The Hidden Truth About Poverty Nobody Talks About

[0:00]  it's much easier for you because you go to school and the teachers reinforce those values you might go to a worship place of worship they rein reinforce those values well those are the same values that are expected in almost every job environment you ever go into so it's a it's a seamless transition because they want you to be on time they want you to value a work ethic they want you to do all those kind of things so that fits very nicely however in poverty the rules are vastly different each class system has its own set of rules the problem is if you grow up in poverty especially in generational poverty you know the rules of poverty but there's no jobs that go by those rules um and so one of the one of the nonprofits that I started was I said you

[0:50]  know what I'm going to take people in poverty just as they are and if I could help them navigate some of the barriers the legal barrier getting their license getting their tickets taken care of all that kind of stuff while also teaching them very relationally what's going to be expected but not just telling them hey you you you have to be at work on time but helping them understand why that even matters all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I am sitting across the table

[1:38]  from another amazing leader today who completely exemplifies that amazing intersection between heart and hustle I'm sitting down with Michael Coleman the CEO of the heart of Alabama Food Bank Michael welcome to the show man oh really uh excited about being here today you know today's going to be an amazing conversation um but before we kind of dive into that who is the man who sits across from me how would his friends describe him work unrelated well it all depends on which F friends you talk about if you talk about friends from high school they would say somebody who was headed nowhere fast and and that would be very true um but uh really because out of desperation I went into the military when I was 18 years old I really didn't have any other path I didn't take School very seriously

[2:27]  um I w't go into a lot of detail but you know I I was kind of my parents divorced when I was young kind of went from home to home had that instability um was taking care of myself a lot um so um developed a lot of uh Independence but didn't have the maturity to match that so it caused me then to when I came up under my teachers to rebel against that Authority because I was used to kind of making it 13 and 14 own decisions um but went to the milit military and found and was humbled very quickly in a real way um but it was very good for me to begin to understand a bigger picture in life and understand that I'm not at the center of the universe and it was uh just a little bit

[3:15]  of um adjustment to my world perspective and um and along that that Journey um you know I got very serious about my faith uh I got very serious about um um making something of my life or doing something that that mattered to other people that made a difference didn't know what that looked like but was just trying to unpack that every day and live that out um and so it's led me down the path that here at 58 years old uh that I'm still going down trying to sometimes figure things out but uh yeah that's I mean most of the people that I knew growing up uh they've forgotten about that old

[4:04]  Michael and I appreciate that I'm always grateful for the second chance but uh yeah I was not a model citizen or anybody that they would want to model their life uh um and and how I was so yeah I'll just kind of leave it there you know one of the one of the best things about you know hopping on the podcast having discussions like this is we can talk a little bit about the the benefit of perspective and distance right if you had to go back 47 years and give that 18-year-old who was just hopping into the military a piece of advice on how he was going to navigate the next 10 15 years what would you tell him wow that is that is such a great question there's a there's a country song um well when I say A Country Song it's really kind of a a little bit of a

[4:52]  faith-based song but has a little country fi to it but it talks about uh if if I could go back in time what would I say to me um and it's called dear younger me it's by a group called Mercy Me and dear younger me and the question is it's a fascinating question because it says would I go back and tell you to do things differently because going through the things that I've been through has has was what I needed to to change my perspective so I know that we want to go and go yeah I want to avoid those tough times but it was the tough times that really SLA me upside the head and help me have a more sober approach to my future and and really see a much healthier perspective

[5:41]  than I would so I mean that's kind of what the song's about you know would I go back and change things I I don't know that I would and the truth of the matter is looking back at my life at 17 and 18 I had several people speaking into my life um I just wasn't open to it I I just wasn't to that place that I was open to it and and since then I have dealt with several people who who kind of hit that that I recognize at the time look it's not what I'm trying to share with them is that they're just not in a place where they've hit bottom and they're open to that to those words they don't mean anything and so yeah so um I I don't know that I would have I would have tried to encourage him to have a a more mature perspective but knowing me back when I

[6:31]  was 17 18 I would I was too hard-headed to hear it I uh I've been going through this exercise with guests on the podcast and I've been trying to come at this from thinking about myself in like an 85y old frame right 885 years old if you could go back to Kenan who's now 33 this Friday as the time we recording this I'll be turning 34 what would you say to that man and I would tell him to enjoy the process more you know I think often we are in such a rush to get from here to there that we don't take the time to slow down and truly enjoy what we do every single day now there's hardships there's growth there's Growing Pains but a lot of that comes in how we kind of frame that in our mind to be able to enjoy those times of uncomfortableness right and that's kind of how I've been

[7:18]  thinking about life a little bit more is I want to be the guy who's remembered for enjoying the ride as he kind of goes down this path you know that's a real interesting perspective to me U you know my daughters are are grown they're both married they both have two children and they remind me of how difficult how hard of a parent they knew I always loved them I was always there for them but they kind of relay to me that I was a little bit of a drill sergeant um and and I wish that I could go back and see what I have now my wife and I were very got married right out of high school uh I didn't have the to be a father we didn't have the money um everything was tight we were watching

[8:04]  everything and so and I'm trying to make a military career um just to be able to provide for my family moving forward and yeah so I I mean I'm the first to admit to my children hey there were times I disciplined out of frustration and anger rather than always doing what was in your best interest um and you know I was not always consistent all the things that we are and I told them um it's going to surprise you when your children get grown they're going to begin to talk about things that you did and it's going to surprise you about about where you you failed your parent I mean where you failed your children or at least from their perspective but you know they tease me about it a lot I'm I'm glad we're all you know in very close fellowship with

[8:52]  one another um but I I I think that's a lot I think that's good advice about enjoying the right I wish I could could go back and say at least from a parenting perspective not everything is worth going to the mat over there's something some little comment some little eye roll that I could have just let go you know and just had a little bit of a a softer tone at times rather than always trying to feel like no I'm having to shape this person for the future I'm not going to let any of that slide and and probably stay on them as much as did so yeah I would like from that perspective as as a parent I would like to go back and and fix some of that I mean what we're talking about is a very Human Experience

[9:38]  though you know you being an 18-year-old trying to build a military career money is tight new wife building a family you didn't exactly have the space right to create some of those amorph amorphous just like happy Feelgood moments you know what I mean like you are really kind of concentrated on insulating the family from the stresses of the world and sometimes that meant being a little bit strict right yeah and I try to help you know I so I grew up in a very tumultuous environment with my own father and we had reconciled before I died um but if you look back the trauma that happens generationally he would talk about the trauma that he had and he had a very unique situation and but instead of learning from that he passed a lot of those same

[10:26]  things on to me and I find myself back battling those same things and so you know every generation says Hey I want to be the one to to kind of see it more clearly um but as my own children understand we all have frailties we all have weaknesses we are all you know trying to do the right thing and in spite of our best efforts you know our own you know we're just going to fall short way more than we would like to admit to um so it's very important for me that kind of parlays into some of the other things we're talking about it kind of parlays into this world of man I want to extend Grace to people I want to extend Mercy to people I want to extend forgiveness to

[11:15]  people because that's what I need in my life and if I want that for my own life you know I I need to be leading with that mindset of people who even intentionally do things wrong U again me or or who um are unkind or those kind of things because you truly don't know what somebody's background has been and what their perspectives are and how they're coming at situations in life and so um I have found the more um that I can love people and extend mercy and forgiveness give them the benefit of the doubt uh the better it it works for me and my and how people regard me you know I was I was truly inspired after the last time that we

[12:02]  talked together because you had mentioned a really interesting concept which was when you come from a certain I'm just going to call this like sect of society you're a middle class individual often we grow up with these values that are instilled into how we see the world and sometimes when we are helping the community in a nonprofit sector like the food bank as an example we're trying to speak those values onto people who can't even relate with our life experience let's talk a little bit about that cuz was super impactful for me last night yeah so I don't even remember if I told you this but the very first nonprofit I stepped in so I did 21 years in the Army I stepped out of that when I stepped into the nonprofit space I had several friends who own businesses and even knew some CEOs at the what you would call corporate level and they were all talking about the same kind of thing

[12:50]  look um you know we're we're desperate for employees for good employees and yet I was working in a nonprofit We were doing benevolence and handing out groceries and those kind of things and so often people would come by and I'm like hey you know you want to pray about anything is there anything I can you know sit down and talk with you about and seemed like half of them were saying yeah I need a new I'm desperate for a job and I thought to myself wait a minute I've got people who are desperate to work desperate in need of a job and I've got people who are over corporations who are desperate for good employees and I thought initially in my ignorance I thought oh it's a perfect fit why not I just serve people by connecting them with the

[13:37]  employees and I I was a little bit naive because as I began to do that it never was working out and I and I couldn't figure out what's the disconnect if I can figure out the disconnect then I really can help Elevate people out of poverty and so I was finally turned onto this book called A framework for understanding pover y by Dr Ruby Payne and she she's written books like Bridges out of pro poverty and things like that but the most valuable thing in that book was a was a research done to where she said look we look we all know that there are individual challenges among race and other things in the workplace but she said the greatest challenge is really it's a class problem and at first I thought well let me see what she says

[14:27]  and so she t Al about that every society and she breaks it down into three groups poverty class middle class and wealth class and she looks at 15 areas and analyzes it uh through that through that lens and she said so when you and I got to hear her in person speak as well and she said when you when you're raised up in the middle class um and you're you're taught those values like how to respond to adults how to talk to people how to look them in the eye how to shake just all those kind of middle class values it's much easier for you because you go to school and the teachers reinforce those values you might go to a worship place of worship they rein reinforce those values well those are the same values that are expected in almost every

[15:15]  job environment you ever go into so it's a it's a seamless transition because they want you to be on time they want you to value a work ethic they want you to do all those kind of things so that fits very nicely how however in poverty the rules are vastly different each class system has its own set of rules the problem is if you grow up in poverty especially in generational poverty you know the rules of poverty but there's no jobs that go by those rules um and so one of the one of the nonprofits that I started was I said you know what I'm going to take people in poverty just as they are and if I could help them navigate some of the barriers the legal barriers getting their license

[16:03]  getting their tickets taken care of all that kind of stuff while also teaching them very relationally what's going to be expected but not just tell them hey you you you have to be at work on time but helping them understand why that even matters so I I'll give you one quick example so Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Hyundai's us plants here in Montgomery Alabama and so they when when I toured there they said look if we have all these tier one plants and if a tier one plant does and I'll just use the exhaust systems so if the exhaust systems are not there when the cars are being built and they have to stop production that company responsible for the exhaust systems gets fined $10,000 per

[16:52]  minute that they have to shut production down and so I was like okay so let's say you're on a part that's putting on the doors and there's four of you and you don't show up for work you're going to affect your team because what what I was being told was well what difference does it make when I show up you're not going to pay me till I show up but they had no concept of what it is to be a part of a team making sure that you know you're working with high exent and you're you're building this car and and everybody's depending on you and I think I I think I shared with you something that I think uh and I'll do this just very quickly if you want me to is to kind of illustrate this was the issue about

[17:38]  time um in the in the middle class everything's about the future um I go to I might decide I'm going to go to college today not because I'm going to make more money today but I know that to get to to accomplish my career aspirations I'm going to need bachelor's degree let's say or I might need if I want to be electrician I've got to go get my certification electrician but in poverty they are not taught how to think into the future they are taught because everything is in the present because you just you're just putting out one fire after another that's what surviving in the moment is like and this really dawned on me I don't even know if it remember if it's

[18:25]  in the book or it just came to me if you can't think into the future then you don't have the ability to understand consequences of your choices one of the shows I used to watch all the time was the first 48 on A&E I don't know if you ever saw it yeah oh yeah so yeah they come to mobile they come to Birmingham I mean we we had that show all over Alabama but I looked at it from here's people primarily in po poverty and you would see guys that would have the absolute most bravado in the world and they would so they get pulled in and at some point they go look we've got you on video we've got three Witnesses you're 19 years old you're going to jail for the rest of your life and when they that

[19:14]  was the time that the consequences they they K shot somebody oh a pizza guy for you know 20 bucks and now they're now the consequences don't hit them until they are caught and their future is sacrificed and you see 19-year-old kids start balling and asking for my mom can I have my mom because they they revert to this childlike figure because the consequences don't hit them because they're not taught to think into the future I mean so often we make decisions every day hey I'm not going to eat this extra piece of dessert which I love to do um thankfully I'm an old fat man now so I don't I don't have to worry about

[20:01]  as much as I used to but when I was in the military it wasn't like that I had to really watch what I ate and I'm like man if I eat this extra piece of dessert I've got to go do some extra PT um and so I would make we all make decisions in the moment but it's based off future consequences of that decision and poverty that that just doesn't exist and I don't know if I share this one more I'll share with you is the fact about money money is something to be used and enjoyed that's a middle class value and I learned that from my mother would sit down this is back in the day when there were checkbooks and no Banking online I would see her with a stack of bills and she would be writing checks for all the bills and if there was money left over you know she'd get got paid every two weeks if there was money left over she'd

[20:47]  say well maybe we'll get to go out to eat but if there wasn't we'd be sucking on green beans cu the priority was you pay your bills because that's your name and that was again just a standard middle class value but if you think about somebody whose whose mortgage is due or their rent is due the following Tuesday and they get paid on a Friday they got a pocket full of cash and they're not thinking into the future they're saying hey I'm gonna go to the club I'm going to enjoy myself and if I blow it all then guess what I'll worry about paying the mortgage next week so it's not even thinking into the future it's just we do and so so often in poverty people who are in that cycle continue to stay in that cycle even if they have a job connection because of

[21:35]  the thinking that's that's I would just say maladaptive and and really hurts them from being able to go forward in life so how do we break that cycle well I started a program because and I even told people my gy Alabama this was years ago 2012 uh I actually cashed in my wife and I cashed in our ra and you know took a the huge penalty the cuz everybody said yeah we need to help people in poverty but there wasn't a lot of money to be thrown at an idea so you know we did it I invested all the money I had and the idea was look I I I don't I'm not the I'm not the grand wizard um I I can't you know wave a magic wine and and poof your life is

[22:25]  going to be fixed but what I will do is step into this space with you and what I used to tell our students and the racial breakdown was about 85% African-American about 15% white um I said but what I'll do is I'll come alongside of you and I will make sure as long as you have a desire to move forward in life and and to be something different I know you don't know how to get there and that's okay but if you just bring the want to every day I'll walk beside you and when we get to a barrier that you don't have the ability on your own to overcome either because you don't know how or you don't have the resources my oath to you is I'm going to provide that to you so that you can continue to move forward

[23:14]  now um and and so that's what it was like and I had all sorts of people go hey I love your program but man I want to change a whole neighborhood and I I said you're not going to I mean these people are people who have had 18 to 25 years of that systematic programming of poverty rules and only when you get into this ever deepening relationship and show authenticity and you show love and you show care to people you show them a different I mean even with me doing that the majority still quit along the way or they they wouldn't go forward but those who did have gone on to do some some pretty remarkable things and have been able to lift themselves out of poverty

[24:03]  we want the easy way in society you know we want I've had politicians you know how how can we transform whole neighborhoods and I said that's a pipe dream you know because when you go especially here here I'm a white guy middle-aged white guy going to an African-American Community the first thing they tell me is I don't trust you and I'm like I get it you know I get it I've got to prove to you through our life that I that I I'm not going to um forsake you when it gets hard you know as long as you bring I tell them all the time that's one thing I can't give you is the want to but if you bring that want to I can deal with the rest of stuff to help you and I formed some I mean it changed me uh

[24:52]  inside and out I mean people say that that that may even sound like just a oh everybody say but I'm telling you it really helped me to see um what how many barriers there are in poverty um that people have to overcome and it's such a shame in the middle class I mean I spent half my time trying to educate the middle class because we look at people in poverty and say oh come on you know just do things the way I did we don't see it from their perspective and their perspective is there's a lot of pot holes there's a lot of trauma there's a lot of people who have promised some things that didn't work out so there's a lot of mistrust there's tons of barriers you don't just step out of poverty into a middle- class

[25:40]  environment first and foremost you have to know how to navigate that world not just what the rules are but why those rules exist why is it important to be on time why is it important to be respectful why is it important to save money why I mean because you can tell them to do those things but they don't know the why because it's not something than they were taught often times in poverty you gave a beautiful analogy last time of standing across let's just call it the sidewalk from another person you say come on over here like we can help you out but then looking at it from their view they see the traps the pitfalls the challenges the invisible barriers that we don't perceive and I thought that was incredibly powerful yeah and I've seen it time and time again I didn't I'm trying to share with you a different example I have so many that pop in my head I had this guy he he was well meaning he was upper middle

[26:30]  class and he's like yeah I talked to this lady and she was going to go by these rims um and the she like her tires you know had the little tiny you know talking about the big super big tires and the she was having to replace them every 15,000 miles just not enough tread on them and he said um I told her I don't replace my tires till every 60,000 and she's like really and he's like yeah yeah you know well she went out and did she still went out and got the same tires and he wants to throw his hands up and I'm like so let me ask you a question you don't have any relationship with somebody you threw out some so-called wisdom and they didn't follow you and you're ready to throw your hands

[27:17]  up and give up on them because you didn't they just didn't fall down at your feet and I mean it doesn't it just doesn't work like that but that's that's what people do they're like well I told them what to do do and without any understanding of what that means in poverty I mean why there is so many people I'll be the first to say there's so many people who stay in poverty because they're always trying to project as if they have money and so they they'll they'll put a lot of money I mean I used to tell our class I don't understand why you have a $500 car and $5,000 rims I mean it makes no sense to me if you took those wheels off the car you know you'd be lucky to get 500 bucks for that car but so from my perspective

[28:07]  and and a middle class perspective there was all sorts of judgment and what I recognized was wait a minute I'm not connecting with these people because I'm too busy judging and and saying this is not right so what I did was is I said look if I if I want to change people's lives I have to humble myself and say wait a minute let me go put myself next to them and see what they're seeing and that's when our program really came alive is when I recognized you know what um I don't see any barriers when I'm standing at the middle class side looking at the poverty looking towards the poverty person when I go stand beside them and then they start saying okay where do we go from

[28:54]  here I've got all these barriers to get over here to that other side boy it's insurmountable to some people now in reality it's not always insurmountable it's usually not but to them and what they understand and what they know and their point of reference for life up to that point it seems insurmountable and so even when somebody like myself who who has the best of intentions comes along and says hey I really want to help you I really care about you and they're like instant mistrust what's in it for you because in poverty even sometimes I've had students tell me this sometimes the person who comes at them the most may be their most beloved loved one it could be a parent

[29:42]  it could be a sibling that doesn't do anything for them without a financial incentive or or some type of motive right they've not experienced just authentic I'm doing this for you because I care about you and I'm not I'm not even thinking about how you repay me I'm not even thinking about I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do and I care about you so that's a that's a new world to them often times and we just we sometimes just make these assumptions that why don't they Embrace that and it's because they've been taken advantage of and they've been hurt and and it's tough for them to navigate nonprofit CEO burnout is a huge challenge

[30:28]  you know when we're fighting these macroeconomic societal and cultural issues where we have to be the belief breaker of systems that have been ingrained and systematically placed into our communities how do you continue to stay chipper and hopeful and appreciative for the process and the progress that you guys are making I believe well let me say this I was very discouraged when I had poured everything I had into some of my students and then they just walked away as if I'm a nobody to them and so a couple things had to happen I I had to change again this is about me growing as a person and changing my perspective to say look I've stepped into this realm of trying to

[31:16]  help people who often times are very very broken and have all the reason in the world to mistrust me um and at times it's it's going to feel like it's too hard for them and they're going to walk away and it feels like that you're just getting that finger and saying thanks but no thanks I I I don't want your relationship I don't want that and and that's really not what they're projecting you know there's other things behind that it's just maybe a fear they couldn't overcome let me just give you another quick example we found out we would give people bus passes and what we found out though was one of the things in poverty is you typically do not ask questions in

[32:06]  poverty and the reason you don't ask questions is because you risk looking stupid now and it to look stupid means you you open up yourself to ridicule and then you can be pushed outside of your Collective group now when you when you say that you're like yeah I totally get that but from a middle class perspective middle class values are at like if I go to New York I've never rid the subway I go down to the subway first thing I'm looking for is the ticket desk the help counter whatever I'm seeking out information because the middle class value is you ask for help we don't see it as a sign of weakness so we kept having students that were depending on rides and we kept telling them this is one of the things we're trying to break because rides are never going to be dependable and get you at work every

[32:52]  time um and but they would not take the bus and I'm like we're having to kick students out because they can't get here on time so did some further research and ended up finding out that we had especially young women since they don't ask questions we go to the bus station and they're trying to figure out which bus to take and they they saw the help window but they were not going to ask for help and they couldn't figure it out and then they started having panic attacks and when they had panic attacks then they um then the whole thing kind of fell apart so we then began to walk down anybody that needed the bus we would go down to the bus station with them we would take them up to the health help desk we would find out where their

[33:40]  address was what bus they should get on we got on the bus and we rode their route especially if they had any changeovers so because you Expos them to that and now they're equipped with that power not always but most of the time we had helped them overcome that barrier but a lot of it was just fear and and so we had to get our so to speak get our hands dirty go ride the bus and do those kind of things and illustrate for them how to overcome this on their own that kind of commitment though and that's one of a million examples but that kind of commitment has to come from somebody who authentically cares and you know is in this for the right reasons you know I'm in this because even though you don't know me I

[34:29]  care about the fact that you're trapped in poverty and I want to see you and I'm willing to give of my resources I'm willing to give of my time I'm willing to give you know fun doesn't matter I just want you to be successful um and even sometimes I've had people who left but contacted me back or gave other people recommendation about coming to the training because they said hey this organization is for Real I didn't make it because I chose not to but you can trust them you can move so we were starting to build some real credibility into the community and and that program is still even though I left after seven years because what you talked about it just sucks the life out of you um with that kind of individual care and as much as you love

[35:17]  somebody you have to find places that F your own individually T individual tank up if if all I'm doing is emptying my tank for other people and nobody's filling my tank back up nobody can survive Forever on that I could I can run on empty for for quite a while but at some point I'm like I've got to go do something different to be able to take care of my own mental health and my own heart and all those other kind of things yeah so I had to take a break from it St still stayed in the nonprofit space in Birmingham but now I'm back here in the food bank in the Montgomery area and that program I'm very thankful is still going very strong what fills your cup the most about being at the food bank now yeah so what that's

[36:06]  a great question um it's a little bit different in this work than the other group so the other nonprofits I've been in are direct service so you get to hear all the stories um we are in Direct Services in that we we cover 35 counties but we basically source and distribute food to County agencies who then go and take it so we're living a little bit vicariously through them like when we hear stories from agencies we know it originated with us and so we're living a little bit but really it is it's the perspective of understanding that we have to create a robust Network because if that we are the backbone and that if we need to

[36:56]  distribute as much food as timely as fresh as possible as timely as possible and as inexpensively as possible so that what resources we have will reach the people in need and it's not so much important it's not so important that that we get personal recognition um because we as an organization know I me we pride ourselves the men and women of this organization come in every day knowing that we are doing what we do for people we will never lay eyes uh lay eyes on but I think about the little child and and I don't think about this from a negative standpoint think about like Montgomery has its first African-American mayor we're the heart the very heart of the Civil Rights Movement here so we have our first

[37:44]  African-American mayor in his history he's actually in his second term here and I think about the the young black child who is 8 years old who can be any he I mean has the intellect and the ability to be anything he wants to be but if but his parents can't provide him enough food so he doesn't grow physically like he should he doesn't grow mentally and emotionally so he's destined for great things for this community but he's enduring a trauma of food insecurity and and not having to go to bed and so when I think about hey where where helping that person we're helping that child be able to navigate these tough thing these

[38:33]  tough times and I think about the seniors my own mother who was 71 years uh excuse me yeah when she had to retire 71 years old but all she had was Social Security had no money saved but worked her whole adult life and but she retired on $1,100 of Social Security if it were not for me and my sister um she would have really struggled well there's so many people in our area that not only are living on Social Security but have children adult children who are even pulling on some of those resources so it's a real fight to know that you know seniors have trauma of food insecurity children have it families have it and it's just diving into this space and saying like I did with h fire Ministries I don't have all the

[39:21]  answers um I don't have it all figured out I've got my own Brokenness that I deal with but I care enough that I want to step into this darkness and I want to do what I can and bring what resources to I to I can no promises like I said I'm not I don't have a magic wand uh I'm not looking to have a Jesus complex I'm you know I'm not the Savior I just want to step in and bring whatever healing and whatever light and whatever resources I can to dark situations and you know through my faith I'm obviously a believer in God I hope God is glorified through that that's my underlying motive but because I've Been Loved I Believe by God in such a dynamic way um my goal is to love people in an

[40:12]  undeserved way like I've Been Loved in an undeserved way you know this is it's such an opportunity to sit across the table from an amazing leader like yourself Michael because we hear the passions we hear the lives that you led lift up and you stand up for every single day in the lives that you trying to change by implanting good ideas of empowerment and encouragement and vulnerability and just being willing somebody who's going to show up and lay down for somebody else so they can get a step ahead of you is incredible I want to I want to know what what does the future for the food bank look like over the next five years you know you're going to continue to do the great work that you're doing what does the vision look like from your side yeah we want to you know I I've always have a heart like at one

[41:00]  time I was like I don't want to just get food and give it to food give uh people food although you know there's some people that are never going to come out of that poverty situation because we have people who are disabled we have people who are elderly you know there there's always going to be people who have challenges and just who need support and I want to live in a world where we care about our neighbors but I also want to elevate people who may temporarily need support I I don't want to create um a situation to where it creates dependency and it removes their motivation um to move forward and and use utilize their god-given gifts and uh talents so we're looking at a couple of

[41:51]  different things number one Montgomery is not a wealthy area um we we struggle sometimes to do everything we want to do because the funding is just not there but I really think in the coming years what we're going to be able to do is is is create um a some wraparound services that when somebody comes we you know it's kind of this idea of lessening the line you know and people would just come get food but we're like if if you have the ability to go to work and we we want you to experience that we want the man or the woman to experience that because there there's a lot that goes into our own selfworth and things like that and so if somebody can

[42:40]  take care of themselves I absolutely want them to be able to take care of themselves and their families but they just have some barriers often times so the vision is is that hey we're here and we have food and people I'm telling you we can go out anywhere even though we're so rural we can go out into any place and attract food will bring people 150 to 300 people in any rural part of the the state but I want to go beyond that I think to truly care about people is is not to just keep them in that emergency state where they're just they need food they get food they come back I prefer to kind of be in that developmental where you can meet the emergency needs you still have to do that but then let's let's provide some wraparound service Services it may just

[43:28]  be that somebody needs some Mental Health Resources or some counseling or something to talk through some of those issues they might just need um some Workforce Development training or some GED training or introducting introduction into some um certain certifications that they need that will launch them I mean I've seen people uh it's it's just so heartbreaking I had this this kid and and every week we would have a student of the week and I remember giving him this and it said um uh the the lady made up it was just on just a regular I think it was a purple piece of paper and it just said student of the week and it said we love

[44:16]  you and he went into her and said I'm I'm going to hold on to this and he was just making a big deal about that this kid is 21 years old and he and finally the instructor said you know why is this so important he goes I've never had an adult tell me they love me before and so we jump in and we point a finger at a kid like that and say why aren't you out doing X Y and Z and there's there's often times so much so just encouraging this I mean this kid may feel like he's a failure I'm never going to accomplish anything nobody's ever never told me good job for anything and now here's some people that are coming around him and recognizing his potential so the self-worth that we

[45:05]  may have gotten since age six when our parents were you know encouraging us just to just to be potty trained although I didn't take me till age six to be poty trained I just want to go on the record of saying that um but a lot of people don't get that till they're in their early adult stages and so it might just be those pats on the back that encouragement sometimes somebody needs somebody to speak to him man on man you know like in real terms you know in a in a loving way not talking down to him not not being violent but just being real with him um every there's not a one cure for everybody because everybody's background everybody's trauma everybody's starting point is different so that just hit home with me that I'm like you know what

[45:55]  everybody some people need all the services you can get and some people just need a little boost if we can get people to where we are with food and then get them introduced to those services and liberate them from poverty they they have self-worth and self-esteem and they go from being a drag on the a lifetime drag of on government resources but also lots of those people end up in prison and and so we we take somebody who could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison versus somebody who becomes a productive citizen that he's proud of himself his family can be proud he can take care of his family and he can break that generational curse um but it's just like I said it's just one person at a time and boy do I

[46:46]  wish I I tried to look for shortcuts to make it be a bunch of people but you just got to delve into life with each person and um but there is no nothing when we go to graduation we may start with with 20 people and graduate five students but those five students would all give speeches and I had I had a guy come in one time and he goes tell me he came to the graduation he looked up on the stage after hearing the the people and he said I don't know I don't even know what you do here but if that's what you're producing I'm all in and I was like you're like a proud parent when those five would graduate you lost 15 and your heart's hurting for them but those five now have a head start in life and and to

[47:33]  become something and Welly you just beaming with pride and you realize 13 weeks of effort and fight and all that you know got them to this point and anyway there's nothing more rewarding than changing somebody's pathway in life and even though you only get you don't get near as many as you'd like boy it's nothing like it it put you on a high and uh I highly recommend it's worth every tear that you shed behind the scenes one of the things we do as we close our episode here is we have our previous guest ask you a question now this previous guest um is the president and CEO of the Livestrong Foundation and her question was if you could go back in time and change one thing what would it be when I go back and look at some of

[48:25]  the hardships even in the nonprofit space some of the battles that I've had I tend to be pretty critical on myself because I recognize even though the barriers you know in my mind I'm fighting for the the unheard the voiceless and I'm talking to people sometimes who are providing barriers and I recognize sometimes in my passion I did not exhibit the best character and I wish I could go back and and change that because as my fate went so went the fate of those I'm trying to help and so I I thought I wish I had enough wisdom to

[49:14]  know when is it time to fight like down on this hill and and when is it not even though I will tell you this one of the best advice I ever got when I took over a unit uh to command a unit in the Army a guy came up to me and he said Michael I want you to imagine you got the old western gun belts and I said yeah and he goes you know you had the bullets in there he said yeah I want you to imagine you got five silver bullets and that Silver Bullet would take care of any problem it's going to fix any problem you have but you're going to be in command about 18 months and you've got five of them so it really taught me about wait a minute you know I can't dial on the hill over every issue uh I have to think about you know when's the time to use the silver bullet and even

[50:01]  though that great advice was given to me out throughout my life I let my passion sometimes override my wisdom and and uh can end up hurting myself or end up hurting those that that I'm trying to help in the in the meantime so I wish I would have used wisdom a little bit more wisdom along the way and and less maybe emotion you know when it comes to fighting a fight like you've been fighting in the nonprofit space often I come back to the analogy that there is no Silver Bullet although you might only have five but rather there's a hundred golden BB's that are going to change these things yeah you know that's good it's good I like that yeah yeah well Michael I just want to say man you are hands down the

[50:48]  definition of heart and hustle and being able to highlight your story your perspectives your philosophies your unique ways in which we're trying to tackle these huge problems and your consistency of showing up every day for those people who often don't even know how to raise their hand for themselves is truly inspiring and I can't thank you enough for coming on the show man Ser well Keenan I'm truly honored to be asked and uh and I I appreciate the opportunity to kind of share my story and hope other people encouraged and if they ever want to reach out to me they can look us up online and let me know they they are and they find me on LinkedIn as well um but I'd love to help anybody I can out there going through some of those things things yes sir well that's a wrap thank you for having me