June 3, 2025 • 40 mins
When Kim found out that thousands of kids in her suburban community were going hungry in the summer, she couldn’t look away from the problem. Her nonprofit Festa now feeds over 800 children in the summer, but as Kim puts it, they don’t just want to help people live in poverty a little bit better. So they serve 1,166 people with America's only 3-generation family English as a Second Language program, to help their families escape poverty.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
All the tutoring I did at that inner city school,
I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it.
I never asked them, what are you doing in the summer?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to an army of normal volks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city of Memphis. And that last part is somehow
led to an oscar for the film about our team.
It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never
(00:41):
be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice
suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN
and fogs, but rather by an army of normal votes.
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help. That's what Kim impsch the voice.
You just heard his stuff. Well, she found out that
(01:02):
thousands of kids in her suburban community were going hungry
in this summer. Kim couldn't look away from the problem,
and she dove in. Her nonprofit Festa now feeds over
eight hundred children in the summer. But as Kim puts it,
they don't just want to help people live a little
bit better in poverty. So they serve over eleven hundred
(01:25):
people with after school tutoring in English as the second
language classes to help their families escape pography. I can't
wait for you to meet Kim right after these brief
messages from our general sponsors, Kim Impsh, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Phil emcch pronounced impsh. What on God's green planet is that?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My husband I actually have whole conversations about this. His
family swears it's Swiss, but I understand that half of
the people in Swiss speak German, so I think it
was that side.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So your husband has no idea.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Really, I tease them that they have no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, so you're from an interesting place that I think
when you grow up there you have to drink scarlet
and silver juice. Just outside of this place called Columbus, Ohio,
where they seem to worship a football team.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
They do, the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, what's a buckeye? Isn't that like a pea or something?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It's a nut from a tree. It's a what it's
a nut from a tree? I see comes off of
a tree. And we also make them into candies of
chocolate peanut butter, which are delicious.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Are they really all? Right? Well, Kim imps everybody from
the Columbus area. She's actually from Hillard, Ohio, which is
a suburb. And fair warning, we're going to go through
Kim's story, but you're going to hear some terminology today
that you've probably never heard. And before I read all
(03:13):
about you, I guess I probably knew this thing existed,
but I wasn't really in tune with it. And I
think not only the work that you do and all
that you've all it's evolved, which obviously we're gonna unpack,
I think is incredibly interesting, but just the genesis of
(03:35):
it is eye opening and I think something we can
all learn from. But before we get to that, as
everybody knows, we're going to learn a little bit about you.
Tell me about you, where you come from? And you
and I, by the way, I don't know if you
know my story, but you and I have something in
very incommon in terms of the way we came up.
But so go with little Kim. Where from what did
(03:56):
growing up as Kim? What was your maiden names? Well,
you go from Woods to ips. Oh my goodness, tell
me about what Kim Woods looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Coming up, I grew up in Mammy, Ohio, a suburb
of Toledo, and I experienced five divorces by my parents
by the time I was seventeen, and growing up in
a suburb, I had godparents who were from Spanish was
their first language, and I was completely unchurched until middle school.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
The godparents was that from mom's friends, god's friends, Mom's.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Friends, mom's friends.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yep, how did I don't know how, Jorn, I'm not
going to ask, but I would think back then that
having Spanish speaking friends was unique.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I think about that often because you know in your
childhood what is normal to you is normal to you.
Right when you grew up and meet people as an adult,
you realize it was maybe unique. So I think it
was unique. My godfather was from Mexico and he became
a juvenile court judge in Toledo, Judge Joe Flores, and
so I remember every time he campaigned, we had these
(05:04):
bright yellow shirts with the black writing vote for Judge Flores,
and they actually he's passed and there's a street named
after him in downtown Toledo. So he was very passionate.
He grew up at the YMCA. He grew up that
was the YMCA, was his extracurricular, his group of friends,
his safe place, and of course then he wanted to
(05:27):
give back and pour into young people. So that was
definitely very left a huge lasting impression on me.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Clearly, that's your godfather. So I am the product of
five divorces on my mom's side and three on my
father sad. So you said your parents had five divorces.
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, very tumultuous, I mean, very life shaking, trying to
figure out who's here, who's coming, who's leaving, lots of greed,
lots of loss, and trying to navigate it and figure
out where my place was in all of it, and
who could be trusted, who could be depended on. It
(06:10):
was rough.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Did you experience in yourself an unwillingness to trust consistency?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Hmm, that's a great question. I would say being expecting
or being ready for the next big crisis became sort
of a norm for me for sure. My last stepfather
from my mom took us to church when I was
in middle school, and that was definitely life changing for me.
(06:38):
Because we didn't even though I had godparents and I
had been baptized when I was two or three, but
we didn't go to church. We didn't We weren't around
people who were Christians, or I didn't know. I didn't
know what I didn't know. And as he took us
to church at a little Lutheran church in Mommy. Later
on I learned that it was called youth group, but
(06:59):
I just knew it was this group of people who
were inviting me to hang out with them. And it
was some youth leaders, some adults who actually were studying
to become doctors. I don't know how they found the
time to run this group, and then a bunch of teenagers,
mostly from my school. But we hung out and it
was a great community for me, and they started saying
things to me like, oh my gosh, you are a
(07:21):
natural leader and started honing my leadership. They said, you're
smart in your studious you could go to college. No
one my family had been to college. And I just
loved being there. I loved going there. We went to
Appalachia to retar coal miners' homes for a service trip,
and I'll never forget I'm standing on the roof in
(07:44):
the valley of the Appalachian Mountains. It's one hundred and
ten degrees, no breeze, huge humidity, humidity. I'm standing on
this roof, tarring this roof, and the owner comes out,
little old man with white hair, with an oxygen tank,
and he's praying for me on the roof. And that's
when I learned that serving God is this three hundred
(08:04):
and sixty degree circle where everyone has a need and
everyone can give.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's kind of cool. Did that stepdad hang around for
the rest of your life or was he another divorced person.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They divorced, but I still have a relationship.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
With him, So clearly not affluent. Nobody's graduated from college,
you said, Is that right? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My mom went to nurses training and so she was
a registered nurse. She always had a good job. She
could always find a job, and it was always a
good job. So we I was never worried about food, clothing,
or shelter. I wasn't worried about those things.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Got it. So a little bit of chaos, a little
bit of trauma, probably some disassociation. And the only reason
I'm saying all those things is because I'm just projecting
on you what I experienced, and you're shaking your head
up and down. So I guess that experience growing up
that way leaves those impressions. Church obviously became integral in
(09:08):
how it formed the way you thought and clearly which
I didn't know. The relationship with your godparents I think
also was formulative, which is interesting. So what do you do?
Do you go to college? What happens?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, so I'm in this Lutheran church going to this again.
What I learned later was a youth group getting confirmed
because in middle school and Lutheran religion, they're teaching you
everything and I knew nothing. So it was perfect timing.
But I fit right in with the other young people
because they were learning it all too And I remember
thinking to myself, I knew there was something else going
(09:46):
on here. I knew it. I knew it wasn't just
what I could see, that there was a bigger picture.
I just felt like someone took me from the acorns
in the forest up to the airplane level and it
just completely fad and God just completely made sense to me.
And so I'm sitting in this Lutheran church every week,
(10:06):
and they had these cards about Capitol University, this little
Lutheran school college in Columbus. Again, the youth leaders are saying,
you should go to college, you should get a four
year degree. You could do it, you have good grades
in school. So I fill out this card at church
and put in the offering plate, and Kathleen University starts
sending me back in the day paper mail, and I'm saying,
(10:30):
we would love to have you at our school. So
as I get into college or get into high school,
I think to myself, well, Capital University wants me, and
I'm certainly going there. And I remember my guidance counselor
had a meeting with me and she said, you know
what are you doing after high school? And I said, well,
I'm going to go to Kaperney University. And she said,
have you applied to Capitol University because I don't see
(10:51):
any pain of work. And I said, well no, but
I've been email or email snail mail corresponding with them
for years. Certainly that's where I'm going in she said, well, dear,
you need to fill out an application. It's a private college,
so it's expensive. I don't know if your family can
afford that. You need to fill out some financial aid,
so she really walked me through it and encouraged me
(11:14):
to go to other schools just in case I didn't
go there, Like applied to other schools just in case
they didn't let me in, And so I went. I
applied to Kent State, but I never went to visit
because I just knew I was going to Capital. So
I got into Capital, and I say a lot that
was a whole testament of God because my parents, my
(11:35):
dad never was able to pay anything for my school.
My mom was single mom at that time. She could
pay a little bit, but she could not have paid
the full amount of a private school. And they had
said to me, if you keep your grades up, we'll
make sure you can go here all four years. And
so I got hell grants. I got scholarships from people
that I wrote thank you letters to that I never met. Somehow,
(11:58):
I went to college for four years and had about
six thousand dollars worth of debt when I left. It
was amazing, wow, And that was an amazing experience because
I went to a new city, a much larger city
than Toledo, and met tons of people who really were
influential in my life. Professors and students and I didn't
(12:21):
know what to study, but I liked economics and sociology
and public speaking, so they said, well, why don't you
just do all that? So that's what I studied, and
I just enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
So what's your degree in?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
My major was economics and then had miners in public
speaking and sociology.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
There's a minor in public speaking. That's very cool.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I thought it was really fun because people said, you know,
most people don't want to speak in front of people,
and I said, I love to. So they said you
should study that.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Then, So what do you go do for a living
out of college?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
What happens next economics? People thought banking seemed like a
good next step for me. So I applied at Huntington
National Bank and I worked there for eight years and
again great experience. Met a ton of really wonderful mentors,
people who poured into me and gave me advice on
(13:10):
how to grow my career. Every nine to twelve months,
I applied for another position and kept going in the bank.
I went through a management training program. It just I
finally got to corporate training and I loved it. I
got to corporate training and I really figured out that
I enjoy explaining something to someone. When I can see
(13:31):
the light bulb go off and they get it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's kind of like right now you with me, I'm like, oh,
I get that. And now a few messages from our
general sponsors. But first, our next live interview in Memphis
will be on June twelfth with Father Mark Hannah. Father
Mark and a team of four other civilians saved over
(13:56):
fifty lives on nine to eleven, and the rest of
us team died while trying to save more people. After
nine to eleven, Mark became a Coptic priest and hence
the father title. It's part of our lunch and listen
series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourses Myphis Listening Lab,
(14:16):
and you can learn more at RSVP at Fathermark dot
Eventwright dot com. We hope to see you there. We'll
be right back. So the point is, you grow up,
(14:43):
you overachieve where your life started and came from. You
clearly have developed a faith that has helped guiding you.
You have this interesting relationship with godparents, and I assume
somewhere along here you get married, right yep? Is that
(15:03):
banking time?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah? That was in college my very final year in college,
I went home in the summers to live with my
mom in Toledo, and actually my dad before he passed away,
introduced me to who is now my husband for thirty
one years.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, this impsh thing, Yeah, the m Sky. Yeah, what's
the's name?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Scott?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Scott Scott, the m S guy.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
It must be pretty great to overcome that last name.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah. So we're just establishing all of this is to
simply set up kind of who you are. You're a
person who grew up with a broken family, a godparent
you loved who had an impact on you stepdad. I
don't know if it's one, two, three, four or five
step parent, but one of them introduced to the church,
(15:49):
and through the church, you end up in college and
you do a good job there and you're in a bank,
and you get married and you start in your family
and you have this quintessential normal folk American life clipping
or wrong up where they chocolate cover buckeyes. Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I had two children then, a daughter and a son,
and living in Lydia and Jared they live in and
we lived in Hilliard again, that suburb of Columbus, and
just doing our thing.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Doing your thing, lovely, rewarding, blessed, but like most people,
fairly unremarkable, and nobody's really taken note of your life
except you, because that's what we all do. Yep, A
normal person, normal folks and Midwest living in an Ohio
life and probably loving life.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And then I was tutoring in the inner
city at a school because one of my best friends
was a principal there, and she basically was begging for
people to come help because over ninety percent of the
children got a free reduced lunch. They were facing poverty.
She had some Somali Bantu children who came to town
(17:02):
and they had never seen a flush toilet. They didn't
know how to even use a bathroom. So she was
just begging people from her life, her church, to say,
would you come and help tutor mentor these children? They
need more grown ups in their lives who can just
love them. So I'd been doing that for a seen years.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Pepe speaking of children who probably came from trauma. Yeah,
Samoian children uprooted from Samoya, dropped in Ohio. And here's
a toilet. This is toilet paper. And oh, by the way,
the world is nothing like what you've grown up to
and let's be honest, Samoia is not the safest place
in the world, so they'd probably seen all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah. Yeah, So I had been volunteering there for some
years and then.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
This again in your unremarkable normal life, but just doing
some gift back at this.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Point, Yeah, because after that experience in Appalachia, we went
back and started a teen crisis telephone line. As teen
I just service and my religion went hand in hand
for me from day one. And so I'd been again
volunteering in this inner city school and that was two
thousand and six. I was starting back in the school
(18:17):
year and I thought, well, I guess I can do
that again. And I felt like God laid in my heart,
bring your neighbors with you. And most of my neighbors
were just like me, Caucasian American women who had been
raising their children for many years, and most had not
gone back to work yet, and so I felt like
God was asked me to bring them, and I thought, well,
(18:37):
I don't know if they're going to want to go,
so I put it off. Finally I asked them. They
all said yes. So I drove them in my van
every week to tutor in the inner city. They weren't
comfortable driving themselves, so I took them with me and
we tutored. And then my dad died suddenly the Monday
before Thanksgiving of two thousand and six, suddenly, and we
(18:58):
had been estrange. She was an alcoholic. I didn't really
get to say goodbye. It was pretty had a lot
of grief with it. And one of the women that
I was taking with me to tutor, she came to
me in December and she said, what do you think
happens when someone dies? Because her mother was diagnosed with
stage four cancer and was terminal, and she knew my
dad had just died. And I started telling her about
(19:22):
my faith and where my hope comes from, and what
I believe happens when you die, and what God had
shown me about my dad, and so we had this
whole conversation, and I said to her, there's this thing
at my church for people have questions, and you sound
like you have questions. I've been a Christian since middle school.
I still have questions. Would you want to come with me?
It's called Alpha. It's dinner. We can kind of get
(19:44):
away from our kids and our husbands and just have
a night out once a week and have dinner. Would
you want to come with me? And she said, yes,
I would want to come with you, and so we
started that in January. It's eighteen weeks and accumulates in
this Holy Spirit Retreat at the end. And I thought,
she's not going to want to go to the Holy
Spirit Retreat. She's completely on churched lady. I thought that'll
seem too churchy for her. And she called me and said, hey,
(20:06):
I want to go to that weekend at the end,
and I thought, okay, we're going. So we went to
the weekend and they challenged her, you know, after eighteen weeks,
lots of discussion, lots of information, would you want to
just say a prayer that goes something like this, God,
if you're real, show me, like, show me that you're real?
(20:26):
And she said I'd like to do that. And then
they said, to people like me who'd been a Christian
since middle school, maybe you'd like to pray God light
my heart on fire in a whole new way. And
I thought, okay, I've prayed a lot, but I haven't
prayed like that. So I said that prayer. March thirty,
two thousand and seven, and I went home and didn't
(20:47):
feel any different, went back to work Monday, didn't feel
any different. And then on March fourteenth, so eleven days later.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I believe you remember the dates.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So powerful, the dates. God has used those dates again
in my life, that's while they're ingrained in my brain.
It was a Saturday, March third, by the way, and
so March eleventh, I learned that there were twenty one
and fifty eight children in my suburban town who are
getting your free reduced lunch. And I was completely blown
away by that.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So let's talk about that. This is the at the top,
I said, there's a phrase it kind of turns the
national narrative a little bit on its ear. And is
this what is it? Suburban?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
What do you call it suburban poverty?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, that doesn't sound right. It's supposed to be urban
poverty and white flight to the suburbs and everything's okay
in the suburb. And what you discovered is suburban poverty. Yeah,
why don't you explain that?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I was.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I was sitting at a wooden desk in my house
when I called the school district and said, how many
children get a free lunch in the suburb? Of Hilliard,
the ninth largest school district in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And they satuted a suburb of Columbus, a university town,
which typically means fairly affluent, well paid, clean sidewalks, no blight,
and then a suburb of that place should be really nice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, And they said, well, good news, it's only fourteen
point seven percent. And I said, well, I stayed economics,
you can do a lot with percentages. How many human
beings is that, because we're not talking about ballpoint pens here,
we're talking about people, children with faces and names. And
they said, well, we'll have to call you back. And
they called me back and said, well, it's twenty one
hundred and fifty eight. And I was shocked. I was grieved.
(22:39):
I felt a call in my life in that exact
instant to do two things. One love, serve and feed
the children facing poverty in my town body, mind and spirit.
And two bring the community with me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Tie the unchurched lady that went through the eighteen weeks
and said the prayer to the story, she.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Was really involved and helped. I mean, as this started
happening in my life, I mean, she cared a lot
about it. Is she has become a Christian. She's been
involved in women's Bible study for years and years and
years now. And her son even went to a Christian
college in Michigan and she was she's been an encourager
to me since then.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's pretty incredible. All right. So I'm no economist. You are,
so I gotta be careful with what I say because
you'll probably come up with some fancy economic statistic metrics
that makes me stupid. But here we go.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Two thousand and what or two thousand and seven?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
No, No, twenty one hundred and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Oh fifty eight children suburban?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, out of if that's fourteen.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Percent, it's about sixteen thousand total students.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, twenty one hundred and something is a big number,
But when you think of it, out of sixteen, that's
one in eight. One in eight suburban children are growing
up in.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, and now it's much higher.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It can't be true.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's much higher. Now it's over thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
But hang tight, that cannot be true. The news doesn't
say that. I know. The images we see all day
every day about children in poverty look like stuff on
the inner city, Memphis and Queens and Albuquerque, pick a town,
and the movies depict heavily black and brown high schools
(24:34):
where there's poverty and gangs, and that's where the free
lunches are, not in suburbia.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's what I thought too.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And this is two thousand and seven. So you said,
I'm going back what you said. Immediately you decided three
things that you wanted to do here, which was.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, I felt like God was calling me to love,
serve and feed those children body, mind and spirit, and secondly,
to bring the community with.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Me right there. Yeah, okay, So what happened when you
told mister.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It's funny because I couldn't. I was so obsessed thinking
about it. That's how I knew it was the answer
to that prayer eleven days prior, because I was I couldn't.
The last thing I thought of when I was falling asleep.
The first thing I thought of when I woke up
in the morning was could this possibly be true? And
what am I going to do about it?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Why are you?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I asked myself that for about a decade, Why me?
And I feel like God showed me that Why me?
And it ties back to that community that the church
youth group provided for me. God taught me about the
aces study. Now is lovely science that proves it. But
(25:53):
a loving, supportive community like that can heal people from
their trauma. And that's what God, you know, to heal.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
How would you know? How would how would the child
who grew up in trauma healed by a church community?
How would you know?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
That?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
It's a very personal thing, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, it's the blessing you don't know you need that
you get exactly at the right moment of your life.
And and he showed me. I taught you that community,
and I healed you in it, and I want you
to create that exact community for thousands and thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
We'll be right back your story. But I'm just going
to tell you. People will have hatted me on the
(27:01):
back and congratulated me. They've actually made an Oscar winning
movie about it. I speak around the country about it.
I've written a book about it, and people always want
to pat me on the back about all this football
coach and stuff that I've done, and I don't I
still don't think people really get it. I tell them
it has been the salve to the trauma that damn
(27:25):
near broke my spirit. I know you do I can
hear it and see it in your face when you
talk about this. And we haven't even gotten into it yet,
but I completely get why you. But I want our
listeners to understand why you're crying. I'm sure it's okay.
You still feel it all, don't you.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, so do I.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So do I. It's something about that kind of trauma
that you learn to cope with and deal with and
compensate for, but you never fully get over it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, Just layers of grief. And I think that's I
as an adult. There's so many people, for so many reasons,
that carry around layers of grief for all kinds of reasons,
and it's it's a connection point that builds really deep
relationships with lots of people.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
For sure, so irety stricken, suburban kids. It's one thing
to know a number, it's another thing to have a face. Yeah,
will tell me about how that happened.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So I used my really big mouth to tell as
many people.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You have a minor in it, you're supposed to use
your big mouth. You were, you were.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Educated in how Yeah, teachers, you didn't.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Answer a question. I'm sorry, I what did Scott say? Oh?
Because I know what my family. You have two beautiful
children and a husband who loves you have been married
to for thirty years now but less back then. But
still I have the same Did they under stand what
they were bargaining and reckoning for when you decided you
(29:04):
were going to love certain feed and bring the community along?
I mean, what was their initial reaction?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I don't think any of us knew clearly where this
was headed. But I had said, God, if you're going
to get a hold of my heart for this, you're
going to need to get a hold of my immediate
family's hearts for this, because being a wife and a
mother is of utmost importance to me and I'm not
(29:32):
going to sacrifice that for this. So I would not
to get a hold of their hearts too. If you
really want me to do this, and that has definitely happened,
it is I say all the time, it's been a
family affair. They have been with me, arm in arm
with me from day one and still are after eighteen years.
(29:55):
So I can motivate people, I hope around things that
are really important in life, but I can't motivate those
three people. The only explanation is that God drew them
as much as he drew me to this cause.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So but a face to it. Now, Okay, you're awakened
to this. Yeah, you feel like it's an answer to
a prayer. So now you feel called. You have a
goal that just popped in your head to love, serve,
and feed and bring the community with you. But right
now it's numbers. How does it first start becoming a
(30:37):
face and fully with the backdrop understanding that you very
deeply in your soul feel this because you know what
that trauma is.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I worked part time for a church, so that's the
timing of that was really perfect because it's a big church,
one of the biggest Lutheran churches in the country, and
so I had a reported directly to the senior pastor.
So I started straight away saying to him, I feel
his call in my life. There's this huge problem in
our town. I feel called to do something about it.
(31:10):
And he was like, okay, let me know what you
figure out, and so gim me abreast and so then
I wrote, I went to the Chamber of Commerce, learned
they were twenty two churches in town. Because I thought,
we'll bring the community with me. What does that mean.
I've always served at my church but it didn't say
bring your church with you. In my mind, it was
bring the community with you. So I wrote letters to
(31:32):
twenty two churches and said, here's the problem I found
in our town. Twenty one hundred fifty children facing poverty
getting a free lunch and then hungry all summer. Because
I never asked Bill. All the tutoring I did at
that inner city school, I knew they got a free lunch.
I knew it. I never asked them what do you
do in the summer.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
That's the big question. Oh my gosh, when you just
said it, it's huge. Great, they get a free lunch
during the school. What do they do during the summer.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's twelve weeks. It is twelve weeks that it's gone.
It's a one in fact is friend reduce lunch is
the second best way we feed people in our country
after food stamps. It works great now, it's breakfast and lunch.
It's lovely, but it stops for twelve weeks in the summer.
And that's where I knew the gap was in understanding this.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Then I learn when they are gathering food, what kind
of food is it? Yeah, it's cheese puffs and whatever
you can get your hands on.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, that's the Oh they're ugly underbelly. Yeah, it's the
unhealthy food in the store. I mean it's the cheap
stuff at the cheapest grocery stores that the family can
spread along the summer.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So the question is not just rhetorical, what did you
find out that these kids do? What were not unrhetorically
what did you find out that kids do? Poverty stricken
kids from the suburb who depend on that free lunch
probably the best meal that get the day, what do
they do during the summer? Not rhetorically, actually what did
you find out? Well?
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I found out in the urban city there were these
things called free summer lunch camps, and in fact, in
the inner city where I had been tutoring, there were
two or three within walking distance from the school where
I was shooting. So a child could choose, I could
want to go to this one or this one, and
they could get them their hunger needs and likely camp
needs met in the urban city. Then I looked in
(33:21):
suburbia and there was nothing, literally nothing. Then I did
some research. I learned that the Brookings Institute had done
a study in two thousand and five that showed there
were more human beings, children and families living in poverty
in the suburbs than in the urban cities in the
United States of America.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Okay, when I read that, I was like, what come on?
There are more poverty stricken children in the suburbs than
there is the urban areas in our country.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Since two thousand and five, they proved it was that.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I met a historian one time and I said to
him all of this, and he said, Kim, do you
ever watch HGTV? I said, of course, Guilty Pleasure. He said,
you ever watched the European version? I said, of course,
Guilty Pleasure. And he said, so in Europe when you're
watching that show and someone's in England or France, what
city are they in? I said, Paris and London. He
(34:15):
said exactly. He said, no, the people on the show
have money, otherwise they wouldn't be on the show. And
they're in the biggest cities in those countries. That's where
they're looking for their housing. He said, Europe is older
than America. Money started in the inner city, it moved out,
Doubt and Abbey, it's moved back in. He said. Our country,
United States is young. This is the first time we've
ever done it. When we started our country, money was
(34:37):
in the inner city. Then it moved out suburbia, and
now it's moving back in. So wherever wealth moves, poverty
moves in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wow, that's interesting. So what this historian is telling you
about economics macro economics of our country is money moved out.
Now money is moving back in, and it's leaving behind
poverty in suburbia.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Right, well, and pushing poverty out of the urban cities
or school is wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's not leaving it because money's coming in. It's pushing.
It's gentrification.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It's now I'm coming up with the phrase. But it's
almost what it's reversed. It's almost completely mind shifted. You
think of gentrification as coming into some historical or older
community building, making the building is so expensive that the
(35:38):
people have to leave, Right, But here's the question where
do they go? That's right, And you're saying they're getting
pushed into quote suburbia, right, Is that that's really the fact.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That's it, that's it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And so where are the kids from Hillard being pushed
from Columbus? Is that really it? Yes?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yep, and all the other suburbs around. So there are
another nine ten other suburbs around Columbus And it's the
same way. In fact, all the lovely little lines that
people draw on maps. So half of the children who
live in Columbus City proper go to suburban schools.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Why, how how does that work? District wise? I would think,
if you're registered for a district, how do you go
to suburban school?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah? It's all these lines on maps. So the suburban town,
for example, Hilliard is about fourteen zero point seven eighty
nine square miles. That's that's it. It's a tiny little town.
The school district is sixty square miles.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
The Hilliard school district is four times the size of
the town itself. Right, So is it bringing in poverty
stricten kids into the school system.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Well, that's so the map of these school districts, it
used to be where the school and the city were
perfectly lined up.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, the families and the community were around it, right,
and we have.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Lost that, right, it's much The school districts are much
larger than the cities, and so they encompass a larger
geograggraphic area, and so you have some children living in
Columbus who are facing poverty, who go to Hilliard schools.
But you also have apartment complex, trailer parks, duplexes, which
again I think is lovely city planning quite honestly, because
(37:30):
mixedosoeconomic environment is really healthy for everyone. But in that
scenario in suburbia, there are people who live in the
city of Hilliard who are facing poverty too. So it's
not just the Columbus children, it's also some Hilliard children.
But again it's that regentrification of the urban community that
is shifting a huge population shift in our country.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
All Right, the study test, as it pertains to you,
is Columbus Hillard. But this to be true than in
Memphis and South Haven and Little Rock in North Little
Rock or Jacksonville or I'm just trying to pick places
I know, but pretty much every urban area has a
(38:13):
suburban area. And you would argue then that this population
shift is happening in all of these areas across our country,
leaving poverty stricken suburban children.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, and that's what Brookings Institute has shown. It wasn't
just a study on Columbus. It was a national United
States study that showed that poverty had moved from not
one hundred percent. Let me be clear, there are still
poverty in urban cities for sure, but their point is
there are more human beings living in poverty in the
(38:47):
suburbs than in the urban cities, which again is an
enormous populationship that our country has not seen before.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Well an example where your kids are at. I think
there's actually a decent amount in Arlington and Alexandria too,
outside of DC. Really, there's actually amount of poverty in
Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
And when you think of Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, there's nice there's nice areas there too, but there's
also a lot of poverty.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
There's both. Yeah. I would just think when you hear that,
you're like, really, because you think of young white professionals.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
City school districts are actually not good in a lot
of Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Really yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I challenge people to just call their school district. I mean,
as a tax beayer, as a parent, you can call
your school district and say how many children get a
free reduced lunch not percentage but number of human.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Beings and you might be shocked.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I think you'd be shocked.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I'm shocked. I'm standing here beside myself. I am shocked,
all right. So that sets up the facts about the problem.
We still hadn't put a face to it. We still
hadn't figured out what love, certain feed and bring the
community means in Kim's world eighteen years ago through today.
(39:58):
And we will learn all all of that and more
in Part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change the country, but it starts with you.
I'll see in Part two.
All the tutoring I did at that inner city school,
I knew they got a free lunch. I knew it.
I never asked them, what are you doing in the summer?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to an army of normal volks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city of Memphis. And that last part is somehow
led to an oscar for the film about our team.
It's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never
(00:41):
be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice
suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN
and fogs, but rather by an army of normal votes.
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help. That's what Kim impsch the voice.
You just heard his stuff. Well, she found out that
(01:02):
thousands of kids in her suburban community were going hungry
in this summer. Kim couldn't look away from the problem,
and she dove in. Her nonprofit Festa now feeds over
eight hundred children in the summer. But as Kim puts it,
they don't just want to help people live a little
bit better in poverty. So they serve over eleven hundred
(01:25):
people with after school tutoring in English as the second
language classes to help their families escape pography. I can't
wait for you to meet Kim right after these brief
messages from our general sponsors, Kim Impsh, Welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Phil emcch pronounced impsh. What on God's green planet is that?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
My husband I actually have whole conversations about this. His
family swears it's Swiss, but I understand that half of
the people in Swiss speak German, so I think it
was that side.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So your husband has no idea.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Really, I tease them that they have no idea.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, so you're from an interesting place that I think
when you grow up there you have to drink scarlet
and silver juice. Just outside of this place called Columbus, Ohio,
where they seem to worship a football team.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
They do, the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, what's a buckeye? Isn't that like a pea or something?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
It's a nut from a tree. It's a what it's
a nut from a tree? I see comes off of
a tree. And we also make them into candies of
chocolate peanut butter, which are delicious.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Are they really all? Right? Well, Kim imps everybody from
the Columbus area. She's actually from Hillard, Ohio, which is
a suburb. And fair warning, we're going to go through
Kim's story, but you're going to hear some terminology today
that you've probably never heard. And before I read all
(03:13):
about you, I guess I probably knew this thing existed,
but I wasn't really in tune with it. And I
think not only the work that you do and all
that you've all it's evolved, which obviously we're gonna unpack,
I think is incredibly interesting, but just the genesis of
(03:35):
it is eye opening and I think something we can
all learn from. But before we get to that, as
everybody knows, we're going to learn a little bit about you.
Tell me about you, where you come from? And you
and I, by the way, I don't know if you
know my story, but you and I have something in
very incommon in terms of the way we came up.
But so go with little Kim. Where from what did
(03:56):
growing up as Kim? What was your maiden names? Well,
you go from Woods to ips. Oh my goodness, tell
me about what Kim Woods looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Coming up, I grew up in Mammy, Ohio, a suburb
of Toledo, and I experienced five divorces by my parents
by the time I was seventeen, and growing up in
a suburb, I had godparents who were from Spanish was
their first language, and I was completely unchurched until middle school.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
The godparents was that from mom's friends, god's friends, Mom's.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Friends, mom's friends.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Yep, how did I don't know how, Jorn, I'm not
going to ask, but I would think back then that
having Spanish speaking friends was unique.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
I think about that often because you know in your
childhood what is normal to you is normal to you.
Right when you grew up and meet people as an adult,
you realize it was maybe unique. So I think it
was unique. My godfather was from Mexico and he became
a juvenile court judge in Toledo, Judge Joe Flores, and
so I remember every time he campaigned, we had these
(05:04):
bright yellow shirts with the black writing vote for Judge Flores,
and they actually he's passed and there's a street named
after him in downtown Toledo. So he was very passionate.
He grew up at the YMCA. He grew up that
was the YMCA, was his extracurricular, his group of friends,
his safe place, and of course then he wanted to
(05:27):
give back and pour into young people. So that was
definitely very left a huge lasting impression on me.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Clearly, that's your godfather. So I am the product of
five divorces on my mom's side and three on my
father sad. So you said your parents had five divorces.
What was that like for you?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, very tumultuous, I mean, very life shaking, trying to
figure out who's here, who's coming, who's leaving, lots of greed,
lots of loss, and trying to navigate it and figure
out where my place was in all of it, and
who could be trusted, who could be depended on. It
(06:10):
was rough.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Did you experience in yourself an unwillingness to trust consistency?
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Hmm, that's a great question. I would say being expecting
or being ready for the next big crisis became sort
of a norm for me for sure. My last stepfather
from my mom took us to church when I was
in middle school, and that was definitely life changing for me.
(06:38):
Because we didn't even though I had godparents and I
had been baptized when I was two or three, but
we didn't go to church. We didn't We weren't around
people who were Christians, or I didn't know. I didn't
know what I didn't know. And as he took us
to church at a little Lutheran church in Mommy. Later
on I learned that it was called youth group, but
(06:59):
I just knew it was this group of people who
were inviting me to hang out with them. And it
was some youth leaders, some adults who actually were studying
to become doctors. I don't know how they found the
time to run this group, and then a bunch of teenagers,
mostly from my school. But we hung out and it
was a great community for me, and they started saying
things to me like, oh my gosh, you are a
(07:21):
natural leader and started honing my leadership. They said, you're
smart in your studious you could go to college. No
one my family had been to college. And I just
loved being there. I loved going there. We went to
Appalachia to retar coal miners' homes for a service trip,
and I'll never forget I'm standing on the roof in
(07:44):
the valley of the Appalachian Mountains. It's one hundred and
ten degrees, no breeze, huge humidity, humidity. I'm standing on
this roof, tarring this roof, and the owner comes out,
little old man with white hair, with an oxygen tank,
and he's praying for me on the roof. And that's
when I learned that serving God is this three hundred
(08:04):
and sixty degree circle where everyone has a need and
everyone can give.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's kind of cool. Did that stepdad hang around for
the rest of your life or was he another divorced person.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They divorced, but I still have a relationship.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
With him, So clearly not affluent. Nobody's graduated from college,
you said, Is that right? Right?
Speaker 1 (08:28):
My mom went to nurses training and so she was
a registered nurse. She always had a good job. She
could always find a job, and it was always a
good job. So we I was never worried about food, clothing,
or shelter. I wasn't worried about those things.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Got it. So a little bit of chaos, a little
bit of trauma, probably some disassociation. And the only reason
I'm saying all those things is because I'm just projecting
on you what I experienced, and you're shaking your head
up and down. So I guess that experience growing up
that way leaves those impressions. Church obviously became integral in
(09:08):
how it formed the way you thought and clearly which
I didn't know. The relationship with your godparents I think
also was formulative, which is interesting. So what do you do?
Do you go to college? What happens?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, so I'm in this Lutheran church going to this again.
What I learned later was a youth group getting confirmed
because in middle school and Lutheran religion, they're teaching you
everything and I knew nothing. So it was perfect timing.
But I fit right in with the other young people
because they were learning it all too And I remember
thinking to myself, I knew there was something else going
(09:46):
on here. I knew it. I knew it wasn't just
what I could see, that there was a bigger picture.
I just felt like someone took me from the acorns
in the forest up to the airplane level and it
just completely fad and God just completely made sense to me.
And so I'm sitting in this Lutheran church every week,
(10:06):
and they had these cards about Capitol University, this little
Lutheran school college in Columbus. Again, the youth leaders are saying,
you should go to college, you should get a four
year degree. You could do it, you have good grades
in school. So I fill out this card at church
and put in the offering plate, and Kathleen University starts
sending me back in the day paper mail, and I'm saying,
(10:30):
we would love to have you at our school. So
as I get into college or get into high school,
I think to myself, well, Capital University wants me, and
I'm certainly going there. And I remember my guidance counselor
had a meeting with me and she said, you know
what are you doing after high school? And I said, well,
I'm going to go to Kaperney University. And she said,
have you applied to Capitol University because I don't see
(10:51):
any pain of work. And I said, well no, but
I've been email or email snail mail corresponding with them
for years. Certainly that's where I'm going in she said, well, dear,
you need to fill out an application. It's a private college,
so it's expensive. I don't know if your family can
afford that. You need to fill out some financial aid,
so she really walked me through it and encouraged me
(11:14):
to go to other schools just in case I didn't
go there, Like applied to other schools just in case
they didn't let me in, And so I went. I
applied to Kent State, but I never went to visit
because I just knew I was going to Capital. So
I got into Capital, and I say a lot that
was a whole testament of God because my parents, my
(11:35):
dad never was able to pay anything for my school.
My mom was single mom at that time. She could
pay a little bit, but she could not have paid
the full amount of a private school. And they had
said to me, if you keep your grades up, we'll
make sure you can go here all four years. And
so I got hell grants. I got scholarships from people
that I wrote thank you letters to that I never met. Somehow,
(11:58):
I went to college for four years and had about
six thousand dollars worth of debt when I left. It
was amazing, wow, And that was an amazing experience because
I went to a new city, a much larger city
than Toledo, and met tons of people who really were
influential in my life. Professors and students and I didn't
(12:21):
know what to study, but I liked economics and sociology
and public speaking, so they said, well, why don't you
just do all that? So that's what I studied, and
I just enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
So what's your degree in?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
My major was economics and then had miners in public
speaking and sociology.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
There's a minor in public speaking. That's very cool.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
I thought it was really fun because people said, you know,
most people don't want to speak in front of people,
and I said, I love to. So they said you
should study that.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Then, So what do you go do for a living
out of college?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
What happens next economics? People thought banking seemed like a
good next step for me. So I applied at Huntington
National Bank and I worked there for eight years and
again great experience. Met a ton of really wonderful mentors,
people who poured into me and gave me advice on
(13:10):
how to grow my career. Every nine to twelve months,
I applied for another position and kept going in the bank.
I went through a management training program. It just I
finally got to corporate training and I loved it. I
got to corporate training and I really figured out that
I enjoy explaining something to someone. When I can see
(13:31):
the light bulb go off and they get it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
That's kind of like right now you with me, I'm like, oh,
I get that. And now a few messages from our
general sponsors. But first, our next live interview in Memphis
will be on June twelfth with Father Mark Hannah. Father
Mark and a team of four other civilians saved over
(13:56):
fifty lives on nine to eleven, and the rest of
us team died while trying to save more people. After
nine to eleven, Mark became a Coptic priest and hence
the father title. It's part of our lunch and listen
series that we've been doing at Crosstown Concourses Myphis Listening Lab,
(14:16):
and you can learn more at RSVP at Fathermark dot
Eventwright dot com. We hope to see you there. We'll
be right back. So the point is, you grow up,
(14:43):
you overachieve where your life started and came from. You
clearly have developed a faith that has helped guiding you.
You have this interesting relationship with godparents, and I assume
somewhere along here you get married, right yep? Is that
(15:03):
banking time?
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Yeah? That was in college my very final year in college,
I went home in the summers to live with my
mom in Toledo, and actually my dad before he passed away,
introduced me to who is now my husband for thirty
one years.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, this impsh thing, Yeah, the m Sky. Yeah, what's
the's name?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Scott?
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Scott Scott, the m S guy.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
It must be pretty great to overcome that last name.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah. So we're just establishing all of this is to
simply set up kind of who you are. You're a
person who grew up with a broken family, a godparent
you loved who had an impact on you stepdad. I
don't know if it's one, two, three, four or five
step parent, but one of them introduced to the church,
(15:49):
and through the church, you end up in college and
you do a good job there and you're in a bank,
and you get married and you start in your family
and you have this quintessential normal folk American life clipping
or wrong up where they chocolate cover buckeyes. Yep.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I had two children then, a daughter and a son,
and living in Lydia and Jared they live in and
we lived in Hilliard again, that suburb of Columbus, and
just doing our thing.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Doing your thing, lovely, rewarding, blessed, but like most people,
fairly unremarkable, and nobody's really taken note of your life
except you, because that's what we all do. Yep, A
normal person, normal folks and Midwest living in an Ohio
life and probably loving life.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Yeah. Yeah. And then I was tutoring in the inner
city at a school because one of my best friends
was a principal there, and she basically was begging for
people to come help because over ninety percent of the
children got a free reduced lunch. They were facing poverty.
She had some Somali Bantu children who came to town
(17:02):
and they had never seen a flush toilet. They didn't
know how to even use a bathroom. So she was
just begging people from her life, her church, to say,
would you come and help tutor mentor these children? They
need more grown ups in their lives who can just
love them. So I'd been doing that for a seen years.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Pepe speaking of children who probably came from trauma. Yeah,
Samoian children uprooted from Samoya, dropped in Ohio. And here's
a toilet. This is toilet paper. And oh, by the way,
the world is nothing like what you've grown up to
and let's be honest, Samoia is not the safest place
in the world, so they'd probably seen all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Yeah. Yeah, So I had been volunteering there for some
years and then.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
This again in your unremarkable normal life, but just doing
some gift back at this.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Point, Yeah, because after that experience in Appalachia, we went
back and started a teen crisis telephone line. As teen
I just service and my religion went hand in hand
for me from day one. And so I'd been again
volunteering in this inner city school and that was two
thousand and six. I was starting back in the school
(18:17):
year and I thought, well, I guess I can do
that again. And I felt like God laid in my heart,
bring your neighbors with you. And most of my neighbors
were just like me, Caucasian American women who had been
raising their children for many years, and most had not
gone back to work yet, and so I felt like
God was asked me to bring them, and I thought, well,
(18:37):
I don't know if they're going to want to go,
so I put it off. Finally I asked them. They
all said yes. So I drove them in my van
every week to tutor in the inner city. They weren't
comfortable driving themselves, so I took them with me and
we tutored. And then my dad died suddenly the Monday
before Thanksgiving of two thousand and six, suddenly, and we
(18:58):
had been estrange. She was an alcoholic. I didn't really
get to say goodbye. It was pretty had a lot
of grief with it. And one of the women that
I was taking with me to tutor, she came to
me in December and she said, what do you think
happens when someone dies? Because her mother was diagnosed with
stage four cancer and was terminal, and she knew my
dad had just died. And I started telling her about
(19:22):
my faith and where my hope comes from, and what
I believe happens when you die, and what God had
shown me about my dad, and so we had this
whole conversation, and I said to her, there's this thing
at my church for people have questions, and you sound
like you have questions. I've been a Christian since middle school.
I still have questions. Would you want to come with me?
It's called Alpha. It's dinner. We can kind of get
(19:44):
away from our kids and our husbands and just have
a night out once a week and have dinner. Would
you want to come with me? And she said, yes,
I would want to come with you, and so we
started that in January. It's eighteen weeks and accumulates in
this Holy Spirit Retreat at the end. And I thought,
she's not going to want to go to the Holy
Spirit Retreat. She's completely on churched lady. I thought that'll
seem too churchy for her. And she called me and said, hey,
(20:06):
I want to go to that weekend at the end,
and I thought, okay, we're going. So we went to
the weekend and they challenged her, you know, after eighteen weeks,
lots of discussion, lots of information, would you want to
just say a prayer that goes something like this, God,
if you're real, show me, like, show me that you're real?
(20:26):
And she said I'd like to do that. And then
they said, to people like me who'd been a Christian
since middle school, maybe you'd like to pray God light
my heart on fire in a whole new way. And
I thought, okay, I've prayed a lot, but I haven't
prayed like that. So I said that prayer. March thirty,
two thousand and seven, and I went home and didn't
(20:47):
feel any different, went back to work Monday, didn't feel
any different. And then on March fourteenth, so eleven days later.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I believe you remember the dates.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So powerful, the dates. God has used those dates again
in my life, that's while they're ingrained in my brain.
It was a Saturday, March third, by the way, and
so March eleventh, I learned that there were twenty one
and fifty eight children in my suburban town who are
getting your free reduced lunch. And I was completely blown
away by that.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
So let's talk about that. This is the at the top,
I said, there's a phrase it kind of turns the
national narrative a little bit on its ear. And is
this what is it? Suburban?
Speaker 1 (21:31):
What do you call it suburban poverty?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, that doesn't sound right. It's supposed to be urban
poverty and white flight to the suburbs and everything's okay
in the suburb. And what you discovered is suburban poverty. Yeah,
why don't you explain that?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
I was.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I was sitting at a wooden desk in my house
when I called the school district and said, how many
children get a free lunch in the suburb? Of Hilliard,
the ninth largest school district in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And they satuted a suburb of Columbus, a university town,
which typically means fairly affluent, well paid, clean sidewalks, no blight,
and then a suburb of that place should be really nice. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, And they said, well, good news, it's only fourteen
point seven percent. And I said, well, I stayed economics,
you can do a lot with percentages. How many human
beings is that, because we're not talking about ballpoint pens here,
we're talking about people, children with faces and names. And
they said, well, we'll have to call you back. And
they called me back and said, well, it's twenty one
hundred and fifty eight. And I was shocked. I was grieved.
(22:39):
I felt a call in my life in that exact
instant to do two things. One love, serve and feed
the children facing poverty in my town body, mind and spirit.
And two bring the community with me.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Tie the unchurched lady that went through the eighteen weeks
and said the prayer to the story, she.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Was really involved and helped. I mean, as this started
happening in my life, I mean, she cared a lot
about it. Is she has become a Christian. She's been
involved in women's Bible study for years and years and
years now. And her son even went to a Christian
college in Michigan and she was she's been an encourager
to me since then.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
That's pretty incredible. All right. So I'm no economist. You are,
so I gotta be careful with what I say because
you'll probably come up with some fancy economic statistic metrics
that makes me stupid. But here we go.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Two thousand and what or two thousand and seven?
Speaker 2 (23:38):
No, No, twenty one hundred and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Oh fifty eight children suburban?
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, out of if that's fourteen.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Percent, it's about sixteen thousand total students.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, twenty one hundred and something is a big number,
But when you think of it, out of sixteen, that's
one in eight. One in eight suburban children are growing
up in.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, and now it's much higher.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It can't be true.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's much higher. Now it's over thirty percent.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
But hang tight, that cannot be true. The news doesn't
say that. I know. The images we see all day
every day about children in poverty look like stuff on
the inner city, Memphis and Queens and Albuquerque, pick a town,
and the movies depict heavily black and brown high schools
(24:34):
where there's poverty and gangs, and that's where the free
lunches are, not in suburbia.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That's what I thought too.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And this is two thousand and seven. So you said,
I'm going back what you said. Immediately you decided three
things that you wanted to do here, which was.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Yeah, I felt like God was calling me to love,
serve and feed those children body, mind and spirit, and secondly,
to bring the community with.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Me right there. Yeah, okay, So what happened when you
told mister.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
It's funny because I couldn't. I was so obsessed thinking
about it. That's how I knew it was the answer
to that prayer eleven days prior, because I was I couldn't.
The last thing I thought of when I was falling asleep.
The first thing I thought of when I woke up
in the morning was could this possibly be true? And
what am I going to do about it?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Why are you?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
I asked myself that for about a decade, Why me?
And I feel like God showed me that Why me?
And it ties back to that community that the church
youth group provided for me. God taught me about the
aces study. Now is lovely science that proves it. But
(25:53):
a loving, supportive community like that can heal people from
their trauma. And that's what God, you know, to heal.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
How would you know? How would how would the child
who grew up in trauma healed by a church community?
How would you know?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
That?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
It's a very personal thing, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, it's the blessing you don't know you need that
you get exactly at the right moment of your life.
And and he showed me. I taught you that community,
and I healed you in it, and I want you
to create that exact community for thousands and thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
We'll be right back your story. But I'm just going
to tell you. People will have hatted me on the
(27:01):
back and congratulated me. They've actually made an Oscar winning
movie about it. I speak around the country about it.
I've written a book about it, and people always want
to pat me on the back about all this football
coach and stuff that I've done, and I don't I
still don't think people really get it. I tell them
it has been the salve to the trauma that damn
(27:25):
near broke my spirit. I know you do I can
hear it and see it in your face when you
talk about this. And we haven't even gotten into it yet,
but I completely get why you. But I want our
listeners to understand why you're crying. I'm sure it's okay.
You still feel it all, don't you.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, so do I.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
So do I. It's something about that kind of trauma
that you learn to cope with and deal with and
compensate for, but you never fully get over it.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, Just layers of grief. And I think that's I
as an adult. There's so many people, for so many reasons,
that carry around layers of grief for all kinds of reasons,
and it's it's a connection point that builds really deep
relationships with lots of people.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
For sure, so irety stricken, suburban kids. It's one thing
to know a number, it's another thing to have a face. Yeah,
will tell me about how that happened.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So I used my really big mouth to tell as
many people.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
You have a minor in it, you're supposed to use
your big mouth. You were, you were.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Educated in how Yeah, teachers, you didn't.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Answer a question. I'm sorry, I what did Scott say? Oh?
Because I know what my family. You have two beautiful
children and a husband who loves you have been married
to for thirty years now but less back then. But
still I have the same Did they under stand what
they were bargaining and reckoning for when you decided you
(29:04):
were going to love certain feed and bring the community along?
I mean, what was their initial reaction?
Speaker 1 (29:11):
I don't think any of us knew clearly where this
was headed. But I had said, God, if you're going
to get a hold of my heart for this, you're
going to need to get a hold of my immediate
family's hearts for this, because being a wife and a
mother is of utmost importance to me and I'm not
(29:32):
going to sacrifice that for this. So I would not
to get a hold of their hearts too. If you
really want me to do this, and that has definitely happened,
it is I say all the time, it's been a
family affair. They have been with me, arm in arm
with me from day one and still are after eighteen years.
(29:55):
So I can motivate people, I hope around things that
are really important in life, but I can't motivate those
three people. The only explanation is that God drew them
as much as he drew me to this cause.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
So but a face to it. Now, Okay, you're awakened
to this. Yeah, you feel like it's an answer to
a prayer. So now you feel called. You have a
goal that just popped in your head to love, serve,
and feed and bring the community with you. But right
now it's numbers. How does it first start becoming a
(30:37):
face and fully with the backdrop understanding that you very
deeply in your soul feel this because you know what
that trauma is.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I worked part time for a church, so that's the
timing of that was really perfect because it's a big church,
one of the biggest Lutheran churches in the country, and
so I had a reported directly to the senior pastor.
So I started straight away saying to him, I feel
his call in my life. There's this huge problem in
our town. I feel called to do something about it.
(31:10):
And he was like, okay, let me know what you
figure out, and so gim me abreast and so then
I wrote, I went to the Chamber of Commerce, learned
they were twenty two churches in town. Because I thought,
we'll bring the community with me. What does that mean.
I've always served at my church but it didn't say
bring your church with you. In my mind, it was
bring the community with you. So I wrote letters to
(31:32):
twenty two churches and said, here's the problem I found
in our town. Twenty one hundred fifty children facing poverty
getting a free lunch and then hungry all summer. Because
I never asked Bill. All the tutoring I did at
that inner city school, I knew they got a free lunch.
I knew it. I never asked them what do you
do in the summer.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
That's the big question. Oh my gosh, when you just
said it, it's huge. Great, they get a free lunch
during the school. What do they do during the summer.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
It's twelve weeks. It is twelve weeks that it's gone.
It's a one in fact is friend reduce lunch is
the second best way we feed people in our country
after food stamps. It works great now, it's breakfast and lunch.
It's lovely, but it stops for twelve weeks in the summer.
And that's where I knew the gap was in understanding this.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Then I learn when they are gathering food, what kind
of food is it? Yeah, it's cheese puffs and whatever
you can get your hands on.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, that's the Oh they're ugly underbelly. Yeah, it's the
unhealthy food in the store. I mean it's the cheap
stuff at the cheapest grocery stores that the family can
spread along the summer.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
So the question is not just rhetorical, what did you
find out that these kids do? What were not unrhetorically
what did you find out that kids do? Poverty stricken
kids from the suburb who depend on that free lunch
probably the best meal that get the day, what do
they do during the summer? Not rhetorically, actually what did
you find out? Well?
Speaker 1 (32:58):
I found out in the urban city there were these
things called free summer lunch camps, and in fact, in
the inner city where I had been tutoring, there were
two or three within walking distance from the school where
I was shooting. So a child could choose, I could
want to go to this one or this one, and
they could get them their hunger needs and likely camp
needs met in the urban city. Then I looked in
(33:21):
suburbia and there was nothing, literally nothing. Then I did
some research. I learned that the Brookings Institute had done
a study in two thousand and five that showed there
were more human beings, children and families living in poverty
in the suburbs than in the urban cities in the
United States of America.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Okay, when I read that, I was like, what come on?
There are more poverty stricken children in the suburbs than
there is the urban areas in our country.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Since two thousand and five, they proved it was that.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I met a historian one time and I said to
him all of this, and he said, Kim, do you
ever watch HGTV? I said, of course, Guilty Pleasure. He said,
you ever watched the European version? I said, of course,
Guilty Pleasure. And he said, so in Europe when you're
watching that show and someone's in England or France, what
city are they in? I said, Paris and London. He
(34:15):
said exactly. He said, no, the people on the show
have money, otherwise they wouldn't be on the show. And
they're in the biggest cities in those countries. That's where
they're looking for their housing. He said, Europe is older
than America. Money started in the inner city, it moved out,
Doubt and Abbey, it's moved back in. He said. Our country,
United States is young. This is the first time we've
ever done it. When we started our country, money was
(34:37):
in the inner city. Then it moved out suburbia, and
now it's moving back in. So wherever wealth moves, poverty
moves in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Wow, that's interesting. So what this historian is telling you
about economics macro economics of our country is money moved out.
Now money is moving back in, and it's leaving behind
poverty in suburbia.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Right, well, and pushing poverty out of the urban cities
or school is wrong.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
It's not leaving it because money's coming in. It's pushing.
It's gentrification.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
It's now I'm coming up with the phrase. But it's
almost what it's reversed. It's almost completely mind shifted. You
think of gentrification as coming into some historical or older
community building, making the building is so expensive that the
(35:38):
people have to leave, Right, But here's the question where
do they go? That's right, And you're saying they're getting
pushed into quote suburbia, right, Is that that's really the fact.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That's it, that's it, that's right.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And so where are the kids from Hillard being pushed
from Columbus? Is that really it? Yes?
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yep, and all the other suburbs around. So there are
another nine ten other suburbs around Columbus And it's the
same way. In fact, all the lovely little lines that
people draw on maps. So half of the children who
live in Columbus City proper go to suburban schools.
Speaker 2 (36:18):
Why, how how does that work? District wise? I would think,
if you're registered for a district, how do you go
to suburban school?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah? It's all these lines on maps. So the suburban town,
for example, Hilliard is about fourteen zero point seven eighty
nine square miles. That's that's it. It's a tiny little town.
The school district is sixty square miles.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
The Hilliard school district is four times the size of
the town itself. Right, So is it bringing in poverty
stricten kids into the school system.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Well, that's so the map of these school districts, it
used to be where the school and the city were
perfectly lined up.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah, the families and the community were around it, right,
and we have.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Lost that, right, it's much The school districts are much
larger than the cities, and so they encompass a larger
geograggraphic area, and so you have some children living in
Columbus who are facing poverty, who go to Hilliard schools.
But you also have apartment complex, trailer parks, duplexes, which
again I think is lovely city planning quite honestly, because
(37:30):
mixedosoeconomic environment is really healthy for everyone. But in that
scenario in suburbia, there are people who live in the
city of Hilliard who are facing poverty too. So it's
not just the Columbus children, it's also some Hilliard children.
But again it's that regentrification of the urban community that
is shifting a huge population shift in our country.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
All Right, the study test, as it pertains to you,
is Columbus Hillard. But this to be true than in
Memphis and South Haven and Little Rock in North Little
Rock or Jacksonville or I'm just trying to pick places
I know, but pretty much every urban area has a
(38:13):
suburban area. And you would argue then that this population
shift is happening in all of these areas across our country,
leaving poverty stricken suburban children.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, and that's what Brookings Institute has shown. It wasn't
just a study on Columbus. It was a national United
States study that showed that poverty had moved from not
one hundred percent. Let me be clear, there are still
poverty in urban cities for sure, but their point is
there are more human beings living in poverty in the
(38:47):
suburbs than in the urban cities, which again is an
enormous populationship that our country has not seen before.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Well an example where your kids are at. I think
there's actually a decent amount in Arlington and Alexandria too,
outside of DC. Really, there's actually amount of poverty in
Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
And when you think of Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
Well, there's nice there's nice areas there too, but there's
also a lot of poverty.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
There's both. Yeah. I would just think when you hear that,
you're like, really, because you think of young white professionals.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
City school districts are actually not good in a lot
of Arlington and Alexandria.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Really yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
I challenge people to just call their school district. I mean,
as a tax beayer, as a parent, you can call
your school district and say how many children get a
free reduced lunch not percentage but number of human.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Beings and you might be shocked.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I think you'd be shocked.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I'm shocked. I'm standing here beside myself. I am shocked,
all right. So that sets up the facts about the problem.
We still hadn't put a face to it. We still
hadn't figured out what love, certain feed and bring the
community means in Kim's world eighteen years ago through today.
(39:58):
And we will learn all all of that and more
in Part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys,
we can change the country, but it starts with you.
I'll see in Part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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