Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Bill Corney with an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: And we continue now with part two of our conversation
Speaker 1: with Ben Collier and Owen Do back right after these
Speaker 1: brief messages from our general sponsors. As I'm listening to you,
Speaker 1: you're gaining a valuable lesson and ego, selfishness, business, and
Speaker 1: the reality of the world. Because there's a guy named
Speaker 1: zig Ziggler. You won't know his name. Maybe you do, anyway,
Speaker 1: back in the day, he was one of these motivational
Speaker 1: speech speakers, one of the greatest ever. If you look
Speaker 1: up his eighties tapes and you listen to him, they'll
Speaker 1: be dated, but they're full of wonderful, dead bits of information.
Speaker 1: One of the things he said was you always share
Speaker 1: your go up your give up goals with everyone. You
Speaker 1: share your go up goals with no one. And what
Speaker 1: he meant by that was, if you're gonna quit drinking,
Speaker 1: or you're gonna quit smoking, or you're gonna quit somebody,
Speaker 1: that's a give up goal, tell everybody, because the minute
Speaker 1: that person sees you take a sip of beer or
Speaker 1: a drag off a cigarette, they'll be sure to remind you, Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought you said you were going to quit smoking.
Speaker 1: I knew you couldn't do it. You use human nature
Speaker 1: for your benefit, but your go up goals, you share
Speaker 1: those with no ones. If your go up goals are
Speaker 1: I want two year stap this promotion, I want two
Speaker 1: year stap this organization to be here. If you share
Speaker 1: those go up goals with everybody, the same human nature
Speaker 1: that helps you in your give up, they will help
Speaker 1: bring you down because they will be like, I don't
Speaker 1: want you doing that because that may tread on what
Speaker 1: I want to do. You see what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: his deal was share your give up goals with everybody,
Speaker 1: share your go up goals with nobody. And it is
Speaker 1: a it's actually a sobering look at the reality of
Speaker 1: much of the way humans interact with each other. But
Speaker 1: it's also I wouldn't say any lesson is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent true, But you get the thirty thousand foot view
Speaker 1: of what zeg Zigler's saying. I think you were experiencing that.
Speaker 2: I think our optimism at the time would have disagreed
Speaker 2: with that, because in a world where hey, we want
Speaker 2: to be the most successful AI company, that means we
Speaker 2: want to do that at the expense of everyone else.
Speaker 2: We want to take all that market share in a
Speaker 2: world where the goal is to see everybody who is
Speaker 2: struggling with hunger fed, and every organization in this industry
Speaker 2: has that goal as their north star. We felt that
Speaker 2: there would be something different, and by and large, that
Speaker 2: is something that people individually feel, but the actions and
Speaker 2: the structures that were being built contradicted it.
Speaker 1: And you guys were very punny about to upset the
Speaker 1: apple cart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and that I think that became our goal.
Speaker 2: And we had this weird stubbornness that came from conversations
Speaker 2: like that Cucumber conversation where we thought, we're going to
Speaker 2: make them work with us. You know, we're gonna make
Speaker 2: these guys collaborate because we don't see a path to
Speaker 2: actually changing this system if all of these different organizations
Speaker 2: that stand to benefit from working together choose to. And
Speaker 2: so it's this weird thing where we almost want to.
Speaker 2: I can picture like my parents sitting me and my
Speaker 2: twin brother down and being like, you guys are gonna
Speaker 2: love each other, and it's like that's such a weird way,
Speaker 2: but that's kind of what we've we felt and continue
Speaker 2: to feel. I know you're gonna work together. So it
Speaker 2: feels a contradictory in nature, but it's something that needed
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: So a month then you get hit in the face
Speaker 1: with the cucumber usual or as you get dunked on.
Speaker 2: I did not say we got in the face of
Speaker 2: the quo.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got donked on. I did say that. So
Speaker 1: where do you go from there?
Speaker 2: LinkedIn? That's when we started recruiting. We thought, all right,
Speaker 2: now we have this first summer of the pandemic. No
Speaker 2: college student that we knew was still going to do
Speaker 2: what they were planning to do that summer, So let's
Speaker 2: give them all a chance to be a part of this,
Speaker 2: or as many as we can. And I think within
Speaker 2: two months now Farmlink has gone from an idea to
Speaker 2: something that over two hundred students are now working on
Speaker 2: from around the Lost Country and even beyond everywhere.
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another great thing of the ABC World News tonight's segment
Speaker 3: was all these kids reached out and were like, I
Speaker 3: want to work on this. I'm not in school right now,
Speaker 3: I'm not so.
Speaker 1: Are they reaching you through your website?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a website with an email on it. So
Speaker 3: everyone was sending an email. And you know, if you
Speaker 3: see the film the documentary, Joe in that film was
Speaker 3: one of those people who reached out. And yeah, our
Speaker 3: zoom chat of ten people went to two hundred and
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, like to open every like meeting,
Speaker 3: everyone singing together and dancing and like that community that
Speaker 3: we were all missing before it's starting to come together.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget one of the calls, someone's grandparents started
Speaker 3: singing sea shanties like something you'd saying on like a
Speaker 3: ship in the seventeen hundred.
Speaker 4: To open the call, and everyone was like energized.
Speaker 1: So so fired up.
Speaker 4: So fired up.
Speaker 3: And then and then we like dive into business and
Speaker 3: move like one hundred thousand pounds of food.
Speaker 4: It was, it was crazy.
Speaker 1: So I was in that first year, we want to
Speaker 1: move a million pounds of food, right, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 1: you'd already moved what fifty or sixty thousand pounds of potatoes,
Speaker 1: onions and eggs, right.
Speaker 3: So by that point where we're already at the point
Speaker 3: where we're coming towards like i'd say, like two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty thousand pounds of food or something like that.
Speaker 1: Which we wanted. If that was the end of it.
Speaker 1: That would already have been a phenomenal thing.
Speaker 4: That's what we thought start.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we still thought it was maybe a summer project
Speaker 3: act or something like that. There was no impetus that
Speaker 3: there's no like. It was not supposed to be an organization.
Speaker 3: And reflecting on it now, I'm so grateful that we
Speaker 3: used one hundred percent of that money towards transportation. No
Speaker 3: one was like, I want to be paid, I'm working
Speaker 3: hard on this. That was not it at all. Everyone
Speaker 3: had shared ownership, whether you were person number one to
Speaker 3: enter or a person two hundred, this was all of
Speaker 3: our project, and this belonged to all of us, and
Speaker 3: that proved very.
Speaker 1: Important, which is interesting, shameless plug. My paramount belief is
Speaker 1: the only thing that's going to fix all the things
Speaker 1: that alis is when an army of normal folks come together,
Speaker 1: see the area need and fill it. Yeah, And in
Speaker 1: a microcosm of that thirty thousand and fift view, that
Speaker 1: is exactly what was going on three months in y'all's existence.
Speaker 1: Because now you have this army of two hundred kids
Speaker 1: across the country, restless wanted to be part of something good,
Speaker 1: and if it had been as deal. Great.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the same with you know, your football team.
Speaker 3: It doesn't revolve around one person that everyone's catering towards.
Speaker 3: Everyone has an equal part in the season and needs
Speaker 3: to work together.
Speaker 1: So that's what y'all are doing. And and your goal
Speaker 1: was a million pounds, right.
Speaker 2: Well, initially, no, you're not you're not wrong. That was
Speaker 2: like we thought, if we move a million pounds of food,
Speaker 2: that'd be pretty special. And I think a month after
Speaker 2: we had that initial conversation, I remember talking to Aiden
Speaker 2: and we're like, well, that was quicker than we thought.
Speaker 1: And you want to do it a year, You did
Speaker 1: it in a month.
Speaker 2: And so we were just setting goals as quickly as
Speaker 2: we could break them in a weird way. And so
Speaker 2: I think we then made our goal, all right, this summer,
Speaker 2: let's move ten million pounds of food and see what happens.
Speaker 2: And I think going back to what you guys were
Speaker 2: just addressing what we didn't realize would drive this was
Speaker 2: the community. And we were all stripped of that right
Speaker 2: when the pandemic began and suddenly no one I had
Speaker 2: never had a pen pal. Do you ever become friends
Speaker 2: with someone before the pandemic that you'd never met in person.
Speaker 2: I hadn't something. We had a hundred faces that I
Speaker 2: felt like I really knew, and I was getting to
Speaker 2: know beyond just the food that we were moving and
Speaker 2: the farmers we were calling. And that was what made
Speaker 2: this feel like something that really had the longevity to
Speaker 2: go further and further and further. And so that summer
Speaker 2: was just so fast. We had this partnership with Uber
Speaker 2: Freight where they gave us free transportation on anything we
Speaker 2: moved with them. And it's like an uber say, it
Speaker 2: needs to go from point A to point B, needs
Speaker 2: to be this kind of truck at this temperature.
Speaker 1: There's a thing called uber Freight.
Speaker 2: There is, and we didn't know about it, but either
Speaker 2: it gave us the space and a million dollars of
Speaker 2: free transportation to figure it out because we were not
Speaker 2: the most efficient at moving food at that time, but
Speaker 2: we were contacting everybody, and so that for a summer,
Speaker 2: because of that transportation buffer, or that ability to be
Speaker 2: a little bit less efficient than we otherwise are now,
Speaker 2: we learned so much. And I think in that first
Speaker 2: year it was all about just doing with the best
Speaker 2: intent of supporting everybody in mind and going back to
Speaker 2: that piece I said earlier. We really wanted to make
Speaker 2: it so that we could work with everybody. Our philosophy is,
Speaker 2: if we're not as additive as possible to farmers and
Speaker 2: to food banks and communities that we're serving, we're not
Speaker 2: going to actually work in this in between space that
Speaker 2: we think we need to be. And so that's where
Speaker 2: we pivoted as much as we needed to in that
Speaker 2: first year to make sure what we were doing was
Speaker 2: as supportive as possible.
Speaker 1: But then kids start going back to school, and therefore
Speaker 1: your massive network of people have all this time to
Speaker 1: give and the restlessness, they don't have that time anymore.
Speaker 1: So now you got to pivot again, don't you.
Speaker 2: So we're looking at the end of the summer of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, we're about five months into farming. We moved
Speaker 2: ten million pounds of food ten million and five months.
Speaker 2: Let's just stop and maritate on that for a minute.
Speaker 2: Ten million pounds of food and five months for a
Speaker 2: bunch of kids who start off in a U haul
Speaker 2: picking up some eggs, I mean, that's really what we're
Speaker 2: talking about. And a network of two hundred and fifty kids, yep,
Speaker 2: and how much money raised at that point, I think
Speaker 2: we were looking at it over a million dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay, in five months. Yeah, let me just say this
Speaker 1: real quick to everyone listening. These are college kids who
Speaker 1: don't know jack about nothing. One of them just graduated
Speaker 1: college and was learning storytelling. Another was laid up from
Speaker 1: a leg injury. And all these kids get together because
Speaker 1: they see a line of people in Pittsburgh running out
Speaker 1: of food and they're seeing other stories about food going
Speaker 1: to waste, and say, how can we put the two together?
Speaker 1: And they end up getting a U haul picking up
Speaker 1: some eggs, and in five months you've got about a
Speaker 1: million dollars of donations. You've been on the New York Times,
Speaker 1: you've been on World News tonight, and you've moved ten
Speaker 1: million pounds. Well, when you put it like that, food,
Speaker 1: well that's where we are. It's the end of the story.
Speaker 1: So if you're sitting around right now, I want to
Speaker 1: remind you that the two adages I say all the
Speaker 1: time is the only thing that's going to fix this
Speaker 1: country is when an army of normal folks decide to
Speaker 1: bond together, rise up and say the narratives out of
Speaker 1: the national press are set to divide us the narratives
Speaker 1: out of DC are set to a divide us. And
Speaker 1: the things that are really going to fix us is
Speaker 1: when an army of normal folks look themselves in the
Speaker 1: mirror and say, I'm going to announce those narratives that
Speaker 1: are dividing us, and I'm going to join together with
Speaker 1: people and say hey, I can help. And the second
Speaker 1: thing is the magic happens when passion and discipline meet opportunity.
Speaker 1: When you have a passion and an ability to do
Speaker 1: something and you see an opportunity and you match those
Speaker 1: things together, magic happens. And these two guys are such
Speaker 1: beautiful examples of that. You had a passion and ability
Speaker 1: and storytelling. And if you weren't able to tell stories,
Speaker 1: you're never on world news tonight. You don't get your
Speaker 1: first one hundred and fifty thousand dollars your mother instilled.
Speaker 1: I don't want to take away from who you are,
Speaker 1: but there's no way your mother did instill you a
Speaker 1: passion for people. All that can go to her. It's true,
Speaker 1: and you saw an opportunity and as passion and opportunity
Speaker 1: and discipline collided in only five months, these goofy, dumb
Speaker 1: college kids who don't really know what the hell they're doing.
Speaker 1: Have moved ten million pounds of food to food banks
Speaker 1: to fill the gap of hunger during COVID, have raised
Speaker 1: a million dollars and still really don't know what they
Speaker 1: have on their hands.
Speaker 3: No. I remember there was a day where twelve people
Speaker 3: were all writing on post it post it note, it's
Speaker 3: what do you think we're doing here? Who do you
Speaker 3: think we're helping? And where should we go? And it
Speaker 3: was really still that arbitrary. It was like we did
Speaker 3: not one hundred percent know where we fit into the
Speaker 3: terrible food system.
Speaker 1: And a lot and what I said to echo what
Speaker 1: I said one more time is kids are also going
Speaker 1: to start going back to school soon. You're actually going
Speaker 1: to be in class. And so this massive network of
Speaker 1: restless kids with free time that want to do something.
Speaker 1: Their hearts may still be in the right place, but
Speaker 1: pragmatism says they're going back to class. So you have
Speaker 1: to kind of pivot at this point, don't you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in August, so five months in we
Speaker 2: look up and I remember having a conversation with you
Speaker 2: guys where we say, if we don't get so many
Speaker 2: more kids on board to help us do this. This
Speaker 2: is just going to go away in a month when
Speaker 2: people do have to go back to class. Now, it's
Speaker 2: worth noting that first school year of the pandemic, so
Speaker 2: that September through the following spring, all class was still online.
Speaker 2: And so I'll share my personal position. I'd finished my
Speaker 2: degree requirements. I was taking online classes that my parents
Speaker 2: wouldn't love hearing this. It was kind of a joke.
Speaker 2: And you didn't have the community that students looked to
Speaker 2: get from classes, and so Farmlink could still provide that.
Speaker 2: And so for that first school year that carried us
Speaker 2: into the second year, a whole year really from September
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty five months into the pandemic until May
Speaker 2: of the following year. We still can't that's a whole
Speaker 2: year two slash yep. That we're now a year in
Speaker 2: a Farmlink. We could still every few months go out
Speaker 2: get another hundred students that were so passionate to be
Speaker 2: a part of farm I could help build that community.
Speaker 2: I mean, by the end of that first year of
Speaker 2: farm Link, over four hundred students had been a part
Speaker 2: of the farm Link project, and the community I think
Speaker 2: at that point was still only growing and becoming stronger.
Speaker 2: That next September, a year and a half into Farmlink.
Speaker 2: That was that transition you were really talking about, and
Speaker 2: that was really tricky.
Speaker 1: Hes tell us how you did it.
Speaker 2: Well, we're a year into Farmlink. We've moved thirty million
Speaker 2: pounds of food. It's unbelievable. And this is fresh produce.
Speaker 2: It's stuff that is hard to come by outside of
Speaker 2: a pandemic. Food banks still all going to food banks,
Speaker 2: and no food bank is paying for it. And that's
Speaker 2: when students are going back to in person classes. I
Speaker 2: just graduated, Ohen, You're trying to survive in LA. You
Speaker 2: have your balance of making money outside of Farmlank trying
Speaker 2: to still support farm Link. And this is when we
Speaker 2: made the really difficult decision. If we don't pay somebody
Speaker 2: to do this full time, we're really concerned about the
Speaker 2: accountability of this project to keep growing in the way
Speaker 2: that we think it can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, farm Link is now a five ZHO one S
Speaker 1: three in a rural organization. It actually needs an executive director.
Speaker 2: It needed that and it needed We knew that the
Speaker 2: culture and the community energy was always going to be
Speaker 2: able to come from these young students, but there was
Speaker 2: experience that we could benefit so much from. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're cold calling thousands of farmers a week. We could
Speaker 2: bring on one of the right people who just knows
Speaker 2: all of these farmers and he can call them up
Speaker 2: and speak their language and get the same amount of
Speaker 2: food that thirty students spending thirty hours a week could do.
Speaker 2: And so I graduated at that point, and Aiden and
Speaker 2: I started working on this full time, and the full
Speaker 2: time team began to grow from there.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: And then we brought on Luis Yepis, who was the
Speaker 3: first real adult who came into this space.
Speaker 1: And he's the Mexican dude. Yeah, yes, yeah, he is Mexican.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a big opera singer.
Speaker 1: He's a Mexican singer.
Speaker 4: He isn't a punk band.
Speaker 2: He's incredible.
Speaker 1: Well, let's just step back. Yeah, yeah, he's a Mexican
Speaker 1: opera singer who is in a punk band, who of
Speaker 1: course fits perfectly with Farmlink from a rural.
Speaker 2: Native American community in northern Mexico, who spent his entire
Speaker 2: life as both a rebel and someone working so hard
Speaker 2: to take care of other people.
Speaker 3: And the way he describes it is that he has
Speaker 3: been the crazy guy shouting in the corner his entire
Speaker 3: life that we need to rescue all this food, we
Speaker 3: need to collaborate, and no one has ever listened to him.
Speaker 5: How did the two of you hook up with Luis?
Speaker 5: Yeahs Luis was working. I could let Ben and tell
Speaker 5: it in a second. But Louis was work moving surplus
Speaker 5: food in Los Angeles, an organization called Food Forward that
Speaker 5: he was help growing, and we were partners with them.
Speaker 5: So we were moving food with Louise, and I was
Speaker 5: getting videos in because we were asking for storytelling and
Speaker 5: if anyone went to the delivery, just take a footo
Speaker 5: on your iPhone and here's this guy crying on camera
Speaker 5: about you know, we need to get food today to people.
Speaker 5: And he was so passionate, and I think there was
Speaker 5: a sense that, you know, the crazy ideas that he
Speaker 5: had dreamt of, they were possible at Farmlanke.
Speaker 2: You know, you talk about a volunteer. He didn't work
Speaker 2: at Food Forward when he started, and he woke up
Speaker 2: at four am every day for years to go to
Speaker 2: the La wholesale markets build relationships with the vendors that
Speaker 2: were selling food to restaurants and grocery stores and built
Speaker 2: a pipeline of food donations between them and Food Forward
Speaker 2: that now recovers forty million pounds of food a year unpaid.
Speaker 4: He was a volunteer, and he did.
Speaker 2: Not have the resources to really dedicate himself in this
Speaker 2: way if it wasn't something that was his source of life.
Speaker 2: And I think that's something you can probably resonate pretty
Speaker 2: strong with. But Luis called us around that time and said,
Speaker 2: I want to do this. I want to do what
Speaker 2: I've been doing, I want to do it at a
Speaker 2: national scale, and I think you guys are the tip
Speaker 2: of the arrow that can really make progress here. And
Speaker 2: so Luise joins us in September a year and a
Speaker 2: half into farm Link and immediately brings with him, you know,
Speaker 2: the ability to connect with tens of millions of pounds
Speaker 2: of food that we maybe would have one day reached,
Speaker 2: but he knew exactly where to go find out.
Speaker 1: He's the antithesis the cucumber people.
Speaker 2: He is the antithesis of the que That's a great
Speaker 2: way to put it. And I think what we even
Speaker 2: had to train into Louise was he'd spent so long
Speaker 2: being rejected by these institutions within food banking. He almost
Speaker 2: was like screw will do it without them, And so
Speaker 2: I had to sit with Louise for months to get
Speaker 2: him to even be open to collaborating once again, because
Speaker 2: not to his discredit, he'd been so turned they turned
Speaker 2: their back on him so consistently they he almost had
Speaker 2: given up on this idea that we could work with everybody,
Speaker 2: and he met all the Cucumber people exactly, and now
Speaker 2: he's at a place where he's opened back up to it.
Speaker 2: I think that that optimism has been reinstilled in him.
Speaker 2: But it's a good example of how someone who's so
Speaker 2: well intentioned can even be driven away from that spirit
Speaker 2: of collaboration, just because it's so difficult to hold hold
Speaker 2: yourself accountable to that level of optimism.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know you all a thousand eggs,
Speaker 1: a sheet, a Mexican opera singer. You can't make this up, right.
Speaker 4: That's why we made a film. It's never going to
Speaker 4: happen again.
Speaker 2: And you know Owen's film, It doesn't even really tell you.
Speaker 3: The film is called Abundance. If you look up Abundance
Speaker 3: farm link, you can see it on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Right, which I watched again today in preparation of you guys,
Speaker 1: it's really really well done and I'm not doing your
Speaker 1: story the credit that the film does. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: piece it together for our listeners. But I hope you
Speaker 1: all will go watch Abundance. I think it was a
Speaker 1: It had a Moniker on. It was some film festival.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just won Best Documentary at Sun Valley Film
Speaker 3: Festival and we won mon Talk Film Festival as well.
Speaker 1: This congratulations, man, I know that is that. I know
Speaker 1: you don't make films to win awards. The awards verify
Speaker 1: the good work that you do, So congratulations on that.
Speaker 1: So take me from the Mexican Opera singer today.
Speaker 2: Well, that first year was really difficult from a cultural
Speaker 2: community the week right, Yeah, because I'm here with Aiden,
Speaker 2: with James Seer.
Speaker 1: I mean I was.
Speaker 2: I had moved to Los Angeles after graduating, and we
Speaker 2: have a few people that are being paid that cannot
Speaker 2: provide the level of accountability to someone like Luis or Emma,
Speaker 2: our new director of development, and these folks that came
Speaker 2: from real workplaces where you expect a level of accountability
Speaker 2: from your teammates, and at the same time we couldn't
Speaker 2: provide All of these college students are peers and contemporaries
Speaker 2: and friends the level of involvement and leadership that they'd
Speaker 2: once had, not just because we had a full time team,
Speaker 2: but because now their communities were opening back up again.
Speaker 2: They couldn't work thirty hours a week, they could work five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was trying to get in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so that first school year was really tough,
Speaker 2: and you had a lot of our teammates that have
Speaker 2: been around since the start that just came to the
Speaker 2: conclusion that it was their time to go and focus
Speaker 2: on other things because Farmlink couldn't be what it was
Speaker 2: for them in that first year. That's not anyone's fault.
Speaker 2: And it was really painful because you'd see people burn
Speaker 2: out and move on. But fortunately that's the reality of
Speaker 2: philanthropy though, of course. And thankfully what you'd see is
Speaker 2: they'd burn out, there'd be a period that was really tough,
Speaker 2: and then the second they were gone, they'd immediately look
Speaker 2: back on Farmlink with love and it felt like immediately
Speaker 2: it was water under the bridge. And so once we
Speaker 2: got through that first year, it felt like, all right,
Speaker 2: the last two and a half years, we've really been
Speaker 2: building this team, building something special, and.
Speaker 3: Now it's a mix between the college students who you
Speaker 3: see in the film building this all up and industry
Speaker 3: professionals who have left some of the biggest nonprofits in
Speaker 3: the country to work on this. And that hybrid model
Speaker 3: has worked really well because you still have that imagination
Speaker 3: and that rebelliousness of young people, and you have older
Speaker 3: people who have these really strong connections and systems and
Speaker 3: mechanisms to move all this food.
Speaker 1: So, Ben, did you take some of those people jumping
Speaker 1: ship because of the reality of their burnout and that
Speaker 1: they had a life now that they had to pursue
Speaker 1: because we were returning to normalcy? Did you take that personally?
Speaker 2: I didn't take it personally. I knew that it had
Speaker 2: to happen, and at the same time, it was deeply
Speaker 2: saddening and painful to watch. And I think I've always
Speaker 2: been lucky to be able to look far enough ahead
Speaker 2: at things to see why some of the more difficult
Speaker 2: things are worth it. But it doesn't make it any
Speaker 2: easier to go through it. And especially when these aren't
Speaker 2: just colleagues, they are now some of my closest friends.
Speaker 2: That balance is so difficult because they're decisions that I
Speaker 2: know we need to make and I know they're going
Speaker 2: to hurt my friends.
Speaker 1: You said you learned a lot about what the true
Speaker 1: definition of community was during the pandemic days. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 2: I felt we could give people a sense of purpose
Speaker 2: along with that sense of belonging, and that created something
Speaker 2: that was more powerful than anything I've ever been a
Speaker 2: part of. I remember in the end of our first year,
Speaker 2: we would do these seasonal ceremonies where often there are
Speaker 2: a lot of people moving on, we'd take a moment
Speaker 2: and we would have a session that we would just
Speaker 2: open up. We'd call it thank Yous, and it would
Speaker 2: just be a space where anyone could unmute and give
Speaker 2: a shout out, a thank you, a moment of recognition
Speaker 2: to anyone else. And they would always start pretty slowly,
Speaker 2: and within five minutes you'd have people just completely opening
Speaker 2: themselves up. And I'm not someone who cries very often.
Speaker 2: We suddenly are on zoom. People are in one hundred
Speaker 2: different place around the country, and half of them are
Speaker 2: just bawling. And I will share one story you referenced Joe.
Speaker 2: Joe is this teammate of ours who joined us in
Speaker 2: the summer. I don't think any of us had really
Speaker 2: met him in person. He was so bubbly and positive,
Speaker 2: and anything you asked him to do, he'd be like, sure, man,
Speaker 2: I'm happy to can do. Guess so positive to the
Speaker 2: point where you're like, I can't believe how optimistic he is.
Speaker 2: And he gets on this zoom and he says, hey,
Speaker 2: I haven't talked about this with a lot of you guys,
Speaker 2: but a couple of weeks before, a couple weeks before
Speaker 2: I joined farm Link, my dad passed away from COVID.
Speaker 2: Even now, I can feel my heart like pounding, and
Speaker 2: I'm not someone who cries that often, especially in front
Speaker 2: of other people. And on Zoom, I'm falling in front
Speaker 2: of a hundred people and I can't I can barely speak,
Speaker 2: And I still felt so okay being there with them
Speaker 2: and being that kind of vulnerable, And I think that
Speaker 2: it was such a sign. And Joe wasn't the only
Speaker 2: one sharing stories. You had all these people were saying
Speaker 2: I was so confused, so lost, so upset, so to proud,
Speaker 2: and this has given me something. And we're not even
Speaker 2: at this point, we're not even talking yet about the
Speaker 2: impact that this is having on the lives of people
Speaker 2: receiving the food. We're just looking at these peers and colleagues,
Speaker 2: and I think that was that feeling of community that
Speaker 2: was so strong from all of these places around the country.
Speaker 1: When you did the pivot, what you learn about leadership.
Speaker 2: I learned that we have to help people see why
Speaker 2: the work they're doing matters and ladders up to a
Speaker 2: north Star goal. Because I could tell you with confidence
Speaker 2: we have twenty one full time employees. I could tell
Speaker 2: you how every single one of them is doing something
Speaker 2: that if they weren't there, it would destabilize what we're doing.
Speaker 2: And I know there are times where that is lost
Speaker 2: for people, and that's when burnout and confusion and frustrated,
Speaker 2: that's when it occurs. And I think my biggest job
Speaker 2: for farm Link is as much as possible helping people
Speaker 2: see that connection. And there are sometimes where we'll have
Speaker 2: a gap where nobody has the ability to problem solve
Speaker 2: in an area, and that's when it falls on my plate.
Speaker 2: And so along with helping people see this is your
Speaker 2: biggest responsibility, the other thing that I think is my
Speaker 2: job at farm Link is saying, Okay, this is a
Speaker 2: gap that no one's position to fill. And I sure
Speaker 2: as hell shouldn't be doing it. That's when we need
Speaker 2: to bring on someone else. And so it's just finding
Speaker 2: your position, helping people see their role, and then helping
Speaker 2: the team grow.
Speaker 1: At the right time, we'll be right back. It's your
Speaker 1: greatest lesson of documenting and being involved, but also documenting
Speaker 1: and telling the story.
Speaker 4: I think it's.
Speaker 3: It's how strong of a motivator hope is versus dwelling
Speaker 3: on the negative, dwelling on the problem. I think I
Speaker 3: had grown up with nonprofit storytelling being show people how
Speaker 3: bad it really is, and you know, yeah, Syrian crisis.
Speaker 3: There's actually a really interesting New York Times article on
Speaker 3: why the Syrian refugee crisis raised didn't raise very much
Speaker 3: money proportionally to other major world crises. It's because the storytelling.
Speaker 3: In many ways, it's because the storytelling did not provide
Speaker 3: a pathway for hope. If you see a kid whose
Speaker 3: house has just been bombed and they're covered in soot,
Speaker 3: and that those are the visuals that you're seeing, it
Speaker 3: is good to communicate the truth. You need to know
Speaker 3: what's going on, But someone who wants to help does
Speaker 3: not think they can if you can tell a story
Speaker 3: going from the rubble to being in a more stable
Speaker 3: place where you have educational materials and access to teachers
Speaker 3: and more resources. And the donations are creating that pipeline,
Speaker 3: and you can see that that will rally people, that
Speaker 3: will get people to actually drive change. And we saw
Speaker 3: the same thing with Farmlink. When we post videos, if
Speaker 3: we lead with the problem in the first minute, people
Speaker 3: stop listening after five seconds. People do not want to
Speaker 3: hear how bad the problem is. If you lead with
Speaker 3: some sort of teaser leaving the door open that hey,
Speaker 3: there's something we can do here and we can do
Speaker 3: it together, people watch until the end and I had never.
Speaker 1: And get involved, either financially or individually.
Speaker 4: And get involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And similar to what Ben said, if you give
Speaker 3: people purpose, they will it will become a part of
Speaker 3: their identity. It's more than a job, it's more than
Speaker 3: a hobby. It's you know, it's a real it's a
Speaker 3: real passion. Like I dedicated seventy or eighty hours a
Speaker 3: week for a while to this. That's everything, Like you're
Speaker 3: eating while you're working and you're doing something like that.
Speaker 3: And it's because it's because we tied our identities to it.
Speaker 1: Something just about every guest will say after speaking with them,
Speaker 1: is the payoff is regardless of how much you work,
Speaker 1: or how many hours you put in, or how much
Speaker 1: effort bud sweat and tears in it, you get exponentially
Speaker 1: more out of the experience than you ever put into it.
Speaker 1: And I hear your growth. How do you know, twenty five,
Speaker 1: you're a twenty five year old kid who has maybe
Speaker 1: a better take on community and leadership than many forty
Speaker 1: and fifty year old people I've ever been around as
Speaker 1: because you had to create it and grow it and
Speaker 1: live it. And you're a dude who graduated starving as
Speaker 1: a storyteller, who took what you learned working with some
Speaker 1: guys doing a story in Syria and have created I
Speaker 1: assume your first real project that is now winning awards
Speaker 1: as a result of the work you put in and
Speaker 1: inn that the payoff to all of it is you
Speaker 1: get exponentially more out of it than you put into it,
Speaker 1: all the while motivating, encouraging, giving people hope, and feeding
Speaker 1: the hungry. Yeah, I mean, you're too young for that
Speaker 1: to be the pinnacle. You got more to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but guys, it's been amazing, And I will say
Speaker 3: there's one moment where the payoff feels so much greater
Speaker 3: than anything else. It's when we're at a distribution. The
Speaker 3: truck gets delivered, there's a pile of food as high
Speaker 3: as you can imagine, and then throughout the course of
Speaker 3: the day, it all disappears.
Speaker 4: It all like you see.
Speaker 3: Every with your hands, you hand, like every family like
Speaker 3: passes through, receives that food and it's all gone. Like,
Speaker 3: I honestly do not feel an ounce of happiness when
Speaker 3: we win an award or do a screening. I honestly
Speaker 3: get kind of anxious when I have to speak or
Speaker 3: I have to go on stage. That part is like
Speaker 3: a necessary evil of promoting what we're doing. But it's
Speaker 3: the distributions where it's like that is the real payoff,
Speaker 3: like like we did something, we built something that helped
Speaker 3: make this happen in collaboration with our partners.
Speaker 1: So tell me, yeah, how many pounds As of to
Speaker 1: day you goofy kids have delivered.
Speaker 2: Over two hundred million pounds of fresh and healthy food
Speaker 2: and a few truckloads of ice cream when it's been donated.
Speaker 1: To us, Farmley, it's ice cream. The ice cream guy.
Speaker 2: We're not prescriptive about what communities should have access to.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna focus on the stuff the toughest to get,
Speaker 2: which is the fresh and healthy food. So if someone
Speaker 2: calls and says blue Bunny will call and say we
Speaker 2: have a chocolate of ice cream, sure that's gonna make
Speaker 2: people more happy than the radishes we got. But we
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: I will take beaucoup ice cream over a bushel of
Speaker 1: radishes for any day a week. So, and you have
Speaker 1: twenty one full time show.
Speaker 2: Employees, We've had over seven hundred students and young change
Speaker 2: makers a part of the farm Link project since twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and I just want to agree with what Owen just
Speaker 2: said about being there in person. I didn't hold a
Speaker 2: piece of food that farm Linked had helped rescue in
Speaker 2: my hands for a year and a half, and there
Speaker 2: were miles.
Speaker 1: It was all virtual, all virtual.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't I couldn't even walk for that first year.
Speaker 2: I wasn't anywhere near a distribution. And by the time
Speaker 2: I finally saw, I started crying too, because there were
Speaker 2: moments where I thought, man, this is what we're doing.
Speaker 4: It's great.
Speaker 2: We've moved fifteen million pounds of food. I've seen nothing
Speaker 2: that validates that I'm not just losing my mind in
Speaker 2: my bedroom right now, and so actually being there and
Speaker 2: seeing the impact, that's why we do all of this.
Speaker 1: And Uh, what's what's a what's a what's a family
Speaker 1: driving through a food bank? Whatever stuck through their window?
Speaker 1: What does that look like? Is that a box? And
Speaker 1: what's in it? You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 4: It depends, Yeah, it depends.
Speaker 1: Give me a.
Speaker 3: So one of our food distribution in Navajo Nation, there's
Speaker 3: one where you know, you'll receive a box of mixed produce.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's lettuce, tomatoes, apples, onions, oranges, everything. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: then you'll also receive some non perishables, so a box
Speaker 3: of what's.
Speaker 2: In the pasta cans, canned goods, et cetera. We're not
Speaker 2: we're We're a part of that. And that's where farm
Speaker 2: Link needs to be seen. Alongside the thousands of other
Speaker 2: organizations in this space. We could get we could get
Speaker 2: more fresh produced to every single community in this country.
Speaker 2: They're still going to need support with grains and non
Speaker 2: perishables and dairy, et cetera. And so it is a
Speaker 2: box of all of that. I think something that's worth
Speaker 2: saying is it needs to be so much better still,
Speaker 2: and how can it be? Well, I think there's the
Speaker 2: food access piece and then there's the social stigma piece.
Speaker 2: I'll start with the food access piece. We believe Farmlink
Speaker 2: has a confident understanding of how we can direct billions
Speaker 2: of servings of fresh produce to communities around the country
Speaker 2: with consistency. And that's so exciting that He's always that
Speaker 2: you believe you've got that distribution and network now. And
Speaker 2: that's the story we're trying to tell over the next
Speaker 2: six months with Owen's next project, and it is that's
Speaker 2: a hard thing to figure out, but that's made to
Speaker 2: seem impossible.
Speaker 1: It's not. But the other view got it. I mean,
Speaker 1: are you able to do that? Yeah, with all confidence
Speaker 1: you can do that.
Speaker 2: I will say, with all confidence, we want to do that.
Speaker 2: So what's next? So what's next is the social stigma piece.
Speaker 2: Fifty percent of people that are food and secure and
Speaker 2: know where the local food pantry is will still not
Speaker 2: go largely because of the social stigma associated with that choice.
Speaker 2: I mean, you guys, they you look at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the pandemic, there are millions of people that are
Speaker 2: food and secure for the first time, in their lives,
Speaker 2: and if you're lucky enough to have never needed to
Speaker 2: go to a food pantry, you think, well, that's for them,
Speaker 2: that's not for me. That us versus them divide is
Speaker 2: what creates that stigma to begin with. And a parallel
Speaker 2: we talk about all the time is that used to
Speaker 2: exist with water. It used to be if you could
Speaker 2: afford to drink filtered water, you would buy it, and
Speaker 2: if you had to, you drink that public well water.
Speaker 2: And that was especially when water was a leading cause
Speaker 2: of non war death. It wasn't as safe, but then
Speaker 2: it got safe, and there was still that stigma, and
Speaker 2: over decades, huge investments were made in normalizing clean, safe,
Speaker 2: and dignified drinking water. And by and large, now whether
Speaker 2: you drink for free from a water fountain or a
Speaker 2: bottle of Fiji water, now their experience is more dignified
Speaker 2: than the other. And we're nowhere near that being the
Speaker 2: case with food, despite how necessary it is. And so
Speaker 2: a lot of people talk about the end goal being
Speaker 2: no one needs food banks, and I think that is
Speaker 2: a reasonable end goal. But another thing we talk about
Speaker 2: is what about a world where food is so ubiquitous that,
Speaker 2: like water, you can be in an airport and an
Speaker 2: afterschool program wherever it is, if you need food, there
Speaker 2: will be food there, and you're still buying food. But
Speaker 2: there is that there's not that divide where the concept
Speaker 2: of food assistance and food access are just blending together.
Speaker 2: That piece comes from one improving the actual quality of
Speaker 2: food assistance, but then challenging why people see food like
Speaker 2: that to begin with. And I think storytelling is at
Speaker 2: the center of how we can even make that possible.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about as I'm listening to you, I
Speaker 1: have a friend named John Wilfon. John played basketball for
Speaker 1: the University of Memphis back in the day when we
Speaker 1: used to go to the final four and lead eight
Speaker 1: all the time. I bet you remember John will Fong.
Speaker 1: That's the other producer shaking us said, yeah, a stroke,
Speaker 1: bro cun it up. He and actually his son, and
Speaker 1: he started coaching for literacy, which is I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a coach on a sideline, they've
Speaker 1: got a little green ribbon. Hell. And it all started
Speaker 1: from finding out that if you're not reading by grade
Speaker 1: level by I think third grade, that the data shows
Speaker 1: that an exponentially higher percentage of people who don't read
Speaker 1: by grade level by third grade, will end up in poverty,
Speaker 1: in jail, dead and all of that, Okay, And so
Speaker 1: their goal is to work with the schools and communities
Speaker 1: and families and get kids grade level reading about third grade.
Speaker 1: Because if you are reading the antithesis on the other
Speaker 1: side of that is, if you are reading about third grade,
Speaker 1: your trajectory has all kinds of positive possibilities. But if
Speaker 1: kids aren't read bedtime stories, and if they are not
Speaker 1: sung lullabies and they hear nothing but noise as infants
Speaker 1: and small children instead of educational stuff, they're probably not
Speaker 1: going to read about third grade level. But if they
Speaker 1: are read bedtime stories and books, so there, that's that
Speaker 1: I also can't help think about when I'm hearing you say, okay,
Speaker 1: we can distribute food, but now we got to work
Speaker 1: on this social impact to the stigma, which I get
Speaker 1: it because I've driven down streets and seen lines of
Speaker 1: cars of people waiting for boxes of food at food banks.
Speaker 1: And in Memphis, it's a lot of churches that do it,
Speaker 1: and there are people who drive by them and look
Speaker 1: down their nose at those folks, and you know, those
Speaker 1: folks are faced with do I feel like a second
Speaker 1: class that is in or drive feed my children. And
Speaker 1: we need to get over ourselves a little bit when
Speaker 1: we think about the people in those lines and whatever
Speaker 1: struggles led them to themselves that their food and secure
Speaker 1: and the ability to get food. And I think you're right.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is this, I think there's an
Speaker 1: entire other social impact that should be communicated, which is,
Speaker 1: how does a hungry kid learn to read? If reading
Speaker 1: on third grade level is so paramount to the success
Speaker 1: of your entire life, then so must be hunger. Because
Speaker 1: a hungry kid can't learn in school well, a hungry
Speaker 1: kid can't be happy, a hungry kid does not sleep well,
Speaker 1: and a hungry kid is not going to And a
Speaker 1: parent with hungry kid, it's not going to be thinking
Speaker 1: about Lola Bajah bedtime stories. They're going to be thinking
Speaker 1: about how do I get food in my baby? So
Speaker 1: there's not only the social stigma about receiving food, there's
Speaker 1: also a social impact on people who are hungry.
Speaker 4: Totally.
Speaker 1: We will be right back.
Speaker 4: We've already told our own story.
Speaker 3: It's time to tell the story of the people that
Speaker 3: we're working with who are serving and.
Speaker 1: On the rational side, where we got the distribution down.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to work on the social impact side.
Speaker 1: On the storytelling side, You've told one story, Yep, what's
Speaker 1: next for you?
Speaker 4: It's time to tell the next.
Speaker 3: There are a bunch of things that are next, but
Speaker 3: along that point it's I think the traditional non profit
Speaker 3: will take a single portrait photo of a kid who's
Speaker 3: hungry and say, this kid is hungry, please help them.
Speaker 3: And I think what we see in your story and Undefeated,
Speaker 3: it's seeing character transformation that is powerful, that moves people,
Speaker 3: that inspires people. So telling a story about a kid
Speaker 3: who's growing up without food who all of a sudden
Speaker 3: has that access point and their grades go from c's
Speaker 3: to a'spike that you know, that is the thing that
Speaker 3: unlocked that.
Speaker 4: That was the barrier.
Speaker 3: I could not imagine going to school on an empty stomach.
Speaker 3: I couldn't imagine being you know, I think there are
Speaker 3: teachers out there who are paying for materials for their
Speaker 3: students instead of getting meals themselves.
Speaker 1: All over the inner cities, doing that all over. Those
Speaker 1: stories are not well paid people.
Speaker 4: No, No, those stories need to be told.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget being in Dallas, Texas, in a community
Speaker 3: that had an eighty percent food and security rate.
Speaker 4: Almost the entire community did.
Speaker 1: Eighty percent of the kids in this district were food
Speaker 1: and secure.
Speaker 3: Eighty percent of the people. And you see not in Dallas,
Speaker 3: but in this community of Dallas. And you know, you
Speaker 3: see it in the documentary. It's Karen Belknap, who's a
Speaker 3: teacher who's telling the story about a student who you know,
Speaker 3: over Thanksgiving break, that student didn't eat for six days
Speaker 3: and on the Tuesday that they got back from school,
Speaker 3: the student passed out and for lack of nutrition from
Speaker 3: malnutrition and luckily was okay. But that's you know, that's
Speaker 3: a moment where everyone in the whole theater.
Speaker 1: Is the one break she has that she gets no
Speaker 1: food is Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4: Thanksgiving for food.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why we always make an effor we do
Speaker 3: a huge push during Thanksgiving to make sure like millions
Speaker 3: of people have food.
Speaker 4: That's really important to us.
Speaker 3: But that day, I was working in the parking lot
Speaker 3: for the whole day, you know, just like pushing carts
Speaker 3: making sure they all got back. And at lung I
Speaker 3: saw six nurses line up in line at the food
Speaker 3: bank altogether. This was their one hour lunch break and
Speaker 3: they had to spend it waiting in line at the
Speaker 3: food bank, and it's ours nurses, and it's COVID right now,
Speaker 3: And you would think these are the people in our
Speaker 3: society that we are valuing the most.
Speaker 4: We're saving eros, they're saving.
Speaker 3: People's lives during a national crisis, and here they are
Speaker 3: needing food assistance because they're not paid enough or they're
Speaker 3: not receiving enough support during the pandemic. And that made
Speaker 3: me realize there's so many perspectives that are not shared
Speaker 3: here that I think that I think are important and
Speaker 3: I think can be embedded in stories that motivate people
Speaker 3: who can actually change things here.
Speaker 1: So the next action is to positively affect and try
Speaker 1: to erase the stigma, and the next storytelling is going
Speaker 1: to be all about those perspectives, and I guess try
Speaker 1: to for a helpful view of how to raise the stigmas.
Speaker 1: Am I missing that?
Speaker 3: I think that, well, it starts with who are the
Speaker 3: people who can actually change things here?
Speaker 4: I think in a big way.
Speaker 3: The first place to start is every community leader in
Speaker 3: the country, every person who runs a food bank or
Speaker 3: a church organization that gives out food. We can tell
Speaker 3: a story that hosts like a single screening or a
Speaker 3: series of screenings around the country where we get eyeballs
Speaker 3: on every single person who's in that position, and if
Speaker 3: they see that story and unlock something for them, that's like, Hey,
Speaker 3: we've been doing this the same way for thirty years.
Speaker 3: We can make this slight tweak and hey we have
Speaker 3: a more dignified experience. I mean, it can be simple.
Speaker 3: As you know, this isn't just a food bank, but
Speaker 3: we're also doing live music and all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: it's not just a place to receive food assistance. It's
Speaker 3: community center where everyone goes and you're not segregating the
Speaker 3: population between you know, you can afford food, You can
Speaker 3: afford food.
Speaker 4: This is just where the community comes.
Speaker 3: And I think if we targe the right people, like
Speaker 3: I'm not afraid to spend a year and a half
Speaker 3: on a film that only two thousand people see, if
Speaker 3: it means those two thousand people are going to make
Speaker 3: more of a difference.
Speaker 1: Than Oh my yes is born two thousand people see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have something to tell you. It's an interesting again,
Speaker 1: as I'm listening to you, this is the South Church
Speaker 1: is a big thing here still and probably will remain so.
Speaker 1: One of the things we've talked about in the last
Speaker 1: decade is Sunday is probably the most segregated day in
Speaker 1: the United States. When an actuality, if faith is active
Speaker 1: in your life, it should be the most desegregated day.
Speaker 1: And my faith, Christianity, has done itself quite a disservice
Speaker 1: of the last five decades allowing that truth to happen,
Speaker 1: and there is a stigma around my faith as a
Speaker 1: result of that. And I hear you talking about the
Speaker 1: stigma of food banks and needing food and all of that.
Speaker 1: I hear you talk about the storytelling, and it is
Speaker 1: interesting that when we're talking about food, that should not
Speaker 1: be a political it should not be as segregating, it
Speaker 1: should not be a divisive topic. But in fact, when
Speaker 1: you talk about lunches, free lunches, and you talk about
Speaker 1: free breakfasts and schools, and you talk about government food assistance,
Speaker 1: it actually is incredibly political and incredibly has the potential
Speaker 1: to be incredibly divisive when it really should not be.
Speaker 1: And I think your guys, a studentess about how to
Speaker 1: remove that stigma goes a long way toward not only
Speaker 1: solving hunger, but maybe some things that have had us
Speaker 1: as well, I hope.
Speaker 2: So I think what we're doing can be as bipartisan
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 1: Or good beating hungry people not right.
Speaker 2: Well, I've had some real angry calls and up saying
Speaker 2: it should, but I think it just let's just make people,
Speaker 2: make sure people look at this through the right lens,
Speaker 2: you know, because we're supporting farmers, we're feeding families. Anyone
Speaker 2: who shows up should be able to be supported by
Speaker 2: what we're doing. And so I think that we will
Speaker 2: always try and in the same way that I talked
Speaker 2: about from the first month. We've got to be able
Speaker 2: to collaborate with everybody. We got to be able to
Speaker 2: support everybody. It needs to be that level of inclusive
Speaker 2: and collaborative for this to truly work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we saw this.
Speaker 3: We world premiered the documentary in the Capitol Building in
Speaker 3: front of Congress, and the months leading up to it
Speaker 3: is you can't use that word when you're talking about
Speaker 3: hunger because then none of the Republicans will come. You
Speaker 3: can't use that word around climate because no Democrats will come.
Speaker 3: And it Yeah, we learned very quickly. It's a very
Speaker 3: political issue. But I think we can storytell in a
Speaker 3: way that rallies everyone.
Speaker 1: Gus keep doing what you're doing, break down those walls,
Speaker 1: because that's when you transition things like hunger and stigma
Speaker 1: into cultural change, which my generation has completely screwed up.
Speaker 1: And I have all the hope that the world guys
Speaker 1: in your generation can fix for us. I'm encouraged by
Speaker 1: your story. It's phenomenal. If somebody wants to support you,
Speaker 1: hear more about it, get involved. What do they do well?
Speaker 2: I would say, first of all, we've talked about it
Speaker 2: all day, but this film Abundance, the farm Link story
Speaker 2: is on YouTube and that'd be a great place to start,
Speaker 2: and we call it Abundance for this The entire purpose
Speaker 2: of this conversation is to acknowledge there is more than
Speaker 2: enough food up there. There is the opportunity for us
Speaker 2: to collaborate so much more.
Speaker 1: We could be the whole world.
Speaker 2: We grow enough food to feed the entire planet one
Speaker 2: and a half times over, and so that's done a
Speaker 2: way forty percent of all the food we grow.
Speaker 1: That's been unbelievable when you see the late night commercials
Speaker 1: of the starving kids with the flies buzzing around their heads.
Speaker 1: Knowing that we make enough food to feed one and
Speaker 1: a half times the world population as it is today.
Speaker 1: Sure makes sense that we how to figure out the logistics.
Speaker 2: Well, and it actually makes this problem seem a lot
Speaker 2: more solvable. That's why we want to start by acknowledging
Speaker 2: there is an abundance of food. It's a matter of
Speaker 2: logistics and collaboration to get it to the right people
Speaker 2: at the right time. And so go watch that film
Speaker 2: and if you can share it with and you want
Speaker 2: to put it up on YouTube, right.
Speaker 3: And pull it up on YouTube. It's twenty one minutes long.
Speaker 3: Share it with your friends.
Speaker 1: And face watch share it with every body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've said this and it's really worked. If everyone
Speaker 2: thought of one person in their life that they think
Speaker 2: would most be able to connect with or support or
Speaker 2: help amplify this story, just share it with that one
Speaker 2: person that's been a huge catalyst for our growth, and
Speaker 2: how can they reach us?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you go to farmlink project dot org,
Speaker 3: there are a few ways you can get involved. Everyone
Speaker 3: has a different way that they can help, so feel
Speaker 3: free to email us directly. If you have a kid
Speaker 3: who's in high school or college, you can still volunteer
Speaker 3: in the ways that you heard of in this podcast
Speaker 3: and help move millions of pounds of food. If you
Speaker 3: work for a company that donates to nonprofits, that's been
Speaker 3: a great way people have gotten involved.
Speaker 1: And if you're an individuals, yeah, and we're growing at
Speaker 1: the rate weekend fundraise right now.
Speaker 2: The food is there and we know where it is.
Speaker 2: And so for every dollar we fundraise, we're able to
Speaker 2: move over twenty pounds of food to communities face and hunger,
Speaker 2: and it's at zero pounds per dollar, and it's at
Speaker 2: zero costs to those community organizations that are working so
Speaker 2: hard to support each other.
Speaker 1: And there is that what you said, twenty pounds per dollar. Yep,
Speaker 1: you're telling me a hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Gets two thousand pounds of food a ton of food.
Speaker 1: Literally one hundred bucks for a ton of food. That's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, thank you. So that's how they reach out.
Speaker 1: So I'm hearing, you know, all politics is local, so
Speaker 1: I guess alf of philanthropy may be local too. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm hearing all this, and I'm you know,
Speaker 1: in Memphis, there are churches, and there's Maifa, and there
Speaker 1: is the Memphis Food Bank. And I can't help, but
Speaker 1: they you know, what could happen in my town, and
Speaker 1: other people listening are probably thinking what could happen in
Speaker 1: their town, What can a local food bank, and what
Speaker 1: can a city like Memphis do to improve the amount
Speaker 1: of food they have and their service.
Speaker 2: I will speak for all of the nonprofits, the local
Speaker 2: organizations that are doing everything they can. Ask them, ask
Speaker 2: them what they need, and really listen, because if you're
Speaker 2: the food bank, ask those community partners what they really
Speaker 2: need need. They might need the food bank to evolve
Speaker 2: in certain ways to better support them, and if that
Speaker 2: food bank can really listen, it's going to create change.
Speaker 2: We hear so often how community level organizations actually struggle
Speaker 2: to connect with each other and with their food bank partners, etc.
Speaker 2: And so if you're in that world, talk to each
Speaker 2: other and really see how you can stretch each other's
Speaker 2: resources further, because you're always going to be greater than
Speaker 2: the sum of your parts when you're working together. And
Speaker 2: if you're an individual that's looking to support them, don't
Speaker 2: assume that you know exactly what's best, because those people
Speaker 2: are doing everything they can to support their community. If
Speaker 2: you ask them really earnestly and give them the space
Speaker 2: to be heard, I'll tell you as someone who's running
Speaker 2: a nonprofit. That's all I've ever wanted from our community
Speaker 2: and our supporters, and that's the thing that I think
Speaker 2: can help us grow the quickest and the most effectively.
Speaker 1: When you hear that, listeners, please remember that one of
Speaker 1: the most valuable life lessons I've received top five in
Speaker 1: my life, came from a nineteen year old kid that
Speaker 1: played football for me in the hood. You can reference
Speaker 1: a Turkey person's story if you want to know what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. So when you hear this twenty five
Speaker 1: year old kid give you that bit of advice, it's okay,
Speaker 1: there's a twenty five year old kids, you need to
Speaker 1: listen because that is profoundly true what you just said,
Speaker 1: and it resonates with me picked on. I hope people
Speaker 1: listen to you, guys. When I first heard the story
Speaker 1: owned in Nashville at the Do Good Or conference, I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't wait to talk more about this,
Speaker 1: And you guys have not disappointed and your uplifting and inspiring.
Speaker 1: The work you've done is amazing and it's not bad
Speaker 1: for a couple of idiots in college with a U
Speaker 1: haul and a sheet going to pick up eleven thousand
Speaker 1: eggs doing fifteen miles an hour and the four h five.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you. I bet you got flipped off and
Speaker 1: honked out the whole way.
Speaker 4: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And we didn't even talk about the other trucks I
Speaker 3: crashed into a tree, parking and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: So for another time, listen.
Speaker 1: There's a certain amount of navita that also makes things
Speaker 1: like this happen, and I think you guys have proven that. Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming to Memphis. Thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: your story. You guys are normal kids who've done extraordinary things,
Speaker 1: and yet just another example of members of the army
Speaker 1: of normal folks making enormous change in our community. And
Speaker 1: guys like you make me hopeful that we can fix
Speaker 1: what else is. So thanks for being here.
Speaker 4: Thanks coach, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: You inspire us too, and thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: this week. If Ben an Owen or other guests have
Speaker 1: inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action
Speaker 1: by volunteering with the Farm League project, by donating to them,
Speaker 1: or something else entirely, please let me know. I really
Speaker 1: want to hear about it. You can write me anytime
Speaker 1: at Bill at Normalfolks dot us, and I promise you
Speaker 1: I will respond. And if you enjoyed this episode, please
Speaker 1: do us a favor. Share it with friends that are
Speaker 1: on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it.
Speaker 1: Become a premium member at normalfolks dot org us all
Speaker 1: these things that will help us grow an army of
Speaker 1: normal folks. The bigger the army, the bigger the impact.
Speaker 1: I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.