August 15, 2023 • 52 mins
Amy and her husband Jim adopted 6 kids. And because Amy apparently didn’t have enough on her plate, she then founded ComeUnity Cafe in Jackson, TN. The non-profit, donation-based cafe has a suggested donation amount and if you can’t afford it, you can volunteer there for your meal. This extraordinary model enables everyone to break bread together and be in community with one another.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This folder's open and he's showing me all this and
he said, now tell me again how this is going
to work with volunteers and you know, and I said, well,
somebody comes in needs a meal, doesn't have the money
to pay for it. And he goes, WHOA. He goes like,
like the homeless, and I was like, yeah, the homeless,
the under served. And he closed his folder, doesn't even
(00:30):
realize he's done it, and kind of pushes it across
the you know, midway across the table and says, well,
you know, I just can't do it for less than this,
and I'd have to have a five year contract.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And I was, in other words, we don't want you exactly.
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Fortney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis.
And the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for
(01:05):
the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe
our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch
of fancy people in nice suits talking big words nobody
understands on CNN and Box, but rather by an army
of normal folks us just you and me deciding, Hey,
I can help. That's what Amy Crenshaw, the voice we
(01:27):
just heard is done. Amy is the founder of Community Cafe,
a non profit restaurant in Jackson, Tennessee that has no
prices and only a suggested donation for your meal, and
if you can't afford to pay, you simply volunteer for
an hour for your meal. This unbelievable models allows the
(01:48):
whole community to come together like never before, with long,
family style tables where folks like doctors, construction workers, and
even the homeless dine together side by side every day.
You heard how Amy got some pushback at first, but
they're still going strong almost ten years later. And I
(02:10):
think there should be one of these things in every
community across our country. And this is not the only
extraordinary thing that Amy's done. As you're about to hear
right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors, Amy Crenshaw,
(02:40):
how are you. I'm good, I'm great. It's it's so
good to have you with us. I have a thousand
questions for you. Obviously, we're going to get to Community
Cafe spelled come capitol U N I t y community
(03:01):
community Cafe and what that's about. But I want to
I want to hear more about you. I want to
know about the chick behind community cafe that has ten
children and is from Memphis, and there's just You're just
kind of cool. So I want to hear about you.
(03:24):
Where'd you grow up? I grew up in Germantown, Germantown, Tennessee,
which is a suburb of Memphis. Right right, it's it's
not you know, it's it's upper middle class. I guess,
is that right? Brothers, sisters?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I had four brothers growing up. I went to Germantown
High School and then went to Methodist School of Nursing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Did you are you nurse? Did you work? You work?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I worked in labor and delivery Methodist Hospital Central until
Methodist Hospital North opened up. I guess I did ob
nursing for about eight years. And then our first son.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Were you getting practiced for having a bunch of kidschen? Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I was getting practice absolutely. Our first child was born
on December twenty first. I was supposed to be working
the last two of my night shifts before I quit
really want to be I wanted to be a stay
home mom. Got it absolutely and went into work and
things picked up personally, and he was born that the
(04:26):
next morning. So it didn't finish.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
At least you were there.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
At least I was there. Yes, came home. My husband
had been on call the night that night, the night before.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
He's a doctor.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
He's a physician, and he had been on call. He's
a cardiologist, and he was actually in his fellowship, but
he had been on call and came home before I
went to work and said, just so you know, tonight
would not be a good night if you had this baby,
because I am wiped out. And I was like, I
still have three weeks, no problem. Went to work. Yeah,
(05:01):
my water broke and I called him and said, hey,
I'm coming home for a little while and he said
what and I said, yep, We're gonna have a baby.
And he was like, I told you, this was not
a good night, but you know, maybe's come.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When they do, that's unreal.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So and then stayed home after.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So a nurse married to a doc and just starting
your family in I guess Germantown or Memphis area. Memphis, right,
but you live in Jackson.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Now, we do. We live in Jackson now. When he finished.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
His phone with Jackson, Sorry, Jackson, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yes, sorry, sure, just down the road, right, and someday
they'll probably both grow together.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
They might keep going.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It's heading that way, that's right. Two of our children
were born here in Memphis, one of them, the third one,
was born in Jackson shortly after we moved there, and
then about six years later we started adopting.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
All right, So I can't wait to hear about that
because I only understand a little bit, and uh, we're
going to share it with everybody. But how old is
your oldest child?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
He just turned thirty three, all right, and your youngest
is getting ready to be seventeen.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Holy smokes. That's a lot of kids in between that,
sexually a lot of kids. So you had you had
four naturally.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We had three naturally naturally, and then you.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Decide to start adopting. And I think, I think I
read that we're talking Ethiopia and China.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Ethiopia and China.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Okay, you got to give me the background on that
and the reasons and everything, which first of all, I
think is beautiful. And I mean, when you guys gather
around the Thanksgiving dinner table must look like the United Nations.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's what we always say. We've got the United Nations
under one ring. I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So at church in Jackson, there was a middle aged
couple there. I was going to say young, but they
weren't so young. But they had moved back to Jackson.
They had been living in Guangzhoe, China. I think he
was with PNG, and they had driven and I think
they had brought home twin baby girls that they had adopted.
(07:20):
And they were very good and very vocal about sharing
about the one child law and also the plight of
baby girls.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well we'll talk about that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, there's not a one child law anymore. I think
there was. There was, yes, in the probably gosh that
started I just heard the other day. I should remember
the dates, but maybe in the seventies or eighties that started,
and then that actually ended sometime in maybe mid two thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I don't know if what I've read is true or not,
or even if I'm imagining that I read something, but
I'm going to ask you because obviously you would know.
But my understanding is that the one child law was
that the government were only allowing couples to have one child,
which meant that couples really wanted boys so they could
(08:15):
continue their bloodline. And often if they had a girl,
they would this sounds horrible, but they would give the
child up for adoption, leaving an orphanage, or sometimes throw
them in the water.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, they would surround them, they would simply abandon them.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Because they wanted their one child to be a male.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, and males. I think I might be misquoting this,
but technically, by law are required to take care of
their parents in their old age. So they definitely wanted
a boy.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh, so the parents wanted a boy, so they had
a caretaker.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, and also to carry on, yeah, obviously to carry
on that way.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But hearing all of that and revisit I hadn't thought
about this in ages, but revisiting that is, that's horrific.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
It is horrific. It is it's very sad.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So this couple comes back to your church and they
have twin daughters. Twin daughters most likely abandoned because.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
They were And as a matter of fact, it's a
funny story and I'm probably getting this wrong, totally wrong,
but it was something like the wife had heard about,
you know, the adoptions and the plight of the baby girls.
And they had older grown children that I don't think
lived with them at the time. I think they were
(09:35):
all grown and flown flown, But she said. The wife
said to the husband one day when he got home,
she said, you know, I need to tell you this
story I heard today. So she was talking about the children,
and she said, I really think we need to adopt.
And he said, yeah, yeah, he said, probably not. But
I tell you, what if the Lord abandons one on
(09:57):
our doorstep, Well, are you kidding? No, no.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
One on our doorstep will keep it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah. And and so she supposedly was, you know, had
gone about her day one day and was walking up
the stairwell because a lot of the buildings don't have
elevators or escalators, walking up the stairs to their apartment
on the fifth floor, seventh floor, whatever it was. And
there's babies, and there's two babies abandoned, abandoned.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Some would say, the Lord drops babies on their doorstep.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
The Lord drop their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, so they show up in Jackson with these babies.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well they're great about sharing the whole story.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well that's great, but the Lord didn't drop any Chinese
babies on your doorstep at Jackson.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
No no, no, no, no no. So our youngest daughter
at the time was probably gosh, she was probably four, yeah, Kara.
And Kara, ironically is the one that's married and isn't
really sure she wants to be a mom. So it's
really kind of funny because she was the one that
(11:03):
would say every night in her prayers, she'd say her
prayers and then she'd get through and she goes and God,
please let Daddy change his heart about bringing a baby
home from China. Yeah, so precious. And my husband was
quite resistant. He would say and just said, Amy, I
(11:23):
don't have time. He was in the busiest time in
his practice.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
He's a cardiologist, he's got a practice. He already has
a wife and three children exactly, that's a big stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And he said, I don't have time for the ones
we have, and that makes me feel guilty, right, and
my not immediate comeback. But later on I said to him,
but don't you think that one parent that's a full
time parent and then has the support of the second
parent is better than no parents at all, better than
(11:54):
a child languishing in an orphanage.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And I think that guy very unwanted in that country. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So anyways, he started asking his men's group, men's prayer group,
Bible study group to pray about it with him, and
they did. And there were a little background. There were
four guys in his practice at that point. They're now
ten big, but there were four guys and one of
them was leaving. When he came home that night, he said,
(12:25):
doctor Chips leaving and you know it's going to be crazy.
And I said, well, I guess in really good time
to talk about adopting then, huh. And he said, you know,
as a matter of fact, I think we need to
do it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And he likes he likes to tell people that don't
tell Amy that something can happen, because it'll happen. He
would like to tell you that I had I had
already called the adoption agency the next day and had
all the paperwork done. It didn't really happen like that.
But May was home with a within a year of
that time.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So that was child for first adoption.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That was child four, first adoption.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And then you decided let's go to Africa.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Because too No, we decided to go back to China
because we thought, hey, we need a boy. I don't
know how that happened. But Cooper came next about two
years later, and that was about a year long practice
or process. And then let's see, then Leah came home.
And Leah is autistic and she has a seizure disorder.
(13:34):
And you know this, you adopted Now we knew she
had a seizure disorder.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And okay, I have a question. Yeah, I have my wife, Lisa,
who is my compass and the light of my life.
Her brother who when I started dating Lisa thirty two
years ago, Ben was I think eight. So Ben's grown
(13:59):
up with me and I've gone up with Ben. Vin's
my brother in law, but he's more like my brother,
and he special needs and he is a lot of work.
Now he is a lot of joy. He's a lot
of joy, and we love him and he don't misunderstood,
but he is a lot of work. How when you're
(14:24):
when children with disabilities or difficulties are born to you naturally,
that's what God gives you, and you do the best
you can. It's a whole nother thing to choose that.
And I have always wondered when parents adopt a child
that has issues knowingly brings into their home, that's going
(14:48):
to require more time, effort, work, and let's be honest, heartache,
But they do it anyway. I mean to me, there's
a there's a special place in Haven for folks that that.
And so you're telling me you had your choice of
babies in China and you chose one that had a
Caesar disorder. That and if John has a Caeesar disorder infant.
(15:10):
You're a nurse, a pediatric nurse, and your husband's a doctor.
You had to know there was a probability of other problems.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, yeah, but you did it anyway, which is amazing. Yeah,
we did think it was a simple seizure disorder. Well
not so simple, but we did think it was a
seizure disorder, but didn't know that there was anything else.
And yeah, there's always the what ifs, But there's always
what ifs with you know, any of the other kids
we adopted, or even what ifs with our own children.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But why did you make that decision knowing the difficulty
when there were well babies didn't have that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah. Part of Leah's story actually just kind of pulled
us in. Also, we had gone to a children's home
that run by American missionaries in China one summer, took
a small group from our church and we met Leah.
And Leah the story I think goes that she had
(16:05):
she had paperwork in She was supposed to be adopted
by a couple that was living in Beijing and would
maybe teaching English or I don't know what they were doing,
but they would come and see her every weekend, and
they even got permission from the orphanage director to take
her home occasionally to their home, and they wanted to
(16:25):
adopt her. Well, they backed out of the adoption, and
she was two and a half or three at the time.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So she had already started probably bonding a little.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
With these she had. She had started bonding with these people,
and she Yeah, it was it was really sad and
we it's kind of weird, but and it's very much
a God thing that we didn't know about her other
difficulties and that I think he almost protected us from
(16:57):
knowing some of her other difficulties in order to get
her in our house. I don't know what you know. Yeah,
it I don't even know what to say about all that.
But but we did not know she was autistic. We
did know that she had a temper like a Tasmanian devil,
and she had no manners because the nannies at the
(17:21):
orphanage would literally give her whatever she wanted because they
thought that if well, yeah, they did. And they also
thought that because of her seizure disorder, if they caused
her to get upset, she would have a seizure.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Good grief. Yeah, so ultimately didn't serve her well at all.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No, no, not at all. Funny story is is that
shortly after we got home with her. I love this story.
We have animals. So we had dogs, and we had
a friend of ours staying with us that was a
Chinese lady and another long, long story. She was here
having her second child because yeah, so she had gotten
(18:05):
over here and yeah, anyways, we're sitting there eating lunch
and Leah didn't really even speak much Mandarin and wasn't
picking up on English at all. But she said to
this lady, she said something in Leah and ease or
whatever she was speaking in but the woman understood and
she said, hmm. She said, I like the dog, but
(18:26):
my mom has a big nose. And I thought, okay,
this is probably gonna be okay. Well it was kind
of okay. Leah yeah, just put it this way. Leah
can be very aggressive. She's teeny tiny, but she does
have just she wants to smake you. She'll smack you,
(18:49):
although she's doing a whole lot better. But the going
joke at our house is with our older kids getting married, now,
you really have not become part of the family until
Leah just smack shoot. So yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Right, so you have that, and now you're going to Ethiopia.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Nope, not yet, not yet. So we've got Leah. Oh
so back up to when we brought Cooper home. We
were on vacation when the adoption agency called and said, hey,
we have two boys that you might want to look at,
and we always went special needs, simple, special needs. May
(19:28):
had a cleft lip that had been repaired in China,
no cleft palate involvement. Cooper had a cleft lip in
cleft palate that were both repaired and more beautiful repair jobs.
Leah her seizure disorder. And then Mike had been one
of those two boys. Believe it or not that we
chose between when we adopted Cooper, and the only reason
(19:51):
I really remembered that was one he was from this
tiny island off the southern tip of China, Highnando and
he was from Highco and too his picture he had
on a bright Hawaiian print shirt and he had the biggest,
goofiest smile on his face. And I said, he looks
(20:13):
like do you remember the Robin Williams movie Paulie.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sure, Okay, Well he looked like the Robin Williams of China.
He was the goofiest, cutest looking kid I'd ever seen. Well,
when somebody, you know, back then, there were a lot
of Facebook adoption groups and whatnot, and I was usually
only on the ones that my kids were from that
area or even specific orphanages. Well, somebody was advocating for
(20:40):
this young fella. He was six years old, and they
said his paperwork had been with three other orphanages or
three other adoption agencies, and if he didn't get adopted soon,
And my husband and I had already kind of started
talking about maybe adopting one more boy, so they said,
if he doesn't get adopted soon and his paperwork was
(21:04):
returned to the Civil Affairs office in China, that he
would be declared unadoptable.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I was like, what happens with a child that's
claimed unadoptable.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
They usually stay in the orphanage and then may end
up working in the orphanage. But my understanding, and again
I don't know this is true that once they're eighteen,
if they're not asked to stay and work at the orphanage,
that they're kind of turned out. I don't know that
that's true. Wow, I don't know. So anyways, I called
(21:37):
the horrific. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of horrific
things in the whole world.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, there is a lot of horrific things. Yeah, but
this conversation that is that's sad.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It is, It's very sad. Anyways, I called my husband one.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean, the truth is, you and your husband are
save them lives. I hope so so you probably I
know that you're Your humility probably keeps you from saying absolutely,
but I'm going to say it. I mean, you're saving lives.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We at least made a difference in their life.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Let's you sure did? So you get so.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Anyways, I see this picture of this child and I
was like, this cannot be.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Did you name him Robin? No? You should.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But before I called my husband and said, you are
never going to believe this, I called a friend of mine. Well,
I called the adoption agency and that he was listed with.
And I said, any chance you can find out if
this young man has been with Bethany Christian Services, who
we had used. And she said, you know, I don't know,
but I've got a friend that works for Bethany. I'll
(22:47):
call her and see if his paperwork has been with Bethany.
She calls me back within a half an hour and
said to Amy, she said he was with Bethany. I
get goosebumps telling the story. He was listed with Bethany
and you guys looked at him two years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And I said, okay, okay, let me call my husband.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
We're about to have another.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, we're about to have another boy. So yeah, So
I called my husband and he said absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
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(25:06):
I think I got it. Now, let me ask this.
So you adopted all the kids in China and had
to go to Ethiopia because there were none left.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Maybe something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Now, in the meantime, we had gotten involved with Shohana's Hope,
Steven and Marybeth Chapman's adoption Assistance program in Nashville, and
we were at their fundraiser one November fabulous, fabulous weekend
and lots of fun and lots of adoption stories, and
there was some adoption story told about and I can't
(25:43):
even remember now, It's like I can't even remember the
whole story. But a couple shared about adopting from Ethiopia
and adopting maybe even twins or something. I don't know.
We were doing house church at that point, and Jim,
one night in house church, just my husband, Jim sorry,
(26:06):
just says out of the clear blue something about yeah,
I think somebody said in our house group house church
group said well, do y'all think you're done adopting? And
Jim goes, well, I don't know. We might we might
need to go get twin boys from Ethiopia. And I
kind of looked at him, like, you have lost your mind?
What are you talking about? This is new to me,
(26:29):
But we started talking about it and just felt like
it was a good thing to do. And next question
is why twin boys or why two boys? And my
husband will simply tell you that you know what, all
of us are Caucasian. We all had light skin. The
Chinese there were four of them that, you know, kind
of we're all bonded together. Here's this group of Caucasians,
(26:52):
this group of Chinese, and we didn't want one child
to be the only dark skinned child in the family.
I mean, he just but that interesting. He just said,
I don't want one of our children to ever feel
like he's alone, he's alone, or she's alone or different. Yeah.
(27:15):
So we started the process. And on my fiftieth birthday,
that was a long time ago, on my fiftieth birthday,
our adoption agency calls and she said, well, I don't
have twins for you, but I have the next best thing.
And she said, I have a set of full siblings
(27:39):
that are six and three. And they were absolutely the
cutest little fellas I'd ever seen. And I said, Debbie,
I said, today's my fiftieth birthday. I said, I will
just tell you that. Jim will say yes, wow. So yeah,
within a year we were over there picking them up. Yeah.
And they are absolutely the most magical, kind, sweet, loving
(28:03):
I could go on and on about those right.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So when y'all go to Walmart.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We don't go to Walmart.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
When you go to when y'all go to Walmart, or
maybe you shop at Target, but when y'all go, folks
have got to look at this clan and wonder what
in Lord's name came down from? I mean, what you
what's got on? I mean, do you ever take the
whole clan.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Out to eat at a restaurant occasionally?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That much? I mean that's people have got to look
at you and say, what in goodness name is going on?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Well, the funniest thing was, even before we started adopting,
well maybe we had I think maybe we had Matt
May and Cooper, so we probably had five kids. We
were teasing our older kids and we told them we
were gonna buy twelve passenger van. Well we really did
buy a twelve passenger van because we were also sports
parents and we always had extra kids our house.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I surprised, Well, passenger got it. Well, something I need
to get with those fifteen Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Sometimes barely, but anyways, I always always got because I
took the kids pretty much everywhere, you know, with me,
when they were out of school and Dad was, you know,
still at work or something, yet we'd go. So yeah,
we'd load up and people. I can't tell you how
many times people ask me if we were a church nursery,
a church group, a nursery school.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
People probably thought you were just the bus driver after
their mother exactly they did. That is so funny, honestly. Yeah,
you know, Lisa and I when we came up, we
were broke and we our four kids were four kids
in four years, meaning they were one, two, three, and
four or pick a number, four, five, six, and seven. Well,
back then, you know the restaurant Charlie's. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
(29:50):
Back then, on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, kids under twelve
eight free. So we would always go once a week
because Lisa and I could get a really nice meal
and it wouldn't cost that much because all the kids
ain't free. I bet they didn't want to see you coming.
You could have bankrupted.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
But now once those boys grewsome, they were like, oh,
come on, because let me tell you, those boys can eat.
Those boys can eat. There's still three of them at
home and they can eat.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, let's talk about eating about because honestly, that in
and of itself is worthy of being a member of
the army of normal folks. Because her girl who grows
up in a middle class suburban neighborhood in Germantown and
gets her nursing degree, and she and her husband feel
(30:41):
called to have all of those children, and and and
that's just an amazing story. But the reason I wanted
to get into that is just just kind of a
I think it speaks to your heart, and I think
it speaks to your sense of service and the normous
amount of love and concern you have to have for
(31:03):
just people to create the family you've created. It's beautiful
and it's actually hilarious. I mean, is Casey Jones still
in Jackson? They got the buffet in there with the
Pride Caafish and anything. You ever took that crew to
that thing.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
We probably have been there. I don't know if it
was the whole crew or not. That ironically, we were
just there right before Christmas because Woodmen of the World
did something for the cafe and then they had everybody.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, Woodmen of the World is still around. I'll
be dad going so, y'all. Woodmen of the World is
a life insurance company that's actually a nonprofit, so they
invest what would be their profits back into their communities
as donations. You're not gonna believe this, but my father
(31:55):
passed away not too long ago, and I got a
box of old blows from his father, which is my
paternal grandfather, who I was actually very very not close
at all to my dad, unfortunately, very close to my grandfather.
And my grandfather plaid basketball and baseball for Old Miss
and I went to on a miss cool. So I
(32:15):
wanted that picture of him that actually won the Southern
Conference in nineteen thirty three. And this picture of my
grandfather is on this uniform with his team. So I
got a box of stuff nobody else would care about
but me, and in it was a Woodman of the
World medal with a red, white and blue ribbon going
down it from the Woodman of the World convention from
(32:38):
the thirties in Brownsville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's something to hang on to.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I do I have it. When you just said
Woodmen in the World, I thought I'll be dad gub Yeah.
I literally just got this a month ago. Small world
in it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It is funny the things that you run across. My
parents have both been deceased for years, but when we
sold our house in Jackson, and moved out north to
Milin north of jack North and Jackson, sorry, and moved
out to the country. Some of those boxes had stuff
in it that I had not been through for years. Well,
our oldest son is a crop duster, owns his own
(33:13):
crop dusty.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh, your oldest son, the first one out of the womb. Yeah,
the one that came through early. He's a crop dush.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
He's a crop dusty.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
He flies the airplanes and and is a crop duster.
Hete Does that not scare you those guys whoop around
and come down so low?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I know it doesn't. I'm quite an adventurous kind of person.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
You flown with him?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yes? No, no, because they are only one seat. Now,
if he ever if he ever joins the big boys
and buys one of those two seater crop you're in it. Oh,
without a doubt. I asked him if I could sit
in the hopper.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So maybe I have it wrong. Maybe all these kids
isn't because you have a big heart. You just want
to do something fun and crazy.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, gosh, But anyways, the funny thing was was, Okay,
so I've got this son that's a crop duster and
owns you know, a couple of planes and you know what,
Yeah a cowboy, Yeah yeah, and got a second one. Actually,
that's a University of Memphis that wants to go to
work for FedEx. He's in the pilot program. But anyways,
(34:16):
going through my dad's stuff, that because we had downsized,
believe it or not, because there's not only three kids
at home, and yeah, only three kids at home. And
I pulled the certificate out and I looked at it
and it was my dad's first solo flight certificate. And
(34:39):
I had totally forgotten that he had ever taken flight
lessons and he soloed and it actually had you know,
it was kind of this really cool drawing, and it
had the tail number on the plane that he flew.
My son went and looked up the tail number and
(34:59):
that plane had just gone out of commission, like in
twenty seventeen, and this was back in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Is that not crazy?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It was crazy? So it is. Yeah, anyway, way, off subject, guys.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Everything has something to do with something. All of this
just shows that Amy is a normal person. And if
we stop the story right here, Amy Crenshaw would be
a heck of a member of the army of normal
folks adopting six kids. But the story is far from over.
The story of Community Cafe. After the break you start
(35:54):
Community Cafe. Now we're going to get into the whole
story of it. But the cliff note version is Community
Cafe is a cafe in Jackson, Tennessee where anybody can seat.
That's why it's community cafe, and it's spelled com un
it y community cafe. And so what I understand is,
(36:20):
and I want you to add color to this force,
is that it's a place with really healthy food that
if you don't have a dime in your pocket, you
can eat, and you can be treated with respect. You
can be retreated with decency and served a really good meal.
(36:41):
And if you do have just a couple of dollars
in your pocket, you too can be served, even if
you can't afford the full price your meal. But if
you come in and your meal is twelve dollars and
you got twenty bucks, you can do twenty bucks and
help offset the costs of some folks that can't d exactly. Okay, Well,
(37:03):
that's that's weird. How in the world did you come
up with that?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I didn't come up with that.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
We'll tell me about so.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Our three older kids grew up going to a summer
camp out in Colorado, a Christian sports camp, and then
this sports camp actually came up with the idea that
they were going to offer a gap year between high
school and college for kids that didn't quite know what
they wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Like being a cropduster.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Like being a duster. Yeah, that's another whole story because
that wasn't his first choice, but it was probably what
he was meant to do, got it all along, and
we made him go to college. But yeah, we won't
do that again. Anyways, our two daughters, second born and
third born had gone to camp and when they started
(37:50):
talking about this starting this gap year, and what it
was going to be was the first semester they were
going to spend in downtown Denver and they were going
to do inner city ministry in our culture studies.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Kind of kind of us mission work.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yes, yes, for the first semester, and they would have
an internship in one of the nonprofits or hours.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And then when they go to college, they've got that
experience right.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Right, And they had to have plans to go to college.
Basically they had to have already because they didn't want
kids just coming and thrown away and then going. Yeah,
and then the second semester they would go overseas and
they went to some really cool places overseas. But the
first the first year that Shelby went, she back up
(38:37):
little side story. We had started doing church or participating
in a church that was called Church without Walls in
downtown Jackson. That was a church without walls, so a
lot of street people underserved. And then I was also
on the board at Area Relief Ministries in Jacksonville, So
in Jackson you.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Were already working with homeless underserved.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
We had gotten to know a lot of the homeless,
especially in downtown Jackson, and kind of knew the need
and all of a sudden see something.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, Jackson doesn't strike me as a place where there
would be a lot of homeless exactly. But for those
who aren't who are listening, they are familiar with Jackson.
I mean, Jackson is what probably one hundred and fifty
hundred thousand people.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Oh, not even that many, seventy seventy five thousand.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Now, yeah, I mean it's kind of like a three
or four exit stop on the Interstates. It's nice. It's
got a small couple of small colleges, I think. And
it's got some good schools, and it's got some nice restaurants,
but it's not a place that you would it's not
it's not the urban setting where you expect to find
(39:48):
homeless people in downtown or shelters. And so when I
hear homeless and Jackson, I almost feel like that guy
in the Andy Griffith show that would get drunk and
check himself into jail, the one homeless guy in town.
I wouldn't think of that. But there's a community of
homeless and Jackson.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Like anywhere between five and seven hundred people.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
There's a couple tent camps. We don't even at this
point now it's in the works, but we don't even
have a full time shelter. So Area Relief Ministries actually
has room in the Inn where churches in Jackson volunteer
to house. And right now it's only homeless men. There
are a couple shelters for women that are not just
(40:33):
drop in shelters, but more you have to actually be
able to get in, which it's not real difficult. We
don't although I think over the last nine years since
we started the cafe, I've seen a larger population of
homeless women. Now, I don't know if it's just because
I'm noticing them more, but at first, most of our
(40:55):
volunteers that were coming in for a meal were male.
We have.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And so you're going to this church without walls thing,
which is basically a downtown Sunday worship service, pretty much
opened everybody.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Lay pastor that just basically he will tell you Nita's
most humble guy, and he would just tell you that
he was just there to tell people that Jesus loved
them to some.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
People who probably felt like nobody loved.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So you're doing that simultaneously. Your girls are in Denver.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Right, screwing around?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Can we establish the screwing around for a year?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Playing around? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Playing around? Yeah, okay, playing around is probably.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Although they're actually awesome girls.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I get it. I'm not saying they're not. Listen, I
had one doing again, one of us did here. She's
a great girl, but she wasn't doing much studying, is
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Okay, Okay, Well both of mine, believe it or not,
were four average in high school.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Oh my kids, my daughter was too. I'm just saying
during the gap year, she was having fun. She built
some dams.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Well, that's cool much.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
She didn't do cool stop, but she wasn't studying.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, oh no, no, they didn't have to study much. No,
I totally agree with you. Anyways, Shelby's in Denver. She
calls me one day and she goes, Mom, we just
went in the coolest place for lunch. She goes. It
was called same cafe. She said, it's an acronym for
so all may eat. And she goes, I'm not exactly
how it works, she goes, but you can go in,
(42:27):
and you can if you don't have money. So, like,
you know, it's near a homeless park, and she said,
you know, people walk in and they can't pay, so
they volunteer in the cafe for you know, some period
of time. She goes, I don't really know how long.
And she said, or if you've got money, you can pay.
And my first thought is, Shelby's a miser. Please tell
(42:48):
me you pay for your lunch. Shelby, and she did
that child if she had. I think she has the
same two nickels that she ever made when she was
ten years old. Yes, anyways, she said, so really cool
place and She said, they had like two pizzas and
two salads and two sandwiches and that was it. But
(43:09):
it was all real good and healthy. And I am
married to a cardiologist and we do try to eat
healthy most of the time. And she knew that would
kind of get me, and she goes, and Mom, she goes,
I think you and dad need to open one. And
I'm sitting there thinking, along.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
With the thousand children and the bus, you're driving around
to Walmart getting looked at it, exactly, let's start a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Exactly, sure, exactly why not? So she said, I think
you need to start running. I was like, that was
my thought exactly was. I was like, yeah, shell me,
that's exactly what we need to do, because you know,
we don't have enough to do.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
We got so much free time.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I've got so much free time. I'd love to do that,
but that's not But I started looking. I looked them
up online and start thinking about it and just started
kind of thinking, you know, I really do love to cook,
which I do love to cook, and can't that much
harder than And.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
You've already been introduced to the needy community in Jackson
through the stuff you're involved in so it started wearing
on your brain, and it did.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And then I found out that these nonprofit donation based cafes.
I found out that they were nonprofit, right, and I
was like, we can do that, you know. I mean,
we've got lots of kids that got to go to college,
so I can't just throw, you know, all their college
money away, But we can do this. I can raise
(44:32):
money for a nonprofit. So went to well, no, actually,
when I finally started kind of talking more about it
to my husband and he was like, I think it
sounds like a great idea. Let's find out more about it.
Why I called the head of the first I don't
even know what you'd call her, but she's received several
(44:53):
awards she actually.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Think for the same gird.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Well actually not for same cafe. She owned the first
nonprofit donation based cafe that was out in maybe, Utah,
I don't know, one world cafe, Yeah, somewhere, you know,
somewhere out there. And she had she had shut down
the cafe because she had started going and helping other
(45:17):
people open nonprofit cafes. And one of the first ones
that she helped was this same cafe in Denver. So
they actually are one of the oldest in the United States,
and I think, let's see, think they probably have been
in operation for about sixteen or seventeen years now, because
I think they were about eight or nine years old
when we opened nine years ago. Anyways, they were having
(45:39):
this one World Everybody Eats Foundation weekend over Martin Luther
King Weekend that year, and I called this woman, Denise Siretta,
to get some information about the cafes and how they
actually had to start them, and they were in the
middle of that weekend, and I thought, that's really weird.
(46:02):
So anyway, she gets back to me, kind of explains
a little bit. She puts me in touch with the
woman from the same cafe, and I just thought, we
can do this. So I started kind of talking to
some people in the community. And there was one woman
in the community that I didn't really even know that well,
but she was relentless, and I promise I think I
would have dropped the ball if she hadn't called me
about every three weeks, going have you found a place?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I spoke to her.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, it spoke to her too. So anyways, about nine
months later there we were opening right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
So tell me about the first day. You opened up,
first day, first right, you had to be nervous. You
had to wonder in the back of your mind. Listen,
Denver has two and a half three four five million
people to draw from. Yep, So I can see how
in the larger cities this would go. Yeah, but we're
talking about a really small municipality.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, And you had to have been wondering, are people
really going to show up meat? Here?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
I really did wonder if people were going to show
up and eat? And I also wonder are we going
to get taken advantage of?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Oh? I doubt I swear to you that question was
coming next. My question are I would think one, are
people going to air? Two? Or we're gonna take advantage of?
And three Again, and a large urban area you have
people who are more open and used to being around,
(47:30):
more homeless and disadvantaged, and probably feel more pulled toward
going and eating and paying more money. But again, in
a smaller urban municipality, I would think just the education
of that need would be less. Am I am I off?
Speaker 1 (47:51):
No, I don't think you're off at all. And I
think in Jackson around that time, there was also this
thought that I looked at several different areas of Jackson
to put the cafe. One was I thought, well, we'll
have to be a destination, you know that that people
will be willing to drive to, or we need to
(48:11):
be in downtown Jackson, or I need to be on
a bus sign and something just kept taking me back
to downtown Jackson. And if you know anything about downtown Jackson,
it is being slowly rebuilt and it's a pretty cool place.
And some money had just been invested or was being
invested in the Jackson Walk and we have a you know,
(48:33):
a whole new apartment complex and shopping and you know, restaurants,
And was it like.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
That nine years ago?
Speaker 1 (48:40):
It was? It was getting starting. It was, yes, it
was starting.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
But people were going down there to eat.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Not really, not really at that point.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Sostaurant there. Yeah, Oh, you're going to ask people who
don't understand the homeless to come in and sit down
and eat with them.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I just I can't imagine you had to have had
some traupids.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Let me tell you one to my favorite stories, and
I definitely won't mention any names, but I sat down
with a developer in Jackson and said, hey, I'd like
to talk to you, and I talked to his one
of the guys that he works with. I said, I'd
like to talk to y'all about putting in this restaurant
(49:21):
great healthy food. We're planning just simple menu, menual change
each day. It'll be something like two soups, two salads,
and two sandwiches. We're going to do as much organic
and as much just really great healthy food as we
can get our hands on, as much locally sourced and organic.
And they were like, yes, let's talk about this. So
(49:43):
I went in to the meeting and I had mentioned volunteers.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
You hadn't mentioned exactly where they were coming from.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
The exactly exactly. So anyways, I start talking about this
and the guy even has his folder open, and he said, well,
we could put you. I don't think that one of
one of our storefronts would be large enough, but you
could take two. And he said I would need a
five year contract and it would be X number of dollars.
(50:11):
And first of all, I was like, five year contract,
I can't do that, and I was so scared. But
the point that just oh, I don't even have words
for it, was this folder's open and he's showing me
all this, and he said, now tell me again how
this is going to work with volunteers and you know,
(50:33):
and I said, well, I said, you know, somebody comes
in needs a meal, doesn't have the money to pay
for it. And he goes, WHOA. He goes like, like
the homeless, and I was like, yeah, the homeless, the underserved.
He closed his folder, doesn't even realize he's done it,
and kind of pushes it across the you know, midway
(50:53):
across the table and says, well, you know, I just
can't do it for less than this, and I'd have
to have a five year contract.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
And I was, in other words, we don't want.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
You exactly, and they were at that point, I will,
I'll be very honest, and I know this is a fact.
They were trying to move the homeless out of this corridor.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Jackson willing to set down an anchor to them, right right,
So one book enemy number one is.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I know I was. And now I kind of laugh
about it because they come in to eat and I'm
kind of like, hey, did you ever think that we
would still be here, or that we would be here
nine years later and doing this well? And he was
like and he's willing to say Nope, I really didn't
think you would.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Turning a naysayer into a believer. Now that's poetic justice
if I've ever heard it. Guys. That concludes Part one
of our conversation with Amy Crenshaw, and I hope you
listen to Part two that's now available as the story
of Community Cafe is just getting started. But if you don't,
make sure you join the Army of Normal Folks at
(52:07):
normalfolks dot us and sign up to become a member
of our movement. By signing up, you'll also receive a
weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen
to miss an episode, or if you just prefer reading
about our incredible gusts. Together, Guys, we can change this country,
and it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.
This folder's open and he's showing me all this and
he said, now tell me again how this is going
to work with volunteers and you know, and I said, well,
somebody comes in needs a meal, doesn't have the money
to pay for it. And he goes, WHOA. He goes like,
like the homeless, and I was like, yeah, the homeless,
the under served. And he closed his folder, doesn't even
(00:30):
realize he's done it, and kind of pushes it across
the you know, midway across the table and says, well,
you know, I just can't do it for less than this,
and I'd have to have a five year contract.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
And I was, in other words, we don't want you exactly.
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Fortney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur,
and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis.
And the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for
(01:05):
the film about our team. It's called Undefeated. I believe
our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch
of fancy people in nice suits talking big words nobody
understands on CNN and Box, but rather by an army
of normal folks us just you and me deciding, Hey,
I can help. That's what Amy Crenshaw, the voice we
(01:27):
just heard is done. Amy is the founder of Community Cafe,
a non profit restaurant in Jackson, Tennessee that has no
prices and only a suggested donation for your meal, and
if you can't afford to pay, you simply volunteer for
an hour for your meal. This unbelievable models allows the
(01:48):
whole community to come together like never before, with long,
family style tables where folks like doctors, construction workers, and
even the homeless dine together side by side every day.
You heard how Amy got some pushback at first, but
they're still going strong almost ten years later. And I
(02:10):
think there should be one of these things in every
community across our country. And this is not the only
extraordinary thing that Amy's done. As you're about to hear
right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors, Amy Crenshaw,
(02:40):
how are you. I'm good, I'm great. It's it's so
good to have you with us. I have a thousand
questions for you. Obviously, we're going to get to Community
Cafe spelled come capitol U N I t y community
(03:01):
community Cafe and what that's about. But I want to
I want to hear more about you. I want to
know about the chick behind community cafe that has ten
children and is from Memphis, and there's just You're just
kind of cool. So I want to hear about you.
(03:24):
Where'd you grow up? I grew up in Germantown, Germantown, Tennessee,
which is a suburb of Memphis. Right right, it's it's
not you know, it's it's upper middle class. I guess,
is that right? Brothers, sisters?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I had four brothers growing up. I went to Germantown
High School and then went to Methodist School of Nursing.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Did you are you nurse? Did you work? You work?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I worked in labor and delivery Methodist Hospital Central until
Methodist Hospital North opened up. I guess I did ob
nursing for about eight years. And then our first son.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Were you getting practiced for having a bunch of kidschen? Yes?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I was getting practice absolutely. Our first child was born
on December twenty first. I was supposed to be working
the last two of my night shifts before I quit
really want to be I wanted to be a stay
home mom. Got it absolutely and went into work and
things picked up personally, and he was born that the
(04:26):
next morning. So it didn't finish.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
At least you were there.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
At least I was there. Yes, came home. My husband
had been on call the night that night, the night before.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
He's a doctor.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
He's a physician, and he had been on call. He's
a cardiologist, and he was actually in his fellowship, but
he had been on call and came home before I
went to work and said, just so you know, tonight
would not be a good night if you had this baby,
because I am wiped out. And I was like, I
still have three weeks, no problem. Went to work. Yeah,
(05:01):
my water broke and I called him and said, hey,
I'm coming home for a little while and he said
what and I said, yep, We're gonna have a baby.
And he was like, I told you, this was not
a good night, but you know, maybe's come.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When they do, that's unreal.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
So and then stayed home after.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So a nurse married to a doc and just starting
your family in I guess Germantown or Memphis area. Memphis, right,
but you live in Jackson.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Now, we do. We live in Jackson now. When he finished.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
His phone with Jackson, Sorry, Jackson, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Yes, sorry, sure, just down the road, right, and someday
they'll probably both grow together.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
They might keep going.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
It's heading that way, that's right. Two of our children
were born here in Memphis, one of them, the third one,
was born in Jackson shortly after we moved there, and
then about six years later we started adopting.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
All right, So I can't wait to hear about that
because I only understand a little bit, and uh, we're
going to share it with everybody. But how old is
your oldest child?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
He just turned thirty three, all right, and your youngest
is getting ready to be seventeen.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Holy smokes. That's a lot of kids in between that,
sexually a lot of kids. So you had you had
four naturally.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
We had three naturally naturally, and then you.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Decide to start adopting. And I think, I think I
read that we're talking Ethiopia and China.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Ethiopia and China.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Okay, you got to give me the background on that
and the reasons and everything, which first of all, I
think is beautiful. And I mean, when you guys gather
around the Thanksgiving dinner table must look like the United Nations.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
That's what we always say. We've got the United Nations
under one ring. I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So at church in Jackson, there was a middle aged
couple there. I was going to say young, but they
weren't so young. But they had moved back to Jackson.
They had been living in Guangzhoe, China. I think he
was with PNG, and they had driven and I think
they had brought home twin baby girls that they had adopted.
(07:20):
And they were very good and very vocal about sharing
about the one child law and also the plight of
baby girls.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Well we'll talk about that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Well, there's not a one child law anymore. I think
there was. There was, yes, in the probably gosh that
started I just heard the other day. I should remember
the dates, but maybe in the seventies or eighties that started,
and then that actually ended sometime in maybe mid two thousand.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I don't know if what I've read is true or not,
or even if I'm imagining that I read something, but
I'm going to ask you because obviously you would know.
But my understanding is that the one child law was
that the government were only allowing couples to have one child,
which meant that couples really wanted boys so they could
(08:15):
continue their bloodline. And often if they had a girl,
they would this sounds horrible, but they would give the
child up for adoption, leaving an orphanage, or sometimes throw
them in the water.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, they would surround them, they would simply abandon them.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Because they wanted their one child to be a male.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Yeah, and males. I think I might be misquoting this,
but technically, by law are required to take care of
their parents in their old age. So they definitely wanted
a boy.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Oh, so the parents wanted a boy, so they had
a caretaker.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yes, and also to carry on, yeah, obviously to carry
on that way.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
But hearing all of that and revisit I hadn't thought
about this in ages, but revisiting that is, that's horrific.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
It is horrific. It is it's very sad.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
So this couple comes back to your church and they
have twin daughters. Twin daughters most likely abandoned because.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
They were And as a matter of fact, it's a
funny story and I'm probably getting this wrong, totally wrong,
but it was something like the wife had heard about,
you know, the adoptions and the plight of the baby girls.
And they had older grown children that I don't think
lived with them at the time. I think they were
(09:35):
all grown and flown flown, But she said. The wife
said to the husband one day when he got home,
she said, you know, I need to tell you this
story I heard today. So she was talking about the children,
and she said, I really think we need to adopt.
And he said, yeah, yeah, he said, probably not. But
I tell you, what if the Lord abandons one on
(09:57):
our doorstep, Well, are you kidding? No, no.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
One on our doorstep will keep it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah. And and so she supposedly was, you know, had
gone about her day one day and was walking up
the stairwell because a lot of the buildings don't have
elevators or escalators, walking up the stairs to their apartment
on the fifth floor, seventh floor, whatever it was. And
there's babies, and there's two babies abandoned, abandoned.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Some would say, the Lord drops babies on their doorstep.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
The Lord drop their doorstep.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, so they show up in Jackson with these babies.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Well they're great about sharing the whole story.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Well that's great, but the Lord didn't drop any Chinese
babies on your doorstep at Jackson.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
No no, no, no, no no. So our youngest daughter
at the time was probably gosh, she was probably four, yeah, Kara.
And Kara, ironically is the one that's married and isn't
really sure she wants to be a mom. So it's
really kind of funny because she was the one that
(11:03):
would say every night in her prayers, she'd say her
prayers and then she'd get through and she goes and God,
please let Daddy change his heart about bringing a baby
home from China. Yeah, so precious. And my husband was
quite resistant. He would say and just said, Amy, I
(11:23):
don't have time. He was in the busiest time in
his practice.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
He's a cardiologist, he's got a practice. He already has
a wife and three children exactly, that's a big stuff.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And he said, I don't have time for the ones
we have, and that makes me feel guilty, right, and
my not immediate comeback. But later on I said to him,
but don't you think that one parent that's a full
time parent and then has the support of the second
parent is better than no parents at all, better than
(11:54):
a child languishing in an orphanage.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And I think that guy very unwanted in that country. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
So anyways, he started asking his men's group, men's prayer group,
Bible study group to pray about it with him, and
they did. And there were a little background. There were
four guys in his practice at that point. They're now
ten big, but there were four guys and one of
them was leaving. When he came home that night, he said,
(12:25):
doctor Chips leaving and you know it's going to be crazy.
And I said, well, I guess in really good time
to talk about adopting then, huh. And he said, you know,
as a matter of fact, I think we need to
do it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
And he likes he likes to tell people that don't
tell Amy that something can happen, because it'll happen. He
would like to tell you that I had I had
already called the adoption agency the next day and had
all the paperwork done. It didn't really happen like that.
But May was home with a within a year of
that time.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So that was child for first adoption.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
That was child four, first adoption.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
And then you decided let's go to Africa.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Because too No, we decided to go back to China
because we thought, hey, we need a boy. I don't
know how that happened. But Cooper came next about two
years later, and that was about a year long practice
or process. And then let's see, then Leah came home.
And Leah is autistic and she has a seizure disorder.
(13:34):
And you know this, you adopted Now we knew she
had a seizure disorder.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And okay, I have a question. Yeah, I have my wife, Lisa,
who is my compass and the light of my life.
Her brother who when I started dating Lisa thirty two
years ago, Ben was I think eight. So Ben's grown
(13:59):
up with me and I've gone up with Ben. Vin's
my brother in law, but he's more like my brother,
and he special needs and he is a lot of work.
Now he is a lot of joy. He's a lot
of joy, and we love him and he don't misunderstood,
but he is a lot of work. How when you're
(14:24):
when children with disabilities or difficulties are born to you naturally,
that's what God gives you, and you do the best
you can. It's a whole nother thing to choose that.
And I have always wondered when parents adopt a child
that has issues knowingly brings into their home, that's going
(14:48):
to require more time, effort, work, and let's be honest, heartache,
But they do it anyway. I mean to me, there's
a there's a special place in Haven for folks that that.
And so you're telling me you had your choice of
babies in China and you chose one that had a
Caesar disorder. That and if John has a Caeesar disorder infant.
(15:10):
You're a nurse, a pediatric nurse, and your husband's a doctor.
You had to know there was a probability of other problems.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yeah, yeah, but you did it anyway, which is amazing. Yeah,
we did think it was a simple seizure disorder. Well
not so simple, but we did think it was a
seizure disorder, but didn't know that there was anything else.
And yeah, there's always the what ifs, But there's always
what ifs with you know, any of the other kids
we adopted, or even what ifs with our own children.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
But why did you make that decision knowing the difficulty
when there were well babies didn't have that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah. Part of Leah's story actually just kind of pulled
us in. Also, we had gone to a children's home
that run by American missionaries in China one summer, took
a small group from our church and we met Leah.
And Leah the story I think goes that she had
(16:05):
she had paperwork in She was supposed to be adopted
by a couple that was living in Beijing and would
maybe teaching English or I don't know what they were doing,
but they would come and see her every weekend, and
they even got permission from the orphanage director to take
her home occasionally to their home, and they wanted to
(16:25):
adopt her. Well, they backed out of the adoption, and
she was two and a half or three at the time.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
So she had already started probably bonding a little.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
With these she had. She had started bonding with these people,
and she Yeah, it was it was really sad and
we it's kind of weird, but and it's very much
a God thing that we didn't know about her other
difficulties and that I think he almost protected us from
(16:57):
knowing some of her other difficulties in order to get
her in our house. I don't know what you know. Yeah,
it I don't even know what to say about all that.
But but we did not know she was autistic. We
did know that she had a temper like a Tasmanian devil,
and she had no manners because the nannies at the
(17:21):
orphanage would literally give her whatever she wanted because they
thought that if well, yeah, they did. And they also
thought that because of her seizure disorder, if they caused
her to get upset, she would have a seizure.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Good grief. Yeah, so ultimately didn't serve her well at all.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
No, no, not at all. Funny story is is that
shortly after we got home with her. I love this story.
We have animals. So we had dogs, and we had
a friend of ours staying with us that was a
Chinese lady and another long, long story. She was here
having her second child because yeah, so she had gotten
(18:05):
over here and yeah, anyways, we're sitting there eating lunch
and Leah didn't really even speak much Mandarin and wasn't
picking up on English at all. But she said to
this lady, she said something in Leah and ease or
whatever she was speaking in but the woman understood and
she said, hmm. She said, I like the dog, but
(18:26):
my mom has a big nose. And I thought, okay,
this is probably gonna be okay. Well it was kind
of okay. Leah yeah, just put it this way. Leah
can be very aggressive. She's teeny tiny, but she does
have just she wants to smake you. She'll smack you,
(18:49):
although she's doing a whole lot better. But the going
joke at our house is with our older kids getting married, now,
you really have not become part of the family until
Leah just smack shoot. So yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Right, so you have that, and now you're going to Ethiopia.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Nope, not yet, not yet. So we've got Leah. Oh
so back up to when we brought Cooper home. We
were on vacation when the adoption agency called and said, hey,
we have two boys that you might want to look at,
and we always went special needs, simple, special needs. May
(19:28):
had a cleft lip that had been repaired in China,
no cleft palate involvement. Cooper had a cleft lip in
cleft palate that were both repaired and more beautiful repair jobs.
Leah her seizure disorder. And then Mike had been one
of those two boys. Believe it or not that we
chose between when we adopted Cooper, and the only reason
(19:51):
I really remembered that was one he was from this
tiny island off the southern tip of China, Highnando and
he was from Highco and too his picture he had
on a bright Hawaiian print shirt and he had the biggest,
goofiest smile on his face. And I said, he looks
(20:13):
like do you remember the Robin Williams movie Paulie.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sure, Okay, Well he looked like the Robin Williams of China.
He was the goofiest, cutest looking kid I'd ever seen. Well,
when somebody, you know, back then, there were a lot
of Facebook adoption groups and whatnot, and I was usually
only on the ones that my kids were from that
area or even specific orphanages. Well, somebody was advocating for
(20:40):
this young fella. He was six years old, and they
said his paperwork had been with three other orphanages or
three other adoption agencies, and if he didn't get adopted soon,
And my husband and I had already kind of started
talking about maybe adopting one more boy, so they said,
if he doesn't get adopted soon and his paperwork was
(21:04):
returned to the Civil Affairs office in China, that he
would be declared unadoptable.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I was like, what happens with a child that's
claimed unadoptable.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
They usually stay in the orphanage and then may end
up working in the orphanage. But my understanding, and again
I don't know this is true that once they're eighteen,
if they're not asked to stay and work at the orphanage,
that they're kind of turned out. I don't know that
that's true. Wow, I don't know. So anyways, I called
(21:37):
the horrific. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of horrific
things in the whole world.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Well, there is a lot of horrific things. Yeah, but
this conversation that is that's sad.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
It is, It's very sad. Anyways, I called my husband one.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I mean, the truth is, you and your husband are
save them lives. I hope so so you probably I
know that you're Your humility probably keeps you from saying absolutely,
but I'm going to say it. I mean, you're saving lives.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We at least made a difference in their life.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Let's you sure did? So you get so.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Anyways, I see this picture of this child and I
was like, this cannot be.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Did you name him Robin? No? You should.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
But before I called my husband and said, you are
never going to believe this, I called a friend of mine. Well,
I called the adoption agency and that he was listed with.
And I said, any chance you can find out if
this young man has been with Bethany Christian Services, who
we had used. And she said, you know, I don't know,
but I've got a friend that works for Bethany. I'll
(22:47):
call her and see if his paperwork has been with Bethany.
She calls me back within a half an hour and
said to Amy, she said he was with Bethany. I
get goosebumps telling the story. He was listed with Bethany
and you guys looked at him two years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And I said, okay, okay, let me call my husband.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
We're about to have another.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, we're about to have another boy. So yeah, So
I called my husband and he said absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
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(23:41):
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(25:06):
I think I got it. Now, let me ask this.
So you adopted all the kids in China and had
to go to Ethiopia because there were none left.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Maybe something like that.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Now, in the meantime, we had gotten involved with Shohana's Hope,
Steven and Marybeth Chapman's adoption Assistance program in Nashville, and
we were at their fundraiser one November fabulous, fabulous weekend
and lots of fun and lots of adoption stories, and
there was some adoption story told about and I can't
(25:43):
even remember now, It's like I can't even remember the
whole story. But a couple shared about adopting from Ethiopia
and adopting maybe even twins or something. I don't know.
We were doing house church at that point, and Jim,
one night in house church, just my husband, Jim sorry,
(26:06):
just says out of the clear blue something about yeah,
I think somebody said in our house group house church
group said well, do y'all think you're done adopting? And
Jim goes, well, I don't know. We might we might
need to go get twin boys from Ethiopia. And I
kind of looked at him, like, you have lost your mind?
What are you talking about? This is new to me,
(26:29):
But we started talking about it and just felt like
it was a good thing to do. And next question
is why twin boys or why two boys? And my
husband will simply tell you that you know what, all
of us are Caucasian. We all had light skin. The
Chinese there were four of them that, you know, kind
of we're all bonded together. Here's this group of Caucasians,
(26:52):
this group of Chinese, and we didn't want one child
to be the only dark skinned child in the family.
I mean, he just but that interesting. He just said,
I don't want one of our children to ever feel
like he's alone, he's alone, or she's alone or different. Yeah.
(27:15):
So we started the process. And on my fiftieth birthday,
that was a long time ago, on my fiftieth birthday,
our adoption agency calls and she said, well, I don't
have twins for you, but I have the next best thing.
And she said, I have a set of full siblings
(27:39):
that are six and three. And they were absolutely the
cutest little fellas I'd ever seen. And I said, Debbie,
I said, today's my fiftieth birthday. I said, I will
just tell you that. Jim will say yes, wow. So yeah,
within a year we were over there picking them up. Yeah.
And they are absolutely the most magical, kind, sweet, loving
(28:03):
I could go on and on about those right.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So when y'all go to Walmart.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
We don't go to Walmart.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
When you go to when y'all go to Walmart, or
maybe you shop at Target, but when y'all go, folks
have got to look at this clan and wonder what
in Lord's name came down from? I mean, what you
what's got on? I mean, do you ever take the
whole clan.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Out to eat at a restaurant occasionally?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That much? I mean that's people have got to look
at you and say, what in goodness name is going on?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Well, the funniest thing was, even before we started adopting,
well maybe we had I think maybe we had Matt
May and Cooper, so we probably had five kids. We
were teasing our older kids and we told them we
were gonna buy twelve passenger van. Well we really did
buy a twelve passenger van because we were also sports
parents and we always had extra kids our house.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
I surprised, Well, passenger got it. Well, something I need
to get with those fifteen Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Sometimes barely, but anyways, I always always got because I
took the kids pretty much everywhere, you know, with me,
when they were out of school and Dad was, you know,
still at work or something, yet we'd go. So yeah,
we'd load up and people. I can't tell you how
many times people ask me if we were a church nursery,
a church group, a nursery school.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
People probably thought you were just the bus driver after
their mother exactly they did. That is so funny, honestly. Yeah,
you know, Lisa and I when we came up, we
were broke and we our four kids were four kids
in four years, meaning they were one, two, three, and
four or pick a number, four, five, six, and seven. Well,
back then, you know the restaurant Charlie's. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
(29:50):
Back then, on Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays, kids under twelve
eight free. So we would always go once a week
because Lisa and I could get a really nice meal
and it wouldn't cost that much because all the kids
ain't free. I bet they didn't want to see you coming.
You could have bankrupted.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
But now once those boys grewsome, they were like, oh,
come on, because let me tell you, those boys can eat.
Those boys can eat. There's still three of them at
home and they can eat.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Well, let's talk about eating about because honestly, that in
and of itself is worthy of being a member of
the army of normal folks. Because her girl who grows
up in a middle class suburban neighborhood in Germantown and
gets her nursing degree, and she and her husband feel
(30:41):
called to have all of those children, and and and
that's just an amazing story. But the reason I wanted
to get into that is just just kind of a
I think it speaks to your heart, and I think
it speaks to your sense of service and the normous
amount of love and concern you have to have for
(31:03):
just people to create the family you've created. It's beautiful
and it's actually hilarious. I mean, is Casey Jones still
in Jackson? They got the buffet in there with the
Pride Caafish and anything. You ever took that crew to
that thing.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
We probably have been there. I don't know if it
was the whole crew or not. That ironically, we were
just there right before Christmas because Woodmen of the World
did something for the cafe and then they had everybody.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Yeah, yeah, Woodmen of the World is still around. I'll
be dad going so, y'all. Woodmen of the World is
a life insurance company that's actually a nonprofit, so they
invest what would be their profits back into their communities
as donations. You're not gonna believe this, but my father
(31:55):
passed away not too long ago, and I got a
box of old blows from his father, which is my
paternal grandfather, who I was actually very very not close
at all to my dad, unfortunately, very close to my grandfather.
And my grandfather plaid basketball and baseball for Old Miss
and I went to on a miss cool. So I
(32:15):
wanted that picture of him that actually won the Southern
Conference in nineteen thirty three. And this picture of my
grandfather is on this uniform with his team. So I
got a box of stuff nobody else would care about
but me, and in it was a Woodman of the
World medal with a red, white and blue ribbon going
down it from the Woodman of the World convention from
(32:38):
the thirties in Brownsville, Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's something to hang on to.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I do I have it. When you just said
Woodmen in the World, I thought I'll be dad gub Yeah.
I literally just got this a month ago. Small world
in it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
It is funny the things that you run across. My
parents have both been deceased for years, but when we
sold our house in Jackson, and moved out north to
Milin north of jack North and Jackson, sorry, and moved
out to the country. Some of those boxes had stuff
in it that I had not been through for years. Well,
our oldest son is a crop duster, owns his own
(33:13):
crop dusty.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Oh, your oldest son, the first one out of the womb. Yeah,
the one that came through early. He's a crop dush.
Speaker 1 (33:20):
He's a crop dusty.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
He flies the airplanes and and is a crop duster.
Hete Does that not scare you those guys whoop around
and come down so low?
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I know it doesn't. I'm quite an adventurous kind of person.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
You flown with him?
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yes? No, no, because they are only one seat. Now,
if he ever if he ever joins the big boys
and buys one of those two seater crop you're in it. Oh,
without a doubt. I asked him if I could sit
in the hopper.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
So maybe I have it wrong. Maybe all these kids
isn't because you have a big heart. You just want
to do something fun and crazy.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, gosh, But anyways, the funny thing was was, Okay,
so I've got this son that's a crop duster and
owns you know, a couple of planes and you know what,
Yeah a cowboy, Yeah yeah, and got a second one. Actually,
that's a University of Memphis that wants to go to
work for FedEx. He's in the pilot program. But anyways,
(34:16):
going through my dad's stuff, that because we had downsized,
believe it or not, because there's not only three kids
at home, and yeah, only three kids at home. And
I pulled the certificate out and I looked at it
and it was my dad's first solo flight certificate. And
(34:39):
I had totally forgotten that he had ever taken flight
lessons and he soloed and it actually had you know,
it was kind of this really cool drawing, and it
had the tail number on the plane that he flew.
My son went and looked up the tail number and
(34:59):
that plane had just gone out of commission, like in
twenty seventeen, and this was back in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Is that not crazy?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It was crazy? So it is. Yeah, anyway, way, off subject, guys.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Everything has something to do with something. All of this
just shows that Amy is a normal person. And if
we stop the story right here, Amy Crenshaw would be
a heck of a member of the army of normal
folks adopting six kids. But the story is far from over.
The story of Community Cafe. After the break you start
(35:54):
Community Cafe. Now we're going to get into the whole
story of it. But the cliff note version is Community
Cafe is a cafe in Jackson, Tennessee where anybody can seat.
That's why it's community cafe, and it's spelled com un
it y community cafe. And so what I understand is,
(36:20):
and I want you to add color to this force,
is that it's a place with really healthy food that
if you don't have a dime in your pocket, you
can eat, and you can be treated with respect. You
can be retreated with decency and served a really good meal.
(36:41):
And if you do have just a couple of dollars
in your pocket, you too can be served, even if
you can't afford the full price your meal. But if
you come in and your meal is twelve dollars and
you got twenty bucks, you can do twenty bucks and
help offset the costs of some folks that can't d exactly. Okay, Well,
(37:03):
that's that's weird. How in the world did you come
up with that?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I didn't come up with that.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
We'll tell me about so.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Our three older kids grew up going to a summer
camp out in Colorado, a Christian sports camp, and then
this sports camp actually came up with the idea that
they were going to offer a gap year between high
school and college for kids that didn't quite know what
they wanted to do.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Like being a cropduster.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Like being a duster. Yeah, that's another whole story because
that wasn't his first choice, but it was probably what
he was meant to do, got it all along, and
we made him go to college. But yeah, we won't
do that again. Anyways, our two daughters, second born and
third born had gone to camp and when they started
(37:50):
talking about this starting this gap year, and what it
was going to be was the first semester they were
going to spend in downtown Denver and they were going
to do inner city ministry in our culture studies.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Kind of kind of us mission work.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yes, yes, for the first semester, and they would have
an internship in one of the nonprofits or hours.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
And then when they go to college, they've got that
experience right.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Right, And they had to have plans to go to college.
Basically they had to have already because they didn't want
kids just coming and thrown away and then going. Yeah,
and then the second semester they would go overseas and
they went to some really cool places overseas. But the
first the first year that Shelby went, she back up
(38:37):
little side story. We had started doing church or participating
in a church that was called Church without Walls in
downtown Jackson. That was a church without walls, so a
lot of street people underserved. And then I was also
on the board at Area Relief Ministries in Jacksonville, So
in Jackson you.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Were already working with homeless underserved.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
We had gotten to know a lot of the homeless,
especially in downtown Jackson, and kind of knew the need
and all of a sudden see something.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yeah, Jackson doesn't strike me as a place where there
would be a lot of homeless exactly. But for those
who aren't who are listening, they are familiar with Jackson.
I mean, Jackson is what probably one hundred and fifty
hundred thousand people.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Oh, not even that many, seventy seventy five thousand.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Now, yeah, I mean it's kind of like a three
or four exit stop on the Interstates. It's nice. It's
got a small couple of small colleges, I think. And
it's got some good schools, and it's got some nice restaurants,
but it's not a place that you would it's not
it's not the urban setting where you expect to find
(39:48):
homeless people in downtown or shelters. And so when I
hear homeless and Jackson, I almost feel like that guy
in the Andy Griffith show that would get drunk and
check himself into jail, the one homeless guy in town.
I wouldn't think of that. But there's a community of
homeless and Jackson.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Like anywhere between five and seven hundred people.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
That's funny.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
There's a couple tent camps. We don't even at this
point now it's in the works, but we don't even
have a full time shelter. So Area Relief Ministries actually
has room in the Inn where churches in Jackson volunteer
to house. And right now it's only homeless men. There
are a couple shelters for women that are not just
(40:33):
drop in shelters, but more you have to actually be
able to get in, which it's not real difficult. We
don't although I think over the last nine years since
we started the cafe, I've seen a larger population of
homeless women. Now, I don't know if it's just because
I'm noticing them more, but at first, most of our
(40:55):
volunteers that were coming in for a meal were male.
We have.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
And so you're going to this church without walls thing,
which is basically a downtown Sunday worship service, pretty much
opened everybody.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Lay pastor that just basically he will tell you Nita's
most humble guy, and he would just tell you that
he was just there to tell people that Jesus loved
them to some.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
People who probably felt like nobody loved.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
It exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
So you're doing that simultaneously. Your girls are in Denver.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Right, screwing around?
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Can we establish the screwing around for a year?
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Playing around? Maybe?
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Playing around? Yeah, okay, playing around is probably.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Although they're actually awesome girls.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
I get it. I'm not saying they're not. Listen, I
had one doing again, one of us did here. She's
a great girl, but she wasn't doing much studying, is
what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Okay, Okay, Well both of mine, believe it or not,
were four average in high school.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Oh my kids, my daughter was too. I'm just saying
during the gap year, she was having fun. She built
some dams.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Well, that's cool much.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
She didn't do cool stop, but she wasn't studying.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Yeah, oh no, no, they didn't have to study much. No,
I totally agree with you. Anyways, Shelby's in Denver. She
calls me one day and she goes, Mom, we just
went in the coolest place for lunch. She goes. It
was called same cafe. She said, it's an acronym for
so all may eat. And she goes, I'm not exactly
how it works, she goes, but you can go in,
(42:27):
and you can if you don't have money. So, like,
you know, it's near a homeless park, and she said,
you know, people walk in and they can't pay, so
they volunteer in the cafe for you know, some period
of time. She goes, I don't really know how long.
And she said, or if you've got money, you can pay.
And my first thought is, Shelby's a miser. Please tell
(42:48):
me you pay for your lunch. Shelby, and she did
that child if she had. I think she has the
same two nickels that she ever made when she was
ten years old. Yes, anyways, she said, so really cool
place and She said, they had like two pizzas and
two salads and two sandwiches and that was it. But
(43:09):
it was all real good and healthy. And I am
married to a cardiologist and we do try to eat
healthy most of the time. And she knew that would
kind of get me, and she goes, and Mom, she goes,
I think you and dad need to open one. And
I'm sitting there thinking, along.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
With the thousand children and the bus, you're driving around
to Walmart getting looked at it, exactly, let's start a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Exactly, sure, exactly why not? So she said, I think
you need to start running. I was like, that was
my thought exactly was. I was like, yeah, shell me,
that's exactly what we need to do, because you know,
we don't have enough to do.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
We got so much free time.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I've got so much free time. I'd love to do that,
but that's not But I started looking. I looked them
up online and start thinking about it and just started
kind of thinking, you know, I really do love to cook,
which I do love to cook, and can't that much
harder than And.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
You've already been introduced to the needy community in Jackson
through the stuff you're involved in so it started wearing
on your brain, and it did.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
And then I found out that these nonprofit donation based cafes.
I found out that they were nonprofit, right, and I
was like, we can do that, you know. I mean,
we've got lots of kids that got to go to college,
so I can't just throw, you know, all their college
money away, But we can do this. I can raise
(44:32):
money for a nonprofit. So went to well, no, actually,
when I finally started kind of talking more about it
to my husband and he was like, I think it
sounds like a great idea. Let's find out more about it.
Why I called the head of the first I don't
even know what you'd call her, but she's received several
(44:53):
awards she actually.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Think for the same gird.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Well actually not for same cafe. She owned the first
nonprofit donation based cafe that was out in maybe, Utah,
I don't know, one world cafe, Yeah, somewhere, you know,
somewhere out there. And she had she had shut down
the cafe because she had started going and helping other
(45:17):
people open nonprofit cafes. And one of the first ones
that she helped was this same cafe in Denver. So
they actually are one of the oldest in the United States,
and I think, let's see, think they probably have been
in operation for about sixteen or seventeen years now, because
I think they were about eight or nine years old
when we opened nine years ago. Anyways, they were having
(45:39):
this one World Everybody Eats Foundation weekend over Martin Luther
King Weekend that year, and I called this woman, Denise Siretta,
to get some information about the cafes and how they
actually had to start them, and they were in the
middle of that weekend, and I thought, that's really weird.
(46:02):
So anyway, she gets back to me, kind of explains
a little bit. She puts me in touch with the
woman from the same cafe, and I just thought, we
can do this. So I started kind of talking to
some people in the community. And there was one woman
in the community that I didn't really even know that well,
but she was relentless, and I promise I think I
would have dropped the ball if she hadn't called me
about every three weeks, going have you found a place?
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I spoke to her.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, it spoke to her too. So anyways, about nine
months later there we were opening right before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
So tell me about the first day. You opened up,
first day, first right, you had to be nervous. You
had to wonder in the back of your mind. Listen,
Denver has two and a half three four five million
people to draw from. Yep, So I can see how
in the larger cities this would go. Yeah, but we're
talking about a really small municipality.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah, And you had to have been wondering, are people
really going to show up meat? Here?
Speaker 1 (47:02):
I really did wonder if people were going to show
up and eat? And I also wonder are we going
to get taken advantage of?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Oh? I doubt I swear to you that question was
coming next. My question are I would think one, are
people going to air? Two? Or we're gonna take advantage of?
And three Again, and a large urban area you have
people who are more open and used to being around,
(47:30):
more homeless and disadvantaged, and probably feel more pulled toward
going and eating and paying more money. But again, in
a smaller urban municipality, I would think just the education
of that need would be less. Am I am I off?
Speaker 1 (47:51):
No, I don't think you're off at all. And I
think in Jackson around that time, there was also this
thought that I looked at several different areas of Jackson
to put the cafe. One was I thought, well, we'll
have to be a destination, you know that that people
will be willing to drive to, or we need to
(48:11):
be in downtown Jackson, or I need to be on
a bus sign and something just kept taking me back
to downtown Jackson. And if you know anything about downtown Jackson,
it is being slowly rebuilt and it's a pretty cool place.
And some money had just been invested or was being
invested in the Jackson Walk and we have a you know,
(48:33):
a whole new apartment complex and shopping and you know, restaurants,
And was it like.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
That nine years ago?
Speaker 1 (48:40):
It was? It was getting starting. It was, yes, it
was starting.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
But people were going down there to eat.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
Not really, not really at that point.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Sostaurant there. Yeah, Oh, you're going to ask people who
don't understand the homeless to come in and sit down
and eat with them.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
I just I can't imagine you had to have had
some traupids.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Let me tell you one to my favorite stories, and
I definitely won't mention any names, but I sat down
with a developer in Jackson and said, hey, I'd like
to talk to you, and I talked to his one
of the guys that he works with. I said, I'd
like to talk to y'all about putting in this restaurant
(49:21):
great healthy food. We're planning just simple menu, menual change
each day. It'll be something like two soups, two salads,
and two sandwiches. We're going to do as much organic
and as much just really great healthy food as we
can get our hands on, as much locally sourced and organic.
And they were like, yes, let's talk about this. So
(49:43):
I went in to the meeting and I had mentioned volunteers.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
You hadn't mentioned exactly where they were coming from.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
The exactly exactly. So anyways, I start talking about this
and the guy even has his folder open, and he said, well,
we could put you. I don't think that one of
one of our storefronts would be large enough, but you
could take two. And he said I would need a
five year contract and it would be X number of dollars.
(50:11):
And first of all, I was like, five year contract,
I can't do that, and I was so scared. But
the point that just oh, I don't even have words
for it, was this folder's open and he's showing me
all this, and he said, now tell me again how
this is going to work with volunteers and you know,
(50:33):
and I said, well, I said, you know, somebody comes
in needs a meal, doesn't have the money to pay
for it. And he goes, WHOA. He goes like, like
the homeless, and I was like, yeah, the homeless, the underserved.
He closed his folder, doesn't even realize he's done it,
and kind of pushes it across the you know, midway
(50:53):
across the table and says, well, you know, I just
can't do it for less than this, and I'd have
to have a five year contract.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
And I was, in other words, we don't want.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
You exactly, and they were at that point, I will,
I'll be very honest, and I know this is a fact.
They were trying to move the homeless out of this corridor.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Jackson willing to set down an anchor to them, right right,
So one book enemy number one is.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I know I was. And now I kind of laugh
about it because they come in to eat and I'm
kind of like, hey, did you ever think that we
would still be here, or that we would be here
nine years later and doing this well? And he was
like and he's willing to say Nope, I really didn't
think you would.
Speaker 2 (51:44):
Turning a naysayer into a believer. Now that's poetic justice
if I've ever heard it. Guys. That concludes Part one
of our conversation with Amy Crenshaw, and I hope you
listen to Part two that's now available as the story
of Community Cafe is just getting started. But if you don't,
make sure you join the Army of Normal Folks at
(52:07):
normalfolks dot us and sign up to become a member
of our movement. By signing up, you'll also receive a
weekly email with short episode summaries in case you happen
to miss an episode, or if you just prefer reading
about our incredible gusts. Together, Guys, we can change this country,
and it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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