An Army of Normal Folks - Jim and Melinda Hollandsworth: When Dropping Off Christmas Presents Felt Yucky (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

When Jim and Melinda brought presents to a low-income family, they felt off and weird that the relationship would stop there. So they kept coming back to their largely immigrant mobile home park and families asked them to help their kids with homework. Today, their accidental nonprofit Path United operates community centers in 7 mobile home parks and serves 600 kids every week!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Jim and Melinda Hollingsworth right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you I'm John Legend listen to afghan star on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast Snakes zombies sharks heights Speaking in public the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall

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Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. It led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say I wish he was dead.

He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart podcasts.

It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult one life lesson at a time. And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you. So let's figure this stuff out together.

This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership. We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account. And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party? All that plus so much more. Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Grown Up Stuff. Our iHeartRadio music festival presented by Capital One. Coming back to Las Vegas. September 20th and 21st. Streaming live only on Hulu. Don't miss.

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and you hear shots ring out and you're hungry and everybody 16 and older is around you. It's not in school and is involved in all kinds of nefarious activities where stealing drugs are not, they're not working, hanging around doing whatever. When you finally do get to school and are not shot or mugged or beaten before you get there, and you have just tried to survive

the first hour of the day or the weekends, you do not give a crap who is on the Mayflower or what 25% of 50 is, you just don't. And so the environment destroys learning and early childhood development. And so goes the perpetual nature of poverty. Knowing that there's shots going off in this place for the kids that you were trying to do homework with,

I just wonder how much of it was sticking. For me? And how hard that was. Yeah. It was definitely sticking. Yeah. Trying to think. There was a time that we knew the police were coming

to do a raid in the neighborhood. Jim was in the neighborhood and we somehow had to switch cars. And our daughter Kate was in kindergarten at the time. And so I was trying to make it back to her kindergarten pickup. Our son Will was three and he was in the car. And I got stuck in the, like where they had blocked off the front of the neighborhood. You know, like the police had blocked off. Lovely. Like I'm about to go out.

We've just switched cars. And I think there was this moment of like, that was the moment that hit me. Like I'm headed to my daughter's elementary school. There are things happening in the neighborhood. I know the bus is about to come in unloading all the kids from the neighborhood, you know, in the middle of this place that's now locked down. I think there were moments like that where it was like I just didn't know how to process all the things, you know, that they were, someone else's world was so different than my world, but the two worlds were so close together. So I don't know that I knew how, I think over time,

I've had to process it. But... Jim, did you ever fear sending your pretty young wife and mother of your two children into this neighborhood all the time? I mean, I think the fear feelings would would sort of ebb and flow at moments like Melinda's talking about, like some like the day to day we would be together and we would feel good and then something then something would happen like a police raid. And what Mlett is talking about, I mean, there's, you know, one afternoon there's, you know, 40 unmarked vehicles come flying in because there's a guy hiding out in the home who just murdered a police officer.

Oh, for God's sake. So we're, wait a minute, you know, that moment I'll be here. And then, you know, other days, I mean, it's just smiling kids and everything's happy. So, just it ebbs and flows. I mean, I think the fun thing for us is we were there together and at the beginning, but then we would start where Melinda would go by herself. And then people would say, well, you shouldn't go in there. And we just both kept pushing, pushing through that. I mean, because in an immigrant neighborhood like this community, their stories are slightly different. I mean, it's connected to, hey, there's a, there's a gunshot. So here's what you do. But it's also, you know, my dad got

deported. You know, my mom got deported and my brother got arrested. You know, all the teenagers dropped out of school. I've got to drop out of school just like my, you know, my parents are telling me I got to drop out of school to make money because we don't have any money because my dad got deported or my mom got deported. I got to take care of my brothers and sisters. So it's this, again, it's all these stories that we're hearing. And so I think those were the things that kept motivating us to keep showing up. I think we recognize for the neighborhood that we're talking about those the big problem things are really the minority.

Like the majority of the neighborhood were moms who had these massive hopes and dreams for their kids. You know like that's why they came here in the first place. Yeah, and so like it wasn't like we were in this neighborhood where you have everybody shooting, that is not the thing, the minority were causing trouble. And so I think that was a big thing for me. That's a microcosm of our cities.

Yeah. Most of our cities that have all kinds of poverty and stuff in it, everybody in poverty is not creating crime. The truth is, like in Memphis, there's in the Memphis greater metropolitan area, there's like 1.7, 1.8 million people. And the police will tell you,

the vast majority of the crime continues to be committed by the same five or 600 people over and over again. So in some weird way, 1.8 million people are held hostage by 500 people that create all this mass fear and hysteria about crime and everything. Well, as a microcosm, the neighborhoods you're talking about, how many homes were in it? Yeah, 220. I would imagine there were three or four. Same thing.

Yeah. And the vast majority of them are just really poor, hardworking people trying to get ahead. And then those three homes is what makes all of your friends say, you shouldn't go in there. They're quote, all bad. These people are all bad. When in reality, it's three or four. And the rest of them are really, all really good.

Just struggling and need help. And in so much of what the need was, was not like these big, huge things. It was answering a mom's question about how to navigate the school system, a little bit of math help, reminding a kid like, hey, you've got this, just study. It wasn't this massive thing. It was just showing up and saying, you got this.

You mean? Like consistently being present and believing in the people who were there. So not being a turkey person. Not being a turkey person. Yes. So somebody gets shot and they say, you want this trailer that this dude gets shot in?

Yeah. Is that what happened? Exactly what happened. And of course you said. I said yes. Well, why wouldn't you? You both seem to just say, yeah. That's what we did.

Yeah, not knowing. I mean, maybe we were ignorant since bliss, right? We didn't know we were getting into it. So we, we said, yes. The property manager said, great, you got to get the title from one of the drug dealers that got shot. You want this? Yes. Well, there's a catch. Yes, there is a catch. So the guys that got shot, they weren't killed, but they skipped town. They're like, we're out.

They don't want to get shot anymore. I don't have any idea how the property manager. I mean, I guess phone number, she she got in touch with with one of the drug dealers who was living there, said, like, we need the title back. I don't even know why the property manager, I mean, this point, like she probably should have been the one to go get it. But I mean, hold on the story.

I ended up being the one that had to go meet this drug dealer at a gas station, middle of the day and get a title. So I'm walking, I mean, I have like such a small memory of this. I probably blocked it out. Like I pull up, I don't even know exactly what I'm looking for. I see this guy over there. I'm like, Hey, are you, here's the title. I mean, quick, just he hands it to me.

Now I'm gone for a thousand dollars. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's a big part of the story. And we, we, we gave him a thousand hour check to buy his, to buy his house that he owned his, his mobile home. So you're driving it.

Well, he probably recognizes you before you do him. He's looking for the white dude. It looks like a pastor with a thousand dollars. You're just looking for some guy who maybe he's got a bandage on him because he was shot recently. I don't know. That's the most odd thing my mind's eyes. That could be in a movie somewhere. That's kind of funny. Yeah. And everybody that knows me is like, you're the last person that we were going to go have a transaction with a drug dealer. You know, like it's just, it's just a weird. Yeah. Can you imagine if Swannard rolled up, you've given this dude a thousand

dollars. They thought, drugs. That's hilarious. Oh gosh. You can't even believe you did it. We were so cautious with what we did because people were concerned about what we were doing. So we were cautious about like what we told people and I don't think we told people like I knew Jim was going it was kind of like I'm waiting on him to call me that it's done and you know he's on his way back home but. This seems like this has shades of the first few episodes of Breaking Bad.

I mean it's a little ridiculous. It really does. So how close is Dalton? Dalton, Georgia? Yeah. Two hours from us is north. Yeah. I can't help but take this quick diversion as an aside.

Dalton, Georgia. I'll let you tell us what happens in Dalton. What's the industry in Dalton? They make carpet. They make lots of carpet. And it's still a very laborious industry. And back in the 60s, it paid really well hourly, really good hourly wages. And carpet, if you can remember when when the 60s shagged,

remember nobody was putting in hardwood floors back there, is that linoleum and wall-to-wall carpet. And like wall-to-wall carpet was like a selling point. Today it'd be like yuck, but right? So hardwood floors were the flooring forever. I know this because of my business, slumber business. And then in the late,60s up through, gosh, probably the late 70s, early 80s, carpet was the thing. You guys are my age, you know, right? And Dalton exploded because carpet

just went from something you made to every home in the country was having carpet. So Dalton exploded because carpet just went from something you made to every home in the country was having carpet. So Dalton exploded. And because they were paying, they needed labor and they paid so well. The high schools in Dalton, Georgia, their graduation rates went from 98% in the 60s down to 60. Because the minute people turned 18, they could go to work in the carpet place and make $22 an hour back them. And they were like, forget graduation.

And so the high schools in the Dalton area and the board were saying they lobbied the carpet companies to quit hiring people from that area unless they had a high school diploma so that they could at least get their kids to graduate. There was so much public pressure on them, they said, okay, but then all of a sudden they ran out of labor.

So there are pictures all over Northern Mexican border towns down into central Mexico of huge billboards that say, Dalton, Georgia is hiring labor, great wages, move to Dalton. That's where the Hispanic community in Georgia came from, was that our country recruited them because we needed their labor. A lot of people think that the biggest growth

in was agriculture and all of that. Certainly there were some. But for the Southeast, the draw of Hispanic labor to the Southeast largely came from Mexico and largely came in the 60s and early 70s when our national mentality toward immigration was completely different. And we invited them and begged them to come here. And they largely settled in and around the Dalton area because of that carpet industry. And the very people now that are two and three generations behind the first generation that came here, that were invited here and welcomed here and recruited here, are now vilified. And I think it's very important for us to remember that as we start talking about, quote, these illegal that we brought here. And that is an uncomfortable truth that people need to recognize when they

think of quote, illegal aliens and quote, these people that are quote, taking American jobs. No, they're not. They're satisfying jobs most Americans won't do. They cook your food. They clean your offices and your homes. They work in construction. They build your houses. They roof your houses. They brick your houses. There's a massive amount of stuff that goes on in this country that we take very for granted that are done by people that are having to live in the shadows and you are serving these people's children. Listen, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you saying that because that's the message that we try to communicate in our communities every day, because that's the reality.

We work in a community in Gainesville, Georgia, another North Georgia community like Dalton, that is the poultry capital of the world. Guess who got recruited to work in the chicken plants? Same story. Now everyone is vilifying these folks for being here, yet they do exactly what you just described. They're hardworking. They do jobs that normal Americans don't want to do. And so we've seen that up close. We didn't grow up knowing that, but our interactions with these families the last 15 years have completely, you know, changed how we view this issue and recognize that these folks are children of God. I mean, they're...

Candidly, the same people that vilify these folks are the exact same people that when they go to a hotel and their room isn't cleaned. Who's going to do it? Who's going to do it? Sure. Let's just be honest. Right. We need to wake up to the realities. We'll be right back. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Gets in your head, right?

Good. Because every year, dozens of children are forgotten in the backseat of aets in your head, right? Good. Because every year, dozens of children are forgotten in the backseat of a car by a parent or caregiver. All never thought it could happen to them. But with changes in routines, distractions, or a sleeping child, it can happen to anyone. Parked cars get hot fast and can be deadly.

So get it in your head. Check the backseat. A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind.

It led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say I wish he was dead, he actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, this is Molly and Matt,

and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up and become a more responsible and better adult one life lesson at a time.

And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you. So let's figure this stuff out together. This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership. We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account. And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party? All that plus so much more.

Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've only on Hulu. Don't miss. Big Sean. Camila Cabello. Doja Cat. Gwen Stefani. Poe's Year. Keith Urban. New Kids on the Block. Paramore.

Shaboosie. The Black Crows. Thomas Rhett. Victoria Monet. And more. Get tickets to our 2024 iHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One right now, before they sell out.

At AXS.com. ["I'm Not a Man"] So you got a drug dealer's trailer for your wife to teach him. That's right. Nice job. Really impressive. We're going to come in here with Clorox and we're just going to tidy this place up and it is going to be delightful. And after we finally found the key to get into it, we thought we should just burn this

to the ground because it was that bad. It was... There was a shooting in it. I'm just curious, was there blood and stuff? So the first time we go in... You're kidding. You need hazmat suits. no, no, like it actually is it yeah, there's some police tape, but there there is There's police tape there are bullet. There are 23 bullet holes in a line down the side

you can see see I'm account and then there is a giant spot on the linoleum of blood, just like no one cleaned it up. And the reason I cleaned it up, because the first time we go in there, like it's a complete disaster. I mean, there's drugs, there's junk, furniture. It's the worst place you've ever seen. Like how can humans live here?

So we did. We go in and I went in with a friend from church who was a contractor. We go in and I'm like, well, we can't do anything with this. And he was like, no, we can. Dr. Justin Marchegiani God bless him. Dr. Justin Marchegiani God bless him. I mean, is it a friend of ours named Russell Ward? I'll love him till the day we die. He saw it. I couldn't see it. He saw it. He said, we're going to get a couple dumpsters and we're going to clean this out. We're going to rebuild it. So Russell led the charge as a volunteer.

He didn't have Russell on the show. I mean, like, because here's a guy, just a good old country boy from Georgia. People would make assumptions about someone like him in this neighborhood. And he would be one of the ones that would vilify. And he showed up right there and said, that makes me want to cry. Like he showed up right there and said, I'm loving these kids and I'm going to use my gifts as a builder and I'm going to, I'm going to do something good. And he's as normal as they get. And he worked a full-time job then this whole time and he would show up every day for three months and rebuild this trailer. He worked a full-time job then this whole time and he would show up every day for three months

and rebuild this trailer. And we got some folks from our church, we cleaned it out. I mean, we had a team that was just there all the time, like volunteering their time to transform this drug house. Shot up drug house. Shot up drug house into what would become this neighborhood community center. We didn't even know what it was going to look like.

Russell had the vision. He cleaned it out. He rebuilt it. We brought in carpet. We painted, turned into just like what you would see at a school now, a clean mobile classroom, big open room with a bathroom and a closet. We did it with a nice deck. I mean, he painted it.

We did a big grand opening and the whole neighborhood kind of showed up really maybe to check out, Hey, what are these crazy white people doing here? Like with this building. But, but, but that moment, again, there's a lot of this toxic charity stuff we, we learned and you know, when,. And when we first started, the mom we met in the first family, she invited us to help kids with homework. So we responded and didn't know that that was kind of the right way to do it. It happened by accident. And this moment was the same. This idea of establishing permanency kind of conveyed the

message of we're not leaving. Even though we didn't necessarily were saying it to everyone, but people showed up and they said, man. So then like relationships just strengthened quickly after we had this building. Because they saw you're really in. Yeah, we're in. Like we weren't, I guess, you know, we're not turkey people at that point. Or what they would view as, hey, these are the church people. We were kind of called that. These are the church people that came in. And churches would always come in and do an event,

hey, make ourselves feel good, and then leave. And they saw, well, they just bought a building. And they're now showing up every day. I guess they're going to keep showing up. And I think the story of Russell is really, it's one of those fun ones to go back and reflect on like what we know now. But I think some people could listen to this and be like, well, I don't really know that I can go and like commit to volunteering for the next 20 years. But I think the story of Russell coming along for people who are gonna stay long-term,

so I think that's important for people who are trying to figure out where to plug in and how to get involved and what to do at Christmas is to look for organizations who are long-term people, who are making long-term relational investments versus like, hey, this is one thing that's gonna make me feel good. Because Russell's work was so critical.

I mean, like we couldn't do this work if not for Russell Ward. So so now you got this thing now, what? That's a great question. Yeah. We did. You all look at each other. Go now. What? Yeah. I mean, kind of like, OK, we have a building. We started we moved from one day to two days a week of homework club, kind of kept growing. Homework club?

That's what we kind of call it. Yeah, that's cool. It was not even a thing. Like it wasn't, we just were people showing up and it wasn't an organization. And kids show up saying they need help on homework and say, okay, I'm gonna help you. Yeah, so timeline wise, this was 2010, spring of 2010.

We opened this building. We started meeting twice a week. We started getting to know more kids. People come. Fall of summer of 2010, one of our volunteers, who we were friends with from church, she was a public school teacher. She came to me, I think it was me.

She came to me and said, I think I'm supposed to do this as my job. And I said, that sounds amazing, but we don't have any money. I mean, that was my exact words. She was like, I don't, I'm supposed to do this. So I remember she came to our house. We had a meeting and I told her, I said, well, what if we paid you $2,000 a month? And she heard, what she heard was, what if we pay you $2,000 for the year?

And she still said yes. Wow. And so we cleared that up. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, we can do more. I think we can figure out. Well, we just think, can you go raise it? Yeah, yeah, I'll just go raise it. I mean, at, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, and we, so we, but we hired her. So we, the church hired her. So we, we brought it in as a ministry of the church, which is what it was at the time. So the church hired her. But as soon as, as soon as we made this decision, I had some friends who came to me and said, Hey, one of them was a CPA. He was our, our first board chair. He came to me and said, you need to start a nonprofit. And I'm pretty sure my words were, what is a nonprofit? No idea.

Literally normal folks who saw an area needs started to fill it and basically figured it out as you went and still not particularly well yet. Correct. I mean, tons of mistakes. Yeah. People, I mean, he's a CBA. He'd been on the board of multiple nonprofits. He's comes talks to me. I'm this 30 year old, you know, pastor. He sees quickly. I don't know what I'm doing. But we, he says, cause you got to raise money and you need a nonprofit. You need a 501c3.

He starts throwing on all these terms. I'm like, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. He was like, I'll help you. He said, you need a name. And we said, okay, well, we had just had this meeting with a bunch of moms. So a bunch of moms came together. And the general consensus for the moms was we're losing hope and our kids being able to graduate from high school.

Not because they didn't want them to, not because our kids didn't have like hopes and dreams and plans for their life, not because they couldn't provide food and shelter, but they were struggling to navigate the school system. And so we named it Hope Center. You named it? Hope Center.

So the first name was the Hope Center. The moms had said we're just leaving. Yeah, the Center for Hope. Makes sense. And this was before the conversation with the CPA about boards. So we had this thing, it was a ministry of our church called the Hope Center. He says, you need to start a nonprofit. I'm like, okay, well, we'll start a nonprofit.

And he helps me through the paperwork. Well, then I just did a Google search and realized there's like 10 million Hope Centers. It's a very generic name. there's like 10 million hope centers. It's a very generic name. I was like, well, that can't be our name. So we had to put this, put a name on here. So we literally go to some friends of ours, um, who they, they, they run a business, so you heard of the elf on the shelf. Yeah.

Yeah. So everybody is on the shelf. So one of our good friends wrote the book. No way. Now that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody is on shelf. So one of our good friends wrote the book. No way. Now that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She'd be a great person to have on here too, because she's been instrumental through this whole thing. So when I told you, we took a check for a thousand dollars to buy the trailer. Well, I didn't have a thousand dollars, but our friend, her name's Shanda.

I'll just go ahead and throw it all out there. She may not like it. We'll ask her, but whatever. She's great. She said- Are you telling me the author of The Elf on the Shelf basically paid for a drug den from a drug dealer? Yep.

Yep. So we- Now see, that could be a book for Elf on the Shelf. Yeah, yeah. Elf on the Shelf paying, dealing with drug dealers. She was one of our first volunteers and she was in the neighborhood with us one day when we were having this conversation about getting the trailer. And we look at each other, we're like, we don't have a thousand dollars. And she looks at us and she was like, yeah, you do. Wow. And so she was in from the beginning. Well, when we have to, you know, they have this,

this is right around the time they're exploding. They have a marketing creative team. We tell her, Hey, we need a name for this thing. She was like, come meet with our team. So we did this huge brainstorm with our creative team and they helped us come up with this name and our very first name, according to the IRS was Path Project. Path Project. Yep. And, and it came from Shanda and her team hearing us say in this conversation multiple times,

hey, we just want to help kids find the right path in life. So they came up with this catchy name. We literally just, again, same thing. Sure. Sounds great. So we did the IRS thing. This is 2011 now. We're into 2011.

We have a full-time staff member making $2,000 a month. She thought a year, but good for her. Yeah. She's amazing. It was amazing. Ten times what she thought she would work for. Right. We have all these people in this moment that are stepping up and doing something really

cool. Paige, who was our first teacher, Shanda, Dale, who was the CPA, who helped me navigate this whole process and helped us start a board. I don't know what a board is. He helped us start this board. We started a nonprofit. And then we, again, we're kind of thinking, well, I'm still working full time at the church at this point, that this is what I do. I'm a pastor. We had a second child, a little boy who was born in 2011. So Melinda's showing up a lot, but we have two little kids at home. This is just what, you know, and I think, I mean, around this time, we had a conversation with each other, you know, going back to the Sophia question when you're going to leave,

well, hey, now we got this building. This is a thing. I'm still working at the church. We sit down one night on our couch and just said, hey, what's the plan here? And I think we quickly kind of are like, well, I think we need to go all in. So that answers the question from a few years earlier when you were almost 30 and you're 27 and you're looking at each other and go like, what is this? What is this it?

And seems like four or five years later, you got your answer. And you know, something else that's interesting is we laugh about you really not knowing what you were doing and everything else. You know who didn't care that you didn't know what you were doing? The kids. They didn't care. They were being helped, they were being loved, they were being served. They knew you weren't turkey people. Who cares what the mistakes were? They didn't. And that's the beauty of it. You do bounce around through things like this, but you got to try. And when you do try the things that you do, do that make a difference in people's life,

they don't know if you're doing it right or wrong or whatever. They just know they're being served. Same for you, right? When you started coaching this team, what you did that was most important is you kept showing up. You kept coming back. And that's what we did. We made a bunch of mistakes, but the kids didn't know about the mistakes. What they saw is people consistently showing up every day in their life over a long period of time. And guess what? It doesn't require any special skills on our end to keep showing up. Just normal people. Just normal people. Who believed in them.

Like we genuinely believed that they could do whatever they wanted. You know? Well, they can. And that was- All they need is a level playing field and access. Yes. Just, what do you think? Do you think the ability of a child's,

a child's ability to reach their dreams has something to do with the zip code at the time of their birth. The innate ability, maybe the societal and cultural barriers curtail that ability, but not their innate ability, it's all there. We just have to remove those barriers and provide access. And that takes a little work and love but

so you're all in we'll be right back when the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan millions were plunged into silence radiosios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules. And yet Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.

The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. No one is there to destroy you. Azmazarjan, Kulajanim Umrede. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My simple solution to the problem was remove people from the scene and help them feel safer.

In response to attacks against Asian Americans, Maddie Park raised over $250,000 to donate cab rides to the Asian community. There is so much more work to be done. We really need to come together and tackle this issue as a community. Support the Asian community. Learn how at lovehasnolabels.com. Brought to you by Love Has No Labels and the Ad Council. Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated

to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. Here's a clip from an upcoming episode featuring the weekly home checks, Key Sean Lane, that you won't want to miss. A common mistake that a lot of people do,

they use fabric softener when it's not so great for your clothes. Should we never be using fabric softener? No, you should not ever be using fabric softener. It leaves a deposit on our clothes, which is also left in the machine. And it also makes the clothes highly flammable. Wait, what? Yes.

What you want to do instead is just use a quarter cup of vinegar. And that'll make them softer? That'll make them softer. And if you wanted some kind of scent, you can use essential oils. Wow, wow, wow. Catch new episodes of Growing Up Stuff How to Adult every other Tuesday

on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all new story of betrayal. Stacy thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. It led me into the house and I mean, it was like a movie. He was sitting at our kitchen table.

The cops were guarding him. Stacy learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say, I wish he was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. Listen to Betrayal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever only on Hulu. Don't miss.

Big Sean, Camila Cabello, Doja Cat, Gwen Stefani, Hozier, Keith Urban, New Kids on the Block, Paramore, Shaboosie, The Black Crows, Thomas Rhett, Victoria Monet. And more. Get tickets to our 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One right now, before they sell out at a excess.com In 2011 we're working in this one neighborhood and we get a call

from the owner of this mobile home park of this mobile home park. Their business is based in Detroit, Michigan. They own nearly a hundred mobile home parks across the US. They heard what we were doing and they flew Melinda and I up in 2011 to their office in Detroit for a day to tell them about what we were doing. We didn't know exactly why we were going.

Yeah. We thought- Hey, will you fly up here? Yeah. In true y'all's form? Sure. Kind of like Alex, when Alex re-emailed me and said, will you fly to Memphis and be on a podcast?

I was like- We do. I was like, sure. Yeah. Sounds good. Come to Michigan. Sure. So we did, we got on a plane.

We showed up at their office in Detroit and they look at us. I mean, the owner is a really great guy. We become really good friends over the years. We didn't know him at the time. So he's kind of very, very, very blunt. He is a venture capitalist, CEO type guy. He just looked us straight in the face and said,

hey, we want you on all our neighborhoods. Did the neighborhood, the quality of the neighborhood and the crime and all of that started improving as a result of you improving the lives of the people that lived in it? I'm sorry, duh, no kidding. Sure. But then the first reader, I mean,

you invest in the community and all of a sudden the community improves. Right, all right. Yeah, that's a- But this guy has enough brains to see it. Right. And so now he wants he says, yeah, I like this. I'd like you in every mobile home center I own across the country. Crazy, very crazy.

And we were overwhelmed. Oh, you didn't say. Sure. I mean, that was the first time we did not say. Hold it. That's a lot. But we did say, we did say yes a little bit. And this gets into like a season of a few years where we had to like work through, okay, we're, we're this married couple. All of a sudden there's this thing, All of a sudden it's a nonprofit.

All of a sudden we have these opportunities to grow. All of a sudden, Jim is the guy like, let's grow. Like I didn't, I didn't know I had, you know, some entrepreneurial skills and fundraising skills. And I mean, I really, I don't really, but, um, a little bit enough to be, you know, I think you understand. To be dangerous maybe, but, um, but little bit enough to be, you know, I think you understand to be, to be dangerous maybe, but, um, but I'm still learning at this point. So we start, we,

we do start to expand. So I tell him, Hey, I'm going to leave my job at the church. We need to do this. So in 2012, I go part-time at the church, 2013, uh, I go full-time doing this. We do our big first fundraiser in 2012. We raise a lot of money. We're like, okay, something cool is happening. Well, they owned another park just down the road. So that was the first one, same company. It made sense. We knew some churches. We're like, let's do this. And so that happens. And then another one the next year, all in Gwinnett County. And then another one. And then I'm headed to Nashville, Tennessee for a conference at a church. They own a park in Franklin, Tennessee.

If you're familiar with Franklin. Hold it. There's a mobile home park in Franklin? There is a mobile home park owned by this same company in downtown Franklin, Tennessee. So if any of your listeners are very familiar with Franklin. Franklin's like, very, it's wealthy. It's one of the wealthiest communities in the country.

Yeah. No question. So I drive to this mobile home park in Franklin on my way to this conference at a church nearby. I stop in, they say, hey, we want you in this neighborhood in Franklin. It's called Franklin Estates. I told the manager, I was like, man, this sounds good, but like, I don't know anybody up here.

I drive to the church that night sitting at this conference at a table. One of the guys sitting at the table introduced himself. He said, hey, I'm Jason Hale with Rolling Hills Church in Franklin, Tennessee. And my mind starts working. I just walk over and told him, Hey, I just happened to hear you were from Franklin. Let me tell you about this little thing we're doing in Atlanta. Tell you about this mobile home park called Franklin Estates. And he says, Hey, I actually just drove in there the other day.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I told him what we were doing in Atlanta. And he said, let's do it here. So we launched in Tennessee. So at this same time, we're raising a small family starting in one neighborhood. All of a sudden we're in like five mobile home communities, not really knowing what we're doing, but we're kind of raising enough money. We hire a couple of people and it just starts growing really, really fast. And Melinda's over here just doing the hard work.

And I'm kind of out here, oh, we're going to grow. And we have this conversation. I don't even remember what year it was, was like, whoa. Yeah. We're about to drive a train over the edge of a cliff. Cause we were like, the opportunity was there to grow big and do good things, but it was an overwhelming like all the things and learning all the things. So we had to get some things back in. Right.

So we did. I mean, this is a lot going on and we figured out kind of what healthy growth looked like during that season. I mean, we got some great coaching from a community of Christian entrepreneurs called Praxis, which is a global community, which is really a blessing for us. And then Stand Together Foundation came alongside us and kind of taught us a little bit how to run a nonprofit.

And this was all happening around the same time. And so we learned a lot. We, I think we grew as people. We were also getting older and life experience tends to teach you some things that maybe when you're 30, you don't know. But then when you're- You say yes every time, immediately. Yeah.

But the problem with age is you might not now go do a thousand dollar deal with a drug dealer. Man. You might not do it today, what you would have done when you were 30 and young and stupid and just. That's right. So youth has its place in these endeavors. So tell me what we look like now.

So I have the greatest job in the world. So I work in that first neighborhood, it's called Gwinnett Estates. I love my job so much I could cry. So I work with that first neighborhood. It's called Gwinnett Estates. I love my job so much I could cry. So I work with only high schoolers. So back in the very beginning, it was hard to find high schoolers. Like they were there, but they were kids who were tucked in their houses. Their parents had them locked in. You know, they were, they were not kids who were on the street. But in the beginning, we'd get calls in the night, you know, like from the police, like, hey, I've got so and so in the back of my car.

They say that they know you, you know, that kind of thing. And we'd meet high schoolers and they would say, well, I graduated from the 10th grade or I graduated from the ninth grade. Graduated from the 10th grade. Yeah, like that was a very common phrase that we would hear back in the beginning. So now I work with all the high schoolers in the neighborhood. That's my job in one of the states. There are 45 of them between ninth and 12th grade

and they are amazing, doing really cool things. So they work on like, you know, what are their giftings? What do they enjoy? What kind of jobs? We do career visits and practice communication skills and being advocates for themselves in school and what clubs are they gonna be involved in? I mean, I literally get to do the greatest job.

What a transformation from what you showed up to, which was most of the high school kids had dropped out, to now the high school kids have dreams and aspiration and goals of being nurses and firemen and doctors and attorneys and whatever. They're doing it, yeah. Do you have a sense of what the high, high school graduation rate was of that neighborhood when you showed up?

First, what it is today? Yeah, I think our best guess around 33% of kids were graduating. So 66% were not. I mean, that's a small community. That was our based on conversations. Sure. And this one? Less than half.

Now? Oh man. It's pretty much everybody graduates or finds some type of... Do you understand how huge that is? It's a really cool thing like being in it every day, especially in this one neighborhood, we sometimes miss this. So to Melinda's point, that first group of high schoolers and we were the ones that were with them. And it was, it was scary sometimes, honestly, like there were some, there were some really tough moments. I mean, I remember being being in the street and like 10 high school boys, like surrounding me thinking

for a second, then I'm about to get jumped, but only to realize like they're actually just coming to tell me something, but it was like this feeling of like, Oh, so the fifth is a little nervous. Like some of those, that group of 10, like picture in my mind, they're not alive now because of life choices, drugs or violence, summer in jail. But like this whole like 15 years later, like this group of high schoolers that Melinda works with, like, it's so cool. Like they're, they're not, they're not that they're not that. And I don't know. I mean, not then, I don't know like what the reason is. I mean that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You do. Well, I mean, I, I think it is people, it's relationships and we haven't even talked about kind of what we do day to day.

And we're getting to that. But yeah. So, so how many of you you how many of these are there now? Yeah, so there are seven Communities where we work so okay, so we operate community centers inside seven mobile home parks six are in North, Georgia One's in Tennessee and you're not doing homework anymore. So tell me what this has morphed into inside these seven communities So it started as homework. We thought that that was going to be the solution to the problem of high school dropouts, you know, crime, poverty, incarceration, all of it. If a kid graduates high school, then the problem is solved.

Well, we learned quickly over the years talking to kids who did who did meet that goal of graduation and having conversations with them when they're 21 or 22 and them saying, you know, my life's not really that different than the kid that dropped out. I'm working the same job as them. And so we tried to dig deeper and recognize like there were a whole lot of just like internal life skills. Some of the things that you talked about with your football team, Bill, life skills that you might describe a healthy flourishing adult having, like the ability to work as a team, discipline, integrity, honesty. We weren't doing that type of work at the beginning. We were just thinking, hey, homework is the solution. What we learned like homework is kind of just a symptom of a deeper root cause. Like a kid not doing their homework

is not always is they don't know how to do it. It's really like what you talked about when a kid wakes up in the morning and they have all these fears and challenges like homework is the last thing on their list. So what if we kind of address some of the other things? Don't worry about help you survive. Then that means it's like, it's right. It's a thing, like it's an academic thing. So we decided a few years ago, hey, we're going to transform our program to be more relationship focused, centered on positive adults being in the lives of these kids every day. We have a curriculum that we use that teaches some of these basic life skills. But ultimately, like it's what people

like Melinda and our staff and volunteers, and we've got 20 people that work for us across all seven neighborhoods. We have a couple hundred volunteers that show up every week and they're just loving kids through. So as a faith-based org, we believe strongly, we talk every day. Our North Star is God loves you, God loves everyone around you, and God created you for a purpose. And we talk to our kids, like to your point earlier,

like these kids can do anything. They are created innately with the ability to do anything that they want. There are societal barriers in place for whether it be a kid from Memphis or a kid from a mobile home park in Georgia, that we have to work towards overcoming. But on the inside, we believe every human is created by God on purpose with a purpose. And so that's what we're going to try to get our kids to. So what does it look like to help them fulfill that? It is people like our staff and volunteers coming

alongside them every day, offering smiles and hugs and encouraging words, challenging them to be better. Yeah, there's academic support that we do, but it is, I mean, you call it mentoring, you call it relational investment, you call it showing up every day. I mean, it's just people. I mean, a football coach, like what does a football coach do with their team? The most important one, they just keep showing up and they, yeah, you teach tactical stuff, right? But I think the best coaches you would agree are the ones that can kind of internally motivate people. And so that's what we try to do. And so that's what it looks like for us in seven neighborhoods. We work with almost 600 kindergarten to 12th grade students every week across all seven neighborhoods. It's fascinating. I feel like during these years, every few years we raised the bar.

We're like, oh, we're going to do this big. And our kids have met that bar and exceeded it every single time. You know, like we're constantly raising the bar for our kids and they're just really doing amazing things. Like they're now going and being leaders in their school and they're joining clubs and they're the captain of the soccer team and they are, you know, and in their neighborhood. Like, so so many of our kids when they graduate, they're the first person in their family to graduate from high school. And like celebrating that in the neighborhood, you know, we just had a big graduate celebration a couple of weeks ago.

And just to, for the kids to kind of reflect on the challenges and things they've overcome to get to this place is really special. Have you noticed a change in the parents? I think the parents are more, what is the word, I want to say confident. You know, I think of a story of one of our moms, Maria Elena, this has been years ago. We were having programs and she comes running through the door with her son's report card. And it had like, you know, English was whatever grade, math was whatever

grade and then there was health and health had NA for not applicable. And she knew that N was needs improvement from the conduct and that A was an A. And those two things didn't make sense that they would go together. And she was so panicked about that NA as the health grade because she wanted to understand the report card. That is so interesting. That's the language barrier. And that's the quote navigating the school system because you don't understand.

Yeah, and it was such a small thing. And so she came in panicked, like, what am I supposed to do with this? And so it was really easy to explain that. But for her to make that phone call to the school would be a barrier. You know, at that time, that would have been a tough phone call to make and to explain what the concern was. So I think that we see parents just more confident in what

because they can come get their questions answered, you know, like, Hey, what does this mean? Or how do I do this? Or what do you think is the right thing to do? But it's the same thing I do as a parent. You know, like our daughter is a theater kid and we, neither of us had any theater experience growing up. So we reached out to people who we could ask to help us learn, like, how does theater work for kids?

What do you sign your kid up? So I think that's the thing is it's just, it's a beautiful network of people working together. So I think we's the thing is it's just a beautiful network of people working together. So I think we're all better because of the work. It dawns on me as I listen to you that these kids that are graduating are now with the goals, with dreams, with the background of knowledge that you're giving them. of knowledge that you're giving them, they're probably going to now have expectations of their children that their parents didn't have of them.

And that breaks the proverbial chain, which ironically works you out of a job. Because if you do a good enough job, they won't need you anymore. Right. I think that should be the goal of every nonprofit. Yeah. Is to work yourself out of existence.

That didn't quite exist in the industry necessarily, but I think the people that get it know that. If like we don't want like it'd be great if we had to go do something else. That's kind of beautiful. And a lot of our staff, we haven't talked about this, but we have staff who are kids who grew up in path programs or their moms from the neighborhood, who their moms who came on as volunteers, who then became assistants, who now lead kids. That was my next question.

Did any of the parents in the neighborhood start volunteering? Yes. That's great. They're taking ownership of their neighborhood. And they are far more effective at the work than I am. You know, like our kids who grew up in the program, because they just instinctively know exactly what to do in situations and they know what to say better than I do.

You know, like they are light years ahead of. Yeah, they're so good, we hired them. I mean, we've hired a bunch of these folks to come come work with us because they're amazing. We'll be right back. When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence. Radios were smashed, cassettes burned. You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.

And yet, Afghans did it anyway. This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol. The danger they endured. They said my head should be cut off. The joy they brought to the nation. You're free completely. No one is there to destroy you. I'm John Legend. Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Snakes, zombies, sharks, heights, speaking in public, the list of fears is endless. But while you're clutching your blanket in the dark, wondering if that sound in the hall was actually a footstep, the real danger is in your hand, when you're behind the wheel. And while you might think a great white shark is scary, what's really terrifying and even deadly is distracted driving.

Eyes Forward, Don't Drive Distracted, brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Last season, millions tuned into the Betrayal podcast to hear a shocking story of deception. I'm Andrea Gunning, and now we're sharing an all-new story of betrayal. Stacey thought she had the perfect husband. Doctor, father, family man. It was the perfect cover for Justin Rutherford to hide behind. It led me into the house and I mean it was like a movie.

He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were guarding him. Stacey learned how far her husband would go to save himself. I slept with a loaded gun next to my bed. He did not just say, I wish she was dead. He actually gave details and explained different scenarios on how to kill him. He, to me, is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer.

Listen to Betrayal on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting. Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. We're back with season two of the podcast, which means more opportunities to glow up

and become a more responsible and better adult one life lesson at a time. And let me just tell you, this show is just as much for us as it is for you. So let's figure this stuff out together. This season, we're going to talk about whether or not we're financially and emotionally ready for dog ownership. We're going to figure out the benefits of a high yield savings account. And what exactly are the duties of being a member of the wedding party? All that plus so much more. Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One. Coming back to Las Vegas. September 20th and 21st. Stream streaming live only on Hulu. Don't miss. Big Sean, Camila Cabello, Doja Cat, Gwen Stefani,

Poesier, Keith Urban, New Kids on the Block, Paramore, Shaboosie, The Black Crows, Thomas Rhett, Victoria Monet, and more. Get tickets to our 2024 iHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One right now, before they sell out at AXS.com. Well, I also read that also part of the program now is like weeklong summer trips or something. What? Tell me about that.

Yeah, we're so we're about to go. Every summer, we take. Students on. So every summer we take students on younger kids go to summer day camps all day long, but starting middle school and older, we take them on an overnight summer camp experience to a traditional camp setting where they go without their parents, they go with our team. This year we're taking about 130 middle and high school students to overnight camp. And for many of them, it's their first experience. Smores, the whole shoot match?

The whole thing, like swimming in the lake, just really, really fun stuff that they're not getting in their neighborhood. And so it's just this... What is that like for them? That has to be, that has to be something. Yeah, you know, it is, I would say you watch their confidence grow over the course of the week. You know, like trying the new things and responsibility. I think that what they gain in confidence and responsibility in a week,

you cannot teach in an afterschool program. Talk about Alexa. Or you mean teach in an afterschool program. Talk about Alexa. Or you mean I'll talk about Alexa. So Alexa is one of our students who she told me a few months ago about summer camp. And she said it was the best week of my life. The best week of her life. So all these things.

So I wasn't with her. She was with Melinda. And she told me just in a conversation, hey, this was the best week of my life. So I wasn't with her. She was with Melinda. And she told me just in a conversation, hey, this was the best week of my life. Here's what she said. So we work with a lot of teenagers. They all have a phone. They're all just like American kids, all American kids, regardless of their demographic. They're addicted to their devices. We struggle with that with our own kids. So Alexis said in the same conversation, she said, I can't believe they took my phone away for the week.

It was the best week of my life. What does that say? That's exactly what I said. I said, Alexa, what do you think? What do you think that means? Did she get it? I don't know if my dumb kids would have gotten it. What do you think that means? Did she get it? I don't know if my dumb kids would have gotten it. I don't know if they get it.

I mean, like, I think hopefully as they mature, she will get it and she'll remember. She's like, oh yeah. Like when I put this thing down and I'm just with people, it's better. I think what's really cool about Alexa too is like camp was huge for her. And then she is part of like a high school firefighting

program where she's taking firefighting as a class for one of her high school things. And then this summer the week before she leaves for camp she's working at a camp through her firefighting program for elementary kids who come and learn about firefighting. So there are kids it's like what what we invest in our, our path kids, we are seeing them go invest into their communities, like outside of path, inside path, but then also outside of path. When did it change to Path United? Because now it's Path United.

Path United, that's right. 2021, we just kind of did a rebrand a little bit. Again, one of those kind of gut reactions were like, we don't really like our name anymore. So I mean, there were some, you know, we, we felt like, I mean, in the, in the non-profit space, there was a lot of trendy names using the word project. We didn't like, you know, we didn't want our, we loved path path was, it's so, yeah. So we're like, Hey, what is it? What's a cool new name? And we did, we did, we did, you know, had a marketing consultant come in and help us and he kind of came with this name Path United. And we, we, we liked the word United. I mean, it's just shows kind of like this vision of teamwork and people in the community, outside the community, kind of all working together towards the same goal, which our

mission is to help kids in mobile home parks, to inspire them to find their path in life, to find their path to God's purpose for their life. So, I mean, you started as a history guy, pastor, then this thing, then negotiating with drug dealers, and end up the high school section of this original community. I mean, wow. But I have a sense that you aren't as a couple, two people that will say, okay, we've made it, this is it, cross your arms and run what you got.

What's the future look like? Listen, I think we definitely talk about that a lot. I mean, we're in our 40s now, so we're not the young 28 year old that doesn't know. Like it is hard to run a nonprofit. The ins and outs of raising money and managing a team. I mean, I think you've probably talked to a million people in our shoes that would say like, there are challenges. So we're trying to navigate that. We're trying to have a healthy family and raise our kids. But at the same time, recognizing like there are really cool opportunities to take what we do to more kids. So we don't

have this strategic plan of going to be working in this many neighborhoods in this many years. We have recognized that the most effective growth for us is listening to where God opens doors in specific communities and just kind of following. And so that's kind of where we are. We launched our newest site two years ago in a different county near us. And so we're spread out geographically across North Georgia. There's a couple other communities that we're exploring, like what that looks like. So we both went to UGA, there's a community in Athens, Georgia,

that we're looking at. Another place you wouldn't expect. Right, right, right. And so does the owner of all this land and trailer parks and everything else, I mean, he's still all in anywhere you wanna go. They're all in, yeah. I mean, like, yeah, that's not necessarily the barrier.

I mean, there's an open door. I mean, the barrier for us is in these cities across the Southeast. Like does, is there local support for us? Looks like churches and, you know, volunteer base and funding and all these things where we, we have tried to launch in places where we thought it sounded good and it didn't work. And so we've recognized like it has to be a local community. Like we can't manufacture the heart for the work

from Loganville, Georgia, where we live in another city. And no, but it's a scalable idea. So the point is, if somebody listening to us says, I know a place, my church or my friends or both, there's a big enough group of people that would want to pile into this and we could help raise money from our local area for this. it's scalable and they could learn from you and they could fold under your banner. So the barriers are the people and the fundraising for the communities that want it, seems to me. Yeah. No, no, no. So it's pretty accurate. I mean, I think the first dream scenario for

us would be if there are people interested in doing similar work, we will share with you everything that we know and you go do it. Now if an opportunity arises like Tennessee where it can be a path thing, I mean, we're open. We're not actively seeking that. I mean, we really just want to keep doing the good work that we feel like God has called us to do in this season. And if that means a new path site, great. But I really want it to be,

you know, people, maybe even just hearing our story, recognize that they can do it. Like you can do it on your own. I mean, normal people. How many kids are you serving now? Yeah, almost 600 kids across seven neighborhoods, kindergarten to 12th grade. across seven neighborhoods, kindergarten to 12th grade. All, all from showing up one day with some gifts and finding yourself immersed in toxic charity and not wanting to be that. That's really the beginning. Absolutely.

What an amazing thing. Tell me you've got to have, and probably for you, Melinda Moore, you've got to have, and I'm not going to make you do the favorite, but tell me a story of someone that you know without a shadow of a doubt is doing something now they would not have been doing if it wasn't for this. Tell me like that fun, great, give me a story that's just gonna metaphorically epitomize the work of all of this. Do you have one? There are so many stories. It's, it's, people always ask that question and it's, it's so interesting.

I'll tell you one of my things that I think is a favorite story of mine. So one of our students, his name's Emmanuel, but he also goes by Butters because he was a great soccer player and he was smooth as butter. Like smooth like butter? Yeah, smooth like butter. I love it. So he's 27 now. Is that right? And so he really did not think he was gonna graduate from high school. Like he really did not have any plans,

but he would always meet up with Jim and Jim would be like, yeah, just keep driving. He loved to learn. That was what was so fascinating. Like he was fascinated by what he was learning at school. And he would talk to us about that, but he just wasn't turning his work in order. And so somewhere along the lines during high school,

he starts putting the work in, he ends up being on the soccer team, played a senior year of high school. He's 27 now. And he's a docker recipient. So to go to college, he had to pay out of state tuition. So that wasn't a possibility for him, but he works really hard. He owns several trailers in the neighborhood, kind of has an entrepreneurial spirit, kind of does a lot of different jobs. He's a great person, but he'll stop by our house sometimes

and he loves to reminisce about the old days. You're kidding. And he'll come and just sit on our front porch with us and just reminisce about what it was like back in the, and it's so funny because he'll always say, you'll spoil spoil these kids now, you know, like they get to go to overnight camp and and back then all we had, the only thing that we had to like field trip because we didn't have any money was once a year we would take them to Lake Lanier Islands, like a water park, because we got free tickets. And I would make them read all summer to earn

their ticket to Lake Lanier Islands. And it's just funny to hear these older kids reflect on what things were like then, you know? And Sophia, I tell the story of Sophia, you know, who says, when are you going to leave? She has kids now of her own and her oldest is four, five, he might be five. And he like made the A honor roll or whatever. He did something recently and like his name and his work was in the hallway in school and so she's texting me pictures of her kids work and how well he's doing in school.

So that has to make you feel just stories. Yeah, those are great stories because that was a girl who may not have ever even graduated high school, and now she's rejoicing in her kid's own good score. Which, to a point, kind of goes back to what I said, if you do a good enough job, you're not gonna be needed anymore, which is a beautiful thing.

And then maybe you can move to South Africa after all, once that happens. Right, right, right. You know, as I think about the guy flying you up to Michigan and saying, I want one of these in every one of my places, I mean, the only reason he would do that, he's a pragmatic businessman. I'm sure he likes you and everything,

but the truth is it makes his neighborhoods more desirable because they're safer, people more involved in the community and everything else. That only makes sense. And I get that. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's wonderful. But can you give me a sense of the way the neighborhood on the ground has changed from

that first day you showed up to now? And also, does that mean people take more pride in the neighborhood and is it prettier? And do people return to it now because it's such a nice place to live? I mean, what does all that look like? Because I gotta believe besides the kids changing, the actual asset of the neighborhood itself has gone through a transformation as well,

which, and what does that look like in terms of people leaving and coming back? I love my time in the Gwinnett Estates, Millahum Park. Like that's where I work every week. I'm there all the time. I never drive my car in the neighborhood. I always walk to go visit people because you're going to run into people if you're from this house to this house. And there's a neat sense of community that's different from my neighborhood. So I pull into my house, open the garage door, I pull in, I shut the garage door. But in the trailer park, you don't have the garages.

So you see your neighbor more, you know your neighbor, you know, your kids are playing together. But I think a really great story is one of our families moved out. So Alondra graduated from high school, playing together, but I think a really great story is one of our families moved out. So Alondra graduated from high school, did some work getting a translating certificate. She works for Path and Owl and she and her family bought a house a few miles away and she has a younger brother, Alejandro, who is still in programs. And so they've moved out, they own their own house and he really wants their family to buy another home in the neighborhood where they can come and stay on the weekends because

he misses his friends. And so he kind of wants like a weekend home where on Fridays after he's done with school, his family can come and live in the neighborhood to be. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Like there's something beautiful about the friendships, the relationships, the community. It's just real special. Yeah, kids will tell us that the neighborhood feels safer. The owners will say, like, hey, it is safer.

And so I think that that has helped help to grow this sense of, hey, like, yeah, Alejandro wants to move back. It's there is real community. wants to move back. There is real community. I mean, immigrant neighborhoods are really fascinating in that sense is that you have so many connections and people know each other. And now that a lot of the gang and drug activity is gone, it feels really safe. I mean, we're sometimes like, hey, we should just move in here. I mean, and then you're balancing that with this been here. I mean, and then you're balancing that with this American dream for kids growing up in lower income communities of what does it mean for me to be a homeowner? Tanner Iskra So, like when you are living in a mobile home, it's affordable housing. It's the most affordable housing there is, but that asset is depreciating.

So it's not a real asset, right? So we know that part of the, you know, bricking the generational cycle of poverty is home ownership. Like, what does that look like? And how does that, you know, change a family's dynamic over 30 or 40 or 50 years? And so, it's an interesting thing. Like, we want kids to find a job where they can afford to buy a house. But then, you know, I mean, we see this all the time. Like, they're like our, the kids in this neighborhood are growing up. They are American kids, right? So they are second generation immigrants. They are Mexican like their parents, but they're fully American like their peers at school. And they want a lot of things, same things that Americans want.

And I think we lose some of that in our culture. We lose, you know, by having the big house in our own private yard, we lose some of this community. And I don't know the answer. I don't know how to- But in the same respect, but there's another guy we've talked to recently, Friends After Five is his organization.

And his belief set is if we want to solve inner city crime and poverty and all of it, it's simply raise the black middle class. And that's what he's doing. And so he puts on events where upcoming black college graduates or black entrepreneurs that are trying to break into the middle class, meet with white folks so that they become quote friends after five and have access. And his goal is to build the black middle class because he says once you get middle class, you buy a house. Once you own a

house, you start having an asset that appreciates that you can borrow against and all of a sudden the middle class. And once you come out of lower class into the middle class, then poverty and lack of education, those things start going away. And so build the middle class. So ironically enough, it kind of speaks to what you're talking about is it's awesome that there's great affordable community. But if you start graduating, making money, you want to move on and start having an asset and home ownership and everything else. And so I can see how, yeah, the neighborhood is improved, but the same respect, you kind of want people to rotate out of the neighborhood to better themselves.

Sure. Sure. It's an interesting, we have a conversation all the time. It's a real thing. Like we want kids this upward mobility, right? This is what the American dream looks like. Talking about the black middle class with friends after five. I mean, as you could say the same in the Latino community. I mean, like that- The exact same thing. Exact same thing. So we want that. Like we want that for these kids. We'd love for them to hang on some of the cool stuff about the neighborhood and maybe do both. And there are people doing this in interstate neighborhoods. They are mixed income communities. They're really focused on how do you make community? I mean, I think that we're getting it a little wrong in our suburban neighborhoods. I think that there's a better way.

And it's a whole other conversation, right? There are people out there, they'd probably be great for you to talk to that are doing this well. But, but, but how do you bring groups together and still value relationships and community, but also these things that can change a family? Yeah. Offer the opportunity to move on. Pretty cool stuff.

If somebody wants to know more, wants to do exactly what you said, here how you did it and no more, somebody wants to volunteer somewhere locally where one of these things are, or, you know, anybody out there that wants to financially support you, how do they find you? there that wants to financially support you, how do they find you? Well, it's pretty easy. I'm happy to share my email address. They can reach out to me directly. Jim, J-I-M at pathunited.org and pretty, pretty good on email. So I'll, I'll reply. I mean, I would love to chat with people who are interested in, in this work,

obviously, you know, in the regions where we are in Nashville, Metro Atlanta, but around the country, I mean, wherever, like if people will talk, we'll talk. This can work anywhere, anyhow. Back when we started, we did spend a lot of time trying to find somebody who could help us and we really struggled with that. So like a young Jim and Melinda who were trying to figure it out, call us. We love to talk about all the things that are wrong. We have actually said, and we've talked to people around the country, we have talked

about we are normal people. Like we didn't even, you know, know this phrase. But we've said that we're like, Hey, we're just normal people. Like what we have had, which, and maybe this will resonate with some listeners, what we have had is a social network in the communities where we are from because we are from there. So like we are just normal people. And so knowing churches and business owners and people like has helped, has helped, you know, elevate this work. And, but I think there's a lot of people out there that have that.

I think there's a lot of people out there that are contractors like your buddy and that are CPAs like your buddy and that are elf on the shelf people like your friend that would love to get involved. They just need a path. And what you did was you got out of your comfort zone, you went into an area of need where you saw it,

and for all of those well-intentioned people that didn't know where to employ their talents, you simply offered them a path. And then when you offer people a path, things come together. And I saw it in my own life. I mean, when I started Manassas, there were two of us. By the end of it, we had a staff of 11.

Ten of them were volunteer coaches. And the church that most of them went to when Manassas started their baseball program up, they had a group of guys who attended church on Sunday nights that all rode motorcycles. And one day, 87 guys showed up on motorcycles with shovels and rakes and made the baseball field look good. They would have never done that, had we not there. But they were always willing. They just needed to see a path and have an opportunity. And so you do the work to provide the path and opportunity and people will crawl out of the woodwork to do the right things. And

ultimately, that's what the two of you have done. Oddly, a path for the kids, but also a path for the people that help the kids. It's an amazing story. And you're a great example of, you know, I mean, you don't be got to be part of some NGO, nobody tapped you on the shoulder and said, Hey, you're going to do this. You just normal folks who saw his need and filled it. And in doing so, y'all, I hope you are, will allow yourselves. I know you're probably hyperersensitive to being toxic charity givers and you probably recoil at anything that even feels remotely close to it. Because when I think of anything I'm doing or say, and I'm like, Oh, could that be turkey person ish? I just actually

back up from it. But I do hope you will give yourselves the opportunity to look one another in the eye once just you and you and recognize changing 600 kids lives a year. It's quite a legacy and certainly a blessing for you, but it's a blessing to those around. I do think you are allowed to those around. I do think you are allowed the opportunity to at least look at each other and celebrate your work because it's worth celebrating. Phenomenal story. Thank you. Congratulations on it. I hope some somebody listening out there will be inspired in some way to be involved and reach out to you because I'd I get the sense you would say sure. I think you're right.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Thanks for so much for spending the afternoon of Memphis with me. I really appreciate it. Right.

And thank you for joining us this week. If Jim and Melinda Hollinsworth or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, inspired you to take action by volunteering with Path United, by donating to them, or starting something like it in your community, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it You can write me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us and I promise I will respond If you enjoyed this episode, please share with friends and on social Subscribe to the podcast rate and review it become a premium member at normal folks dot us

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