accurate. The amount of sleep is accurate. Sure. And then locally, anybody listening in Wichita, can go to ANF, Wichita. That's right to ask. And sign up right away. We need more.

What do you do? You go to what? Yeah, ANFWichita. dot org army of normal folks which dot a nfichita a nfichita.org you can sign up right there you can join a giving circle for as little as 10 bucks a month or you can skip that sign up for one of our service opportunities and there's some real practical ways like we have the in my backyard button ready so somebody can say hey i'm ready to solve homelessness through my own backyard like you can sign up there they'll walk you through the process there's opportunities to help kids in foster

care their families um at a neighborhood level they're doing a bunch of neighborhood cleanups. And so there's a lot of ways to get involved. And then even if you're not in a place that has one of these clubs, start doing it. Yeah, if you don't have a club, yes, start doing it. I mean, care portals in 30 states, there's some version of safe families for children with local, respite, foster care alternatives. There are things like this in every community. The Phoenix Gym is something that's been incredibly impactful on the issue of addiction. and folks can hop on the Phoenix app and start local chapters of that. There's just the possibilities are endless.

Is there the other thing that you two guys started 10 years ago? Oh, yeah, yeah. So if somebody wants to go to student startup.org and help kids start businesses, 100%. And what's fun about that is you can become a mentor and help a kid start a business or you can become a volunteer. But honestly, what we've found is who are the best mentors. Well, first of all, parents are the best mentors. mentors. And so the kids that we've helped start businesses that have strong family support is

number one. But the second is actually customers. Customers are some of the best mentors and coaches. You know, we've helped a lot of these different families. I think about a couple who we met, who were experiencing homelessness, 20 and 21. She had aged out of foster care. They already had two kids and they were literally sleeping outside. That fits the demographic. That's right. Unfortunately, sadly. You know, when you're working locally, these aren't just stats. These are real people. Like all these issues we're talking about like faces come to mind. And so all the family homeless shelters were full. And so we got a call for, say, families for children. It was like, hey, this couple's hanging out at the YMCA. They're sleeping in the park. Their kids are about

to go into foster care if somebody doesn't step up. The family shelters are full. When needs somebody to watch their kids for them for a couple of weeks while they get their own housing. And Sweet Andrea, the hero of this story, she says, yeah, so we watch their kids until they got their own place, which they're in now, which is great. But more importantly, building a relationship with this couple. And the dad in particular, we've done a lot of these, say, families' hostings over the years. And there's not typically dads involved. In this one there was. There was a connection there.

And as we got to know him better, he needed some money to get his ID, to get a job and get a ride to work and all the rest. And if you were probably to ask him what has been the most helpful, it's probably been us just paying him 40 bucks to mow our lawn, which is something anybody can do. What are those things that you're paying somebody else for today? How do you hire somebody and give them an opportunity? That's one of the things we're trying to build a student startup as a gig board where it makes that easier, where folks can say, hey, here's a job that I could use done. What are some youth in the community or people rebuilding their lives who would like to have a chance at this? And then you can see their bids and say yes or no.

But the simplest things of, again, back to the Army of Normal folks, it's take what you have, do what you can. You know, hire and somebody to mow your lawn or clean your house or, you know, whatever it is. It's funny how those are the things that are actually the most transformative. How long did you have to watch your kids? Well, it's been a couple different times. The first time we watched them was for two weeks, and they were able to get their own housing, so it was great. But then we get calls from time to time,

not even through the agency. We just get calls from them. So we'll watch the kid for a couple days. Just, you know, it's like that's what all of us do. Like our grandparents are watching our kids right now. It's all right. So like the said, they've probably run out of people, not having met you yet.

So you watch them for two weeks, maybe. You weren't toxic in your charity, so you did just give them money, but you gave them opportunities to get money to get his license. And they do have a home now and their children are with them. They have their own apartment. They were two weeks of watching your children and a few bucks for cutting a yard away from their children being in foster care and their lives falling apart. That's right. That's how close it was. But that's how little it took for them not to be that.

that should paint the picture of how the two-thirds of people who are looking for something to do and engage in community in art can. That's right. And if you have an army of normal folks, service club, connecting people with opportunities like that, you can change your communities. That's right. That's kind of the wrap-up story. And of all we've talked about, that little snippet right there says so much to me.

Yeah. phenomenal. Joe, Andrea, thanks so much for taking eight hours to drive to Memphis. I hope you enjoyed a little snippet of our fair town. And thanks so much for taking time to share so much of your personal story, your professional story, and the story of stand-together, which I guess today is the reveal that is what we're all a part of now. That's right. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for leading the way here. I appreciate it. And thank you for joining us this week. If Joe has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by starting something in your own community,

focusing on the seven conditions for human flourishing, empowerment, going upstream, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfokes.us. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends and on social. Subscribe to the podcast. Rate it, review it. Join the Army at normalfolks. us. Join or start one of our local service clubs.

Any and all of these things will help us grow. An Army of Normal Folks. Last. Go to merch. Get a hat. Get a T-shirt. Get a sweatshirt. Represent an Army of Normal Folks.

When you're walking around, people are going to look at it and say, hey, what's that? And then you get to tell them about it, which also helps us grow an Army of Normal Folks. Do any and all this stuff, y'all. Help us grow. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can. Leads of records sold out tours. You think that Jonas Brothers are satisfied?

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