November 22, 2025 • 29 mins
Today’s guest, Gigi Assi is the Founder and CEO of Prodigy Pathways, a national nonprofit focused on expanding access to elite sports development and mentorship for underserved youth.
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=search
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host, Rams'.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Job, he is Ramses job. I am q Ward. You
are tuned in the Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
And we need you to stay tuned because we have
a great show in store for you. Stick around because
we are going to be talking to the one and
only Gigi as a fantastic do gooder from the state
of Texas. We're excited to get a conversation going with her.
And then later on we're going to give you the
latest on the ice raids taking place in North Carolina.
(00:35):
If you've been following those around the country, trust me,
you need to get reacquainted with some of the more
extreme tactics that they are using, just in case you
haven't followed the stories as closely as we have. But
as always, we like to start off on a high,
a feel good feature some ebony excellence, if you will,
And today's story comes from the Atlanta Black Star. I'll
(00:57):
share and a now viral clip which shows in Indiana
hospital booting a black woman from the facility. After she's
an act of labor, we see while she's being taken
to another hospital. She delivered her baby in a car.
Mercedes Wells says she walked into Francian Hospital on Crownpoint
just after midnight on Sunday, clearly filling the onset of labor,
but instead of receiving care, she says she was sent
(01:19):
home hours later, dismissed by nurses who told her she
wasn't progressing and should only return if things worsened. Minutes
after leaving, things did worsen. According to videos posted by
her husband, Leon Wells, the couple barely made it down
the road before Mercedes gave birth in the front seat
of their truck. The clips showing Mercedes clutching their newborn
baby mere feet from the hospital that turned her away,
have since spread across social media, sparking outrage and disbelief.
(01:41):
Leon later told NBC Chicago that the baby is doing well.
The hospital, now facing mounting scrutiny, issued a brief statement
insisting that the health and safety of our patients is
always our top priority. That is a quote, and confirming
that an internal investigation is underway, citing privacy laws. The
facility declined to answer any questions about why Wells was
this dish charge or what staff assessed that night. So
(02:04):
obviously that is miraculous and showing how tough black women
have always been, even on their own. And so that
feels like a feel good story we had to share.
And now the guest of the hour. Gigi Assi joined
the Southland Conference in twenty twenty five and serves as
Chief of Staff, supporting the Commissioner and overseeing the conference's
(02:25):
key operational, administrative, and strategic initiatives. In this role, gig
manages priorities across departments, strengthens communication and culture within the
Conference office, and acts as a primary liaison to university presidents,
athletic directors, and senior leadership. She also leads the coordination
of all board and leadership meetings, manages special projects, and
(02:48):
assist in the planning and execution of major Southland events. Furthermore,
Gig is the founder and CEO of Prodigy Pathways, a
national nonprofit focused on expanding access to elite sports, development
and mentorship for underserve youth with a deep commitment to
equity and long term impact. She launched the organization to
close the gap between talent and opportunity, pairing professional athletes
(03:11):
with aspiring student athletes to provide structured guidance, financial support,
and legacy driven mentorship. And she is our guest today.
This is the QR code. He is Ramsay's job, and
he is q Ward. All right, So, Gigi Assi, welcome
to the show today. We've been looking forward to having
(03:32):
a conversation with you. And I must admit that I
am famously Our listeners know this, but I'm not. I've
always considered myself more of the music guy than the
sports guy. Q is a bona fide athlete or former athlete.
He'll get mad at me if I don't say it
the right way. But learning about you and the work
(03:55):
that you're doing is fascinating. And I happen to know
that your work and your background runs a lot deeper
than the intro that we read for you. So what
we do around here is we like to start our
stories at the beginning, So do as a favor talk
a little bit about your background, maybe some of the
stuff that we left off. You know, you can start.
You know, where you were born, how you grew up,
(04:16):
that sort of thing, and what led you to the
conversation we're about to have today, meaning the sort of
work that you're actively engaged in at the moment, just
so our listeners have an idea of who we're talking
to today.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Well, I just want to start off by saying, thank
you so much for bringing me onto your platform.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I'm really excited that I got to meet the two
of you guys, so definitely appreciate this time. My name
is Gigi, and actually I like to always start off
with saying that Gig is my nickname. My actual name
is Hajad. It's Arabic. I'm Egyptian. Both of my parents
are Egyptian immigrants. They came to the States in their thirties.
I am a first generation, so I was born in
(04:56):
the States. But everything about me is very heavily embedded
in my culture and my upbringing, and so you know,
I definitely carry that through just how I live my
life and how I identify in America. So I guess
I'll start from the beginning of where product you kind
of launched and kind of the upbringing that I had
in America, growing up as an Arab Muslim in the States.
(05:19):
Definitely was very polarizing identity to have, especially just given
some of the circumstances in America, and you know, consistently
felt like I was on the outskirts of a lot
of American structure, American societal structure, how the college system
was mapped up for children in high school, and just
how to play sports and how to get to college,
and all of those things were things.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
That I had no idea how to navigate.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And early on one of the biggest frustrations that I
faced was I had a passion and love for sports,
and I found it to be a major connector for
a lot of my peers who played together there, and
I had a natural skill set, but I didn't have
the resources or funding or understanding of the structures in
place to really help foster stared that that love so
(06:02):
basically grew up having to sit out a you one year,
my fresh my freshman year of high school, sitting out
AAU because I couldn't afford it, didn't know that I
could apply for financial aid, didn't really even fully understand
that playing a college, playing a high school sport and
really really putting my focus into that could actually help
pave the pathway to college not just financially, but also
(06:23):
just helped me get to a better school or better
you know, better programs, bigger opportunities. I didn't really like
to me, the end goal was college, but I didn't
think outside of like what schools did I want to
go to, and like where I would end up and
what programs at the schools were available, what you know,
majors I wanted to look at. It was just go
to college, because that's all I knew, was like I
had to get to college. And so as I grew up,
(06:46):
you know, obviously I started to figure out the landscape
myself and definitely frust Definitely a point of frustration was
just lack of resources, lack of mentorship, lack of guidance,
two parents that are immigrants that just don't understand the system.
And thankfully, I think that adversity helped me get to
where I'm at today. I just really had to grind
and work hard and figure things out. But it's always
(07:07):
been in the back of my mind of like, wow,
I wonder if there was somebody out there who had
just take taken a little bit of time to look
at the interests that I had and foster that and
help me.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Wouldn't the outcome have been a little bit different. I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
I'm blessed and grateful to be at where I'm at now,
but I always had that though on the back of
my mind of like, well, what if there was something
in place to kind of help students similar to me
who came from underserved communities so much, to just kind
of hold their hand and help guide them and show
them what's available. And so that was kind of the
birth of Prodigy Pathways. I created this nonprofit this year.
(07:41):
It's actually pretty young, but it's had exponential growth and
so much support. I'm really really happy and blessed that
the community has all kind of came in and helped and.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
It really does take a village.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
But essentially, what Prodigy Pathways does is it's a one
on one mentorship program that pairs professional athletes with young
student athletes. And it gets divided and how into two components.
There's the mentorship piece, where really it's a touch point,
it's an access point, it's a pillar to look up to,
it's a mentor, it's a friend in the industry that
the child gets to experience. It's access so they get
(08:12):
to go to games, they get to go to an
open practice, they get to maybe do an off season training,
and maybe a zoom called very low touch points. And
then on the other piece is a scholarship fund that
gets donated to each student. In that scholarship fund, we
cover performance enhancement training specialized.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
To the sport that they play.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
They get about seventy five to eighty sessions a year.
We also pay for their gear and equipment because that
can be really expensive. And then to level the playing field,
which is something we're seeing a lot now is a
lot of youth sports are tied to programs like AAU
or seven on seven and those are acquired, caught or sorry,
our heavy costs that families have to take in and
(08:54):
you're looking at the average family spending anywhere between five
to six thousand dollars a year just for one child's
youths and it's just one sport, and so you know,
it's a lot of money, five six thousand dollars. It
can change a family, can make it or break it
in other ways, and so we really try to help
these families kind of mitigate these costs. And so we
covered the AAU travel expense and all that, and then
(09:16):
on top of it, just in terms of figuring out
when you go to college, like sports can't be the
end all be all, so really trying to help them
understand like, yes, you can go to college and play
a sport, but what are you interested in? And so
we'll do surveys with these kids and figure out what
they're interested in, and then we'll have them meet with
professionals in those respective industries and they get a kind
of like one on one interactive type of hangout or experience,
(09:39):
and so we call that the Career Discovery Lab. And
then lastly, we just work really closely with a couple
of programs in Houston specific University of Houston and Rice University,
a couple of student athlete organizations offer free tutoring for
some of our kids so that they can, you know,
maintain their academic eligibility.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And we also.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Partnered up with Honest Game, which is another nonprofit and
they do NC double A compliance report to help kind
of guide what the NC DOUBLEA eligibility needs. Your academic
eligibility needs to be in order to go to specific schools,
and so it's kind of like a direct pathway to
see like what deadlines are coming up, what do you
need to have submitted, and what GPA you need to have,
and then and then what courses you can take to help.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Get your GPA back on track. So it's a it's
a very extensive program.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Like I said, we put a lot of thought into it,
but that was really basically the birth of Prodigy Pathways.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
This has been the QR code Community Impact Segment, produced
by rams' Jah, hosted by our new host jsse. I see,
Rams is already getting ready to give you your own show.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
G So just sorry it was really long.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
That was actually really incredible.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, we we joke that. You know, our entire platform
is dedicated to giving people from the community, especially those
who intend to give back, a platform. But as you
can imagine, most people are not you to having long
form conversations about what they do. So sometimes we'll ask
a question and the answer will take like five seconds,
and then we have to kind of, you know, help
(11:10):
that person make it work. Again, you're going to get
an email from Rams about producing the show for you,
so just go ahead and prepare yourself for that. A
lot of the work that Rams and I did long
before we were you know, kind of thrust into the
activist space was about creating access, access to resources, access
(11:30):
to education, access to food and toiletries, access to shelter
that a lot of people that come from where we
all come from don't have access to. For you, learning
on the job literally, you know, looking back, like man,
had I just known about this path, maybe some part
of my life would have been different. And now you're
(11:51):
in a position where you're creating that not just access point,
but that those data points and that information that people
you know, tend to go through their whole lives without
knowing about, you know, myself growing up without my father.
There's so many things that I wish i'd known when
I was on my academic and athletic path. What drove
you to say, I don't want to just have these
(12:14):
regrets in my life. I don't want anyone to have them,
so let me do something about it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's a really good question for me personally.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
And maybe this is just internalized, you know, dealing with
what you have to go through single mother and you know,
again also absentee father to an extent, and just having
to struggle. My main driver was I never want to
be in this position again. I never want to be
put in this position. I never want to feel like
I'm reaching out for help from other people and I
(12:52):
can't take circumstances into my own hands and control things.
So that's been my main drivers, is setting myself up
to never have to be and put in that position.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And while I do think.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
That that adversity that I have is great, it helped
me get to where I needed to get to, I
also think about the moments.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That it has really affected my.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Self confidence in specific moments when things don't work out
for me the way that I want them to work out.
Sometimes internally I internalize it and I'm like, of course,
why would it work out for someone like me? Look
at where I came from. That's this is just not
meant for me. And I hate having that insecurity. Sometimes
(13:33):
I hate having that feeling, and I can. I always
I can. I can empathize with that as a as
a child, a child having to experience that, that's tenfold
because you're still your cognitive development is not there yet.
So when I do feel down on myself, I'm able
to reflect internally be like Gigi, that's not right, like
you know, keep pushing forward. But that's because I'm an adult,
(13:55):
but kids don't have that maturity level yet. They don't
have those work life experiences. They don't have that thought
process yet. Some do, but most don't. Right, they're just children,
and so when they have those feelings, they're dark, they're heavy,
and they can make or break the direction that a
child chooses to go in. And I wish I could
(14:16):
say that even with Prodigy we've had one hundred percent
success rate.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We haven't.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
We've had kids who've joined the program who are just
dealing with a lot of stuff on their end internally,
and it's made or break the decisions that they've made
in terms.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Of like what to do NEXTXT. And So I guess
I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
This is a long winded way of answering, if this
is answering your question properly, But I think for me,
it's just not wanting other kids to feel the way
that I felt growing up because I was able to
get out of it.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
But that's not the case.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Like mental health is really, really tough, and that's also
something in our communities that we don't necessarily promote, at
least in the Arab Muslim Air you know, Air Muslim community.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
We don't promote mental health awareness.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I can't speak for every other community, but I've seen
it and so as children like it's hard to it's
hard to understand your emotions, it's hard to understand what
you're thinking when you're also not having the proper resources
to help you advocate for yourself and get yourself out
of these ruts.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I don't know if that.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Makes sense, but you know, I think that's that's probably
my main driving factor.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I think that, you know, the where there is a
possibility to connect across lines where people usually get gummed
up caught up. Those opportunities are I don't know if
they're overlooked generally speaking, but there are not a lot
(15:41):
of people that do things that address them. You know.
I worked on a campaign that had to deal with
sexual health once upon a time, and it was targeted
towards young people who were just stepping into that facet
of their life. And you know that it's really easy
to fumble, you know, the next twenty years of your
(16:02):
life by playing that moment wrong, you know, and I
can only imagine, you know, the pitfalls that might appear
on the pathway for a young athlete where their physicality
is very important, and there's the potential not just to
take care of themselves, but to uplift their entire families. Now,
(16:24):
one of the things that I did see that kind
of stood out to me was the mentorship part of it.
And when I saw the website, I saw that there
were like, like some football players that I'm sure that
these student athletes get to meet these football players and
they get to, like I guess, work with them. Is
how you articulated earlier. Forgive me again, I'm not really yeah, no,
(16:48):
but I just I can imagine how important that was,
how important that must be. And so you mentioned earlier
about the ath about working in Houston, and I'm not
sure what teams these athletes work for, but I wanted
to ask a question that I think is really important,
(17:11):
at least to our listeners here. Do you have do
some of the athletes that I saw on the website?
Do they exist outside of Houston? The second question is,
if not, are there plans to incorporate other professional athletes
at other points around the country, because obviously these pitfalls
for student athletes exist around the country based on what
(17:32):
I know.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
So your thoughts, Yeah, and so we have two players
who are currently in Houston.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
We have one player that's in Indianapolis.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
I have another player that's in San Antonio, and we
have another player that's in Boston, Massachusetts, and one in
New York.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So they are nationally, you know, spread out.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It's because I'm here in Houston that the kids are here,
just because it's easier to kind of coordinate everything right now.
As Prodigy spans, I would hope to actually incorporate kids
nationally everywhere, but this is a bigger conversation for a
bigger group.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, like to have this potentially be bought by
the NFL, like the model, be bought by the NFL
and NBA and get actual resources put into this and
backed up to really expand and do this right. But
you know, the athletes are all over because again you
know the touch point is is like when they are
playing in Houston, they can go to a game, the
zoom calls the conversations. One thing that we've been working
(18:31):
on is like the sponsorship side or corporate sponsorship piece,
and so working with organizations like Dick's Sporting Goods, and
they're willing to do like a shopping spreed for ten
kids in Houston, And so we'll have one of these
professional players come out to Houston and take ten kids
from a community underserved community come out to the dick
Sboarding goods and they can pick out one hundred and
(18:51):
fifty dollars worth of items and still get to spend
time with that professional athlete. Now, this steers away from
that like specific one on one mentorship piece, but again
that access point is really really important because it just
it shows something that's tangible. It's it's not just something
you see on the TV. It's not someone who's just
like out of reach. It's really someone you can talk
(19:12):
to and you can visualize in front of your in
front of your own eyes. And so to your point, yes,
this is something that exists outside of Houston. We have
players kind of all over the country right now, and
I want to continue to bring in as many people
as possible. But we are a three person show right
now and I'm running most of the organization, and so
(19:33):
next year I hope to hire maybe one or two
more people to help me, and then that we can
really really expand into like other states.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know, a really interesting thing happens where the three
of us are from worlds apart, Ramsey and I are
have become family now. Not he's not just my friend,
he's a family member to me. But we grew up
thousands of miles away, and then the same for you
and for your parents. But we all grew up in
this country and learned to love it, and I think
(20:05):
because of that, we are hypercritical of her, and you know,
we get told to just you know, shut up or
go back to our countries when we're criticizing the things
that we see that are wrong. The space that Ramses
and I spend most of our time professionally, we're faced
with some of the most difficult truths about this country
(20:28):
that we call home. Being critical of those things and
being aware of them is sometimes very difficult. We are
collectively watching a lot of our fellow countrymen and country
women suffer because of some decisions being made by this administration.
The one that has kind of stood out and seems
(20:49):
the most cruel, especially for this time of year, is
the denial of access to SNAP benefits and food stamps
and nutrition assistance. Once again, you saw an issue, and
you could have just been a well to do person.
It just pointed out that something was wrong, but you
made a decision to once again do something about a
problem that you saw. And that's what kind of connected us,
(21:10):
not kind of, that's what literally connected us. You not
just bringing your attention to something, but putting some connect
some kinetic action into into motion to at least help
some people this holiday season. And that was the food
drive that you organize. Please tell us more about that
and in ways that we can get involved in help.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Well, I mean you hit it right on the on
the head or the nail on the head. I never
know what the saying is, but I mean it's crazy.
Forty two million I believe that was a stat Forty
two million Americans lost access to SNAP benefits with the
government shutdown. I mean that that stat alone blew my mind.
(21:55):
Forty two million people lost access to food a resource.
That food is a resource that no one is entitled to.
It is no one's like it is like you don't
own that. This is a resource that is literally on
this planet for everyone to have, and it's the greed.
It's crazy to me that people are literally fighting for
their lives just to eat, to survive, and that to
(22:18):
me was just I mean, I truly don't even have
the right words to express how I feel from just
like how frustrating it is to even have to say
this out loud. So obviously, Thanksgiving is I have a
love hate relationship with this holiday.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
For one reason, it's a great holiday.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
It brings the families together, it brings people together, it's
a great way to be thankful for all the good
things in your life. But it's also a holiday that
is incredibly isolating for those who can't afford to do
the big Thanksgiving spreads, who don't have families, who.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Maybe just got displaced, don't have homes.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
And then in the economic and global political environment that
we're in right now, it's even more isolating because a
lot of people have lost a lot of things. And
I live I live in downtown, so there's a lot
of homeless people by my house, and they're you know,
I see them walking by all the time, very sweet people,
like just just normal people have just really terrible circumstances.
(23:11):
And so it just got me thinking that, you know, Thanksgiving,
if everyone is going to be in their homes having
these huge, you know, meals with their families, like the
least I can do is just go out and try
to just offer some food and kind of like bring
some type of.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Happiness and joy to the day.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
As starting to get cold in Houston, and so I
partnered up with this other organization called Moss. My friend Nimra,
she's the CEO founder of that nonprofit. They do a
lot of amazing work here in Houston, and so the
two of us started a food bank and basically we're
collecting donations for food, and then two nights before Thanksgiving,
her and I and a couple of volunteers are going
to be cooking the food. We also partnered up with
(23:49):
another shelter out here in Houston, and we're going to
bring and bring some of those supplies over to them
so that they can cook too, and we'll be packaging everything,
and then Thanksgiving morning we will head out and just
start delivering these like warm meals to everyone so that
at least on Thanksgiving they have something to eat. There's
a couple of organizations We're still actively doing some research here,
but there's a couple of organizations that were sent over
(24:10):
to me that also are doing like clothing drives, like
jacket drives, and they offer vouchers where you can go
and pick out I think like forty five or fifty
dollars worth of jackets or items to just stay warm.
And so we're going to try to incorporate incorporate that
as well, but really it takes a village. And so honestly,
the only thing I ask is like the community buying
and the community support. If you're somebody who wants to
(24:33):
give back on Thanksgiving and you don't know how you
can either donate if you want to actually come out
and help us, we have I can. I can give
you guys all the information if you guys are willing
to share that, and you can reach out to me
on via email. I have a Masters spreadsheet of just
volunteers that have reached out so far, and I think
we're at like eleven people so far, which is great
(24:53):
because we only announced this.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
A few days ago.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So that's really just kind of the main goal for
this initiative.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And the food bank.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Hopefully like we'll have the food bank available so people
can also take some food home with them, but also
just to have war meals on Thanksgiving. And then lastly,
this is a project that's going to be ongoing, but
downtown Houston doesn't have too many food banks that exist,
and so just trying to find. Right now, I'm actively
researching where we can have a permanent food bank where
once a week people can come and get some food.
(25:23):
And we've already talked to HIV and Kroger. They're willing
to give us, you know, the produce and stuff that
needs to kind of leave the grocery stores by specific dates,
and so we have that commitment.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
So now it's just kind.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Of finding the right place to house that food and
hopefully that's an initiative that will grow this year and
we'll be like a stable part of the Houston community.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Well, if I may, before we let you go, let's
let's let all that stuff live just for our listeners,
because you know, our shows are syndicated, so there will
be people all over the country that will listen to
this conversation and they might hear something in this conversation
(26:05):
that sparks their interest or moves them to support you.
Maybe they needed a person like you, and they are
not in a position to be the person like you,
but they can help you be the person that you're
supposed to be. The way I asked this question is
how does that person listening in Tupelo, Mississippi. You know,
or in Saint Louis, Missouri, or you know, Los Angeles
(26:28):
or Miami or whatever. How does that person get a
dollar from their pocket to your pocket. And maybe there's
a different infrastructure for the specific food drive and you
know holiday charitable events that that you're doing. But in
any case, you know, let's let folks know how they
can support you on your way, and if you're okay
(26:50):
with it, let people tap in with your social media
so that they can kind of bear witness to your
journey as you continue to make impact in the lives
of people that are are that have a lot of
promise as you identify it.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Okay, yeah, no, well again, thank you so much for
allowing you to use your platform. This is I mean,
I was so shocked to get this call and I
really am so grateful. So I really do appreciate you
guys allowing me to have this space. We are collecting
donations if you want to just donate. We're collecting donations
via zel or Venmo. So if you'd like to zel,
(27:29):
you can send it to g G at Prodigy pathways
dot org.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Do you guys need me to spell it out or yes?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Please?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Okay, so you can do.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
G I g I at p r O d I
G y p A t h w A y.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
S dot org helpful.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
And then Venmo, you can just send it at p
r O d I G y p A t h
w A y s so at Prodigy Pathways or z
lggatprodigypathways dot org. And then my Instagram handle is just
Prodigy dot pathways, and so you can find our nonprofit
on there, and if you ever want to just see
(28:10):
what's going on in our community and what we're doing,
or if you ever have any ideas for how we
can continue to expand Prodigy Pathways, I'm always receptive and
open to that feedback, So please send that over to me.
And I'm really grateful to anybody who donates, even if
it is ten cents, it's helpful, and thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
All right, well, thank you so much for your time
and you know your commitment. The world needs more people
like you, and you remind I'll speak for both of us,
me and Q. You remind us of exactly why we
built this vast platform. It's to make sure that people
(28:53):
like you, your voice goes further than in your community.
I'm hoping fingers crossed it the next time we speak,
you know you'll have volunteers and athletes and be making
an impact nationally and eyeing globally.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And you know you won't even need us little guys anymore.
You'll be you know, you'll be reaching back and pulling
us up with you. But we're happy to be your
brothers on this journey and we couldn't be more proud
of you, your new brothers. But please count on us
if you need to come back. We have a place
for you as you as you continue to grow and develop. Please,
you know, keep us in and informed. And you know,
(29:31):
our listeners are we think the best listeners in the
country because they do get involved, they do engage, and
you know, there's a reason that people tune into this show,
and it's to hear stories like yours. So well, that
said once again, today's guest is the founder and CEO
of Prodigy Pathways. She goes by the name of Gigi Assi.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Thank you for your time, Thank you, thank you for
having me.
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host, Rams'.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Job, he is Ramses job. I am q Ward. You
are tuned in the Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
And we need you to stay tuned because we have
a great show in store for you. Stick around because
we are going to be talking to the one and
only Gigi as a fantastic do gooder from the state
of Texas. We're excited to get a conversation going with her.
And then later on we're going to give you the
latest on the ice raids taking place in North Carolina.
(00:35):
If you've been following those around the country, trust me,
you need to get reacquainted with some of the more
extreme tactics that they are using, just in case you
haven't followed the stories as closely as we have. But
as always, we like to start off on a high,
a feel good feature some ebony excellence, if you will,
And today's story comes from the Atlanta Black Star. I'll
(00:57):
share and a now viral clip which shows in Indiana
hospital booting a black woman from the facility. After she's
an act of labor, we see while she's being taken
to another hospital. She delivered her baby in a car.
Mercedes Wells says she walked into Francian Hospital on Crownpoint
just after midnight on Sunday, clearly filling the onset of labor,
but instead of receiving care, she says she was sent
(01:19):
home hours later, dismissed by nurses who told her she
wasn't progressing and should only return if things worsened. Minutes
after leaving, things did worsen. According to videos posted by
her husband, Leon Wells, the couple barely made it down
the road before Mercedes gave birth in the front seat
of their truck. The clips showing Mercedes clutching their newborn
baby mere feet from the hospital that turned her away,
have since spread across social media, sparking outrage and disbelief.
(01:41):
Leon later told NBC Chicago that the baby is doing well.
The hospital, now facing mounting scrutiny, issued a brief statement
insisting that the health and safety of our patients is
always our top priority. That is a quote, and confirming
that an internal investigation is underway, citing privacy laws. The
facility declined to answer any questions about why Wells was
this dish charge or what staff assessed that night. So
(02:04):
obviously that is miraculous and showing how tough black women
have always been, even on their own. And so that
feels like a feel good story we had to share.
And now the guest of the hour. Gigi Assi joined
the Southland Conference in twenty twenty five and serves as
Chief of Staff, supporting the Commissioner and overseeing the conference's
(02:25):
key operational, administrative, and strategic initiatives. In this role, gig
manages priorities across departments, strengthens communication and culture within the
Conference office, and acts as a primary liaison to university presidents,
athletic directors, and senior leadership. She also leads the coordination
of all board and leadership meetings, manages special projects, and
(02:48):
assist in the planning and execution of major Southland events. Furthermore,
Gig is the founder and CEO of Prodigy Pathways, a
national nonprofit focused on expanding access to elite sports, development
and mentorship for underserve youth with a deep commitment to
equity and long term impact. She launched the organization to
close the gap between talent and opportunity, pairing professional athletes
(03:11):
with aspiring student athletes to provide structured guidance, financial support,
and legacy driven mentorship. And she is our guest today.
This is the QR code. He is Ramsay's job, and
he is q Ward. All right, So, Gigi Assi, welcome
to the show today. We've been looking forward to having
(03:32):
a conversation with you. And I must admit that I
am famously Our listeners know this, but I'm not. I've
always considered myself more of the music guy than the
sports guy. Q is a bona fide athlete or former athlete.
He'll get mad at me if I don't say it
the right way. But learning about you and the work
(03:55):
that you're doing is fascinating. And I happen to know
that your work and your background runs a lot deeper
than the intro that we read for you. So what
we do around here is we like to start our
stories at the beginning, So do as a favor talk
a little bit about your background, maybe some of the
stuff that we left off. You know, you can start.
You know, where you were born, how you grew up,
(04:16):
that sort of thing, and what led you to the
conversation we're about to have today, meaning the sort of
work that you're actively engaged in at the moment, just
so our listeners have an idea of who we're talking
to today.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Well, I just want to start off by saying, thank
you so much for bringing me onto your platform.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
I really appreciate it. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I'm really excited that I got to meet the two
of you guys, so definitely appreciate this time. My name
is Gigi, and actually I like to always start off
with saying that Gig is my nickname. My actual name
is Hajad. It's Arabic. I'm Egyptian. Both of my parents
are Egyptian immigrants. They came to the States in their thirties.
I am a first generation, so I was born in
(04:56):
the States. But everything about me is very heavily embedded
in my culture and my upbringing, and so you know,
I definitely carry that through just how I live my
life and how I identify in America. So I guess
I'll start from the beginning of where product you kind
of launched and kind of the upbringing that I had
in America, growing up as an Arab Muslim in the States.
(05:19):
Definitely was very polarizing identity to have, especially just given
some of the circumstances in America, and you know, consistently
felt like I was on the outskirts of a lot
of American structure, American societal structure, how the college system
was mapped up for children in high school, and just
how to play sports and how to get to college,
and all of those things were things.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
That I had no idea how to navigate.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
And early on one of the biggest frustrations that I
faced was I had a passion and love for sports,
and I found it to be a major connector for
a lot of my peers who played together there, and
I had a natural skill set, but I didn't have
the resources or funding or understanding of the structures in
place to really help foster stared that that love so
(06:02):
basically grew up having to sit out a you one year,
my fresh my freshman year of high school, sitting out
AAU because I couldn't afford it, didn't know that I
could apply for financial aid, didn't really even fully understand
that playing a college, playing a high school sport and
really really putting my focus into that could actually help
pave the pathway to college not just financially, but also
(06:23):
just helped me get to a better school or better
you know, better programs, bigger opportunities. I didn't really like
to me, the end goal was college, but I didn't
think outside of like what schools did I want to
go to, and like where I would end up and
what programs at the schools were available, what you know,
majors I wanted to look at. It was just go
to college, because that's all I knew, was like I
had to get to college. And so as I grew up,
(06:46):
you know, obviously I started to figure out the landscape
myself and definitely frust Definitely a point of frustration was
just lack of resources, lack of mentorship, lack of guidance,
two parents that are immigrants that just don't understand the system.
And thankfully, I think that adversity helped me get to
where I'm at today. I just really had to grind
and work hard and figure things out. But it's always
(07:07):
been in the back of my mind of like, wow,
I wonder if there was somebody out there who had
just take taken a little bit of time to look
at the interests that I had and foster that and
help me.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Wouldn't the outcome have been a little bit different. I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
I'm blessed and grateful to be at where I'm at now,
but I always had that though on the back of
my mind of like, well, what if there was something
in place to kind of help students similar to me
who came from underserved communities so much, to just kind
of hold their hand and help guide them and show
them what's available. And so that was kind of the
birth of Prodigy Pathways. I created this nonprofit this year.
(07:41):
It's actually pretty young, but it's had exponential growth and
so much support. I'm really really happy and blessed that
the community has all kind of came in and helped and.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
It really does take a village.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
But essentially, what Prodigy Pathways does is it's a one
on one mentorship program that pairs professional athletes with young
student athletes. And it gets divided and how into two components.
There's the mentorship piece, where really it's a touch point,
it's an access point, it's a pillar to look up to,
it's a mentor, it's a friend in the industry that
the child gets to experience. It's access so they get
(08:12):
to go to games, they get to go to an
open practice, they get to maybe do an off season training,
and maybe a zoom called very low touch points. And
then on the other piece is a scholarship fund that
gets donated to each student. In that scholarship fund, we
cover performance enhancement training specialized.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
To the sport that they play.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
They get about seventy five to eighty sessions a year.
We also pay for their gear and equipment because that
can be really expensive. And then to level the playing field,
which is something we're seeing a lot now is a
lot of youth sports are tied to programs like AAU
or seven on seven and those are acquired, caught or sorry,
our heavy costs that families have to take in and
(08:54):
you're looking at the average family spending anywhere between five
to six thousand dollars a year just for one child's
youths and it's just one sport, and so you know,
it's a lot of money, five six thousand dollars. It
can change a family, can make it or break it
in other ways, and so we really try to help
these families kind of mitigate these costs. And so we
covered the AAU travel expense and all that, and then
(09:16):
on top of it, just in terms of figuring out
when you go to college, like sports can't be the
end all be all, so really trying to help them
understand like, yes, you can go to college and play
a sport, but what are you interested in? And so
we'll do surveys with these kids and figure out what
they're interested in, and then we'll have them meet with
professionals in those respective industries and they get a kind
of like one on one interactive type of hangout or experience,
(09:39):
and so we call that the Career Discovery Lab. And
then lastly, we just work really closely with a couple
of programs in Houston specific University of Houston and Rice University,
a couple of student athlete organizations offer free tutoring for
some of our kids so that they can, you know,
maintain their academic eligibility.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
And we also.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Partnered up with Honest Game, which is another nonprofit and
they do NC double A compliance report to help kind
of guide what the NC DOUBLEA eligibility needs. Your academic
eligibility needs to be in order to go to specific schools,
and so it's kind of like a direct pathway to
see like what deadlines are coming up, what do you
need to have submitted, and what GPA you need to have,
and then and then what courses you can take to help.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Get your GPA back on track. So it's a it's
a very extensive program.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Like I said, we put a lot of thought into it,
but that was really basically the birth of Prodigy Pathways.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
This has been the QR code Community Impact Segment, produced
by rams' Jah, hosted by our new host jsse. I see,
Rams is already getting ready to give you your own show.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
G So just sorry it was really long.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
That was actually really incredible.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, we we joke that. You know, our entire platform
is dedicated to giving people from the community, especially those
who intend to give back, a platform. But as you
can imagine, most people are not you to having long
form conversations about what they do. So sometimes we'll ask
a question and the answer will take like five seconds,
and then we have to kind of, you know, help
(11:10):
that person make it work. Again, you're going to get
an email from Rams about producing the show for you,
so just go ahead and prepare yourself for that. A
lot of the work that Rams and I did long
before we were you know, kind of thrust into the
activist space was about creating access, access to resources, access
(11:30):
to education, access to food and toiletries, access to shelter
that a lot of people that come from where we
all come from don't have access to. For you, learning
on the job literally, you know, looking back, like man,
had I just known about this path, maybe some part
of my life would have been different. And now you're
(11:51):
in a position where you're creating that not just access point,
but that those data points and that information that people
you know, tend to go through their whole lives without
knowing about, you know, myself growing up without my father.
There's so many things that I wish i'd known when
I was on my academic and athletic path. What drove
you to say, I don't want to just have these
(12:14):
regrets in my life. I don't want anyone to have them,
so let me do something about it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's a really good question for me personally.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
And maybe this is just internalized, you know, dealing with
what you have to go through single mother and you know,
again also absentee father to an extent, and just having
to struggle. My main driver was I never want to
be in this position again. I never want to be
put in this position. I never want to feel like
I'm reaching out for help from other people and I
(12:52):
can't take circumstances into my own hands and control things.
So that's been my main drivers, is setting myself up
to never have to be and put in that position.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
And while I do think.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
That that adversity that I have is great, it helped
me get to where I needed to get to, I
also think about the moments.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That it has really affected my.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Self confidence in specific moments when things don't work out
for me the way that I want them to work out.
Sometimes internally I internalize it and I'm like, of course,
why would it work out for someone like me? Look
at where I came from. That's this is just not
meant for me. And I hate having that insecurity. Sometimes
(13:33):
I hate having that feeling, and I can. I always
I can. I can empathize with that as a as
a child, a child having to experience that, that's tenfold
because you're still your cognitive development is not there yet.
So when I do feel down on myself, I'm able
to reflect internally be like Gigi, that's not right, like
you know, keep pushing forward. But that's because I'm an adult,
(13:55):
but kids don't have that maturity level yet. They don't
have those work life experiences. They don't have that thought
process yet. Some do, but most don't. Right, they're just children,
and so when they have those feelings, they're dark, they're heavy,
and they can make or break the direction that a
child chooses to go in. And I wish I could
(14:16):
say that even with Prodigy we've had one hundred percent
success rate.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We haven't.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
We've had kids who've joined the program who are just
dealing with a lot of stuff on their end internally,
and it's made or break the decisions that they've made
in terms.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Of like what to do NEXTXT. And So I guess
I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
This is a long winded way of answering, if this
is answering your question properly, But I think for me,
it's just not wanting other kids to feel the way
that I felt growing up because I was able to
get out of it.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
But that's not the case.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Like mental health is really, really tough, and that's also
something in our communities that we don't necessarily promote, at
least in the Arab Muslim Air you know, Air Muslim community.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
We don't promote mental health awareness.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
I can't speak for every other community, but I've seen
it and so as children like it's hard to it's
hard to understand your emotions, it's hard to understand what
you're thinking when you're also not having the proper resources
to help you advocate for yourself and get yourself out
of these ruts.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
I don't know if that.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Makes sense, but you know, I think that's that's probably
my main driving factor.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
I think that, you know, the where there is a
possibility to connect across lines where people usually get gummed
up caught up. Those opportunities are I don't know if
they're overlooked generally speaking, but there are not a lot
(15:41):
of people that do things that address them. You know.
I worked on a campaign that had to deal with
sexual health once upon a time, and it was targeted
towards young people who were just stepping into that facet
of their life. And you know that it's really easy
to fumble, you know, the next twenty years of your
(16:02):
life by playing that moment wrong, you know, and I
can only imagine, you know, the pitfalls that might appear
on the pathway for a young athlete where their physicality
is very important, and there's the potential not just to
take care of themselves, but to uplift their entire families. Now,
(16:24):
one of the things that I did see that kind
of stood out to me was the mentorship part of it.
And when I saw the website, I saw that there
were like, like some football players that I'm sure that
these student athletes get to meet these football players and
they get to, like I guess, work with them. Is
how you articulated earlier. Forgive me again, I'm not really yeah, no,
(16:48):
but I just I can imagine how important that was,
how important that must be. And so you mentioned earlier
about the ath about working in Houston, and I'm not
sure what teams these athletes work for, but I wanted
to ask a question that I think is really important,
(17:11):
at least to our listeners here. Do you have do
some of the athletes that I saw on the website?
Do they exist outside of Houston? The second question is,
if not, are there plans to incorporate other professional athletes
at other points around the country, because obviously these pitfalls
for student athletes exist around the country based on what
(17:32):
I know.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
So your thoughts, Yeah, and so we have two players
who are currently in Houston.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
We have one player that's in Indianapolis.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
I have another player that's in San Antonio, and we
have another player that's in Boston, Massachusetts, and one in
New York.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So they are nationally, you know, spread out.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
It's because I'm here in Houston that the kids are here,
just because it's easier to kind of coordinate everything right now.
As Prodigy spans, I would hope to actually incorporate kids
nationally everywhere, but this is a bigger conversation for a
bigger group.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You know.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
I mean, like to have this potentially be bought by
the NFL, like the model, be bought by the NFL
and NBA and get actual resources put into this and
backed up to really expand and do this right. But
you know, the athletes are all over because again you
know the touch point is is like when they are
playing in Houston, they can go to a game, the
zoom calls the conversations. One thing that we've been working
(18:31):
on is like the sponsorship side or corporate sponsorship piece,
and so working with organizations like Dick's Sporting Goods, and
they're willing to do like a shopping spreed for ten
kids in Houston, And so we'll have one of these
professional players come out to Houston and take ten kids
from a community underserved community come out to the dick
Sboarding goods and they can pick out one hundred and
(18:51):
fifty dollars worth of items and still get to spend
time with that professional athlete. Now, this steers away from
that like specific one on one mentorship piece, but again
that access point is really really important because it just
it shows something that's tangible. It's it's not just something
you see on the TV. It's not someone who's just
like out of reach. It's really someone you can talk
(19:12):
to and you can visualize in front of your in
front of your own eyes. And so to your point, yes,
this is something that exists outside of Houston. We have
players kind of all over the country right now, and
I want to continue to bring in as many people
as possible. But we are a three person show right
now and I'm running most of the organization, and so
(19:33):
next year I hope to hire maybe one or two
more people to help me, and then that we can
really really expand into like other states.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
You know, a really interesting thing happens where the three
of us are from worlds apart, Ramsey and I are
have become family now. Not he's not just my friend,
he's a family member to me. But we grew up
thousands of miles away, and then the same for you
and for your parents. But we all grew up in
this country and learned to love it, and I think
(20:05):
because of that, we are hypercritical of her, and you know,
we get told to just you know, shut up or
go back to our countries when we're criticizing the things
that we see that are wrong. The space that Ramses
and I spend most of our time professionally, we're faced
with some of the most difficult truths about this country
(20:28):
that we call home. Being critical of those things and
being aware of them is sometimes very difficult. We are
collectively watching a lot of our fellow countrymen and country
women suffer because of some decisions being made by this administration.
The one that has kind of stood out and seems
(20:49):
the most cruel, especially for this time of year, is
the denial of access to SNAP benefits and food stamps
and nutrition assistance. Once again, you saw an issue, and
you could have just been a well to do person.
It just pointed out that something was wrong, but you
made a decision to once again do something about a
problem that you saw. And that's what kind of connected us,
(21:10):
not kind of, that's what literally connected us. You not
just bringing your attention to something, but putting some connect
some kinetic action into into motion to at least help
some people this holiday season. And that was the food
drive that you organize. Please tell us more about that
and in ways that we can get involved in help.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
Well, I mean you hit it right on the on
the head or the nail on the head. I never
know what the saying is, but I mean it's crazy.
Forty two million I believe that was a stat Forty
two million Americans lost access to SNAP benefits with the
government shutdown. I mean that that stat alone blew my mind.
(21:55):
Forty two million people lost access to food a resource.
That food is a resource that no one is entitled to.
It is no one's like it is like you don't
own that. This is a resource that is literally on
this planet for everyone to have, and it's the greed.
It's crazy to me that people are literally fighting for
their lives just to eat, to survive, and that to
(22:18):
me was just I mean, I truly don't even have
the right words to express how I feel from just
like how frustrating it is to even have to say
this out loud. So obviously, Thanksgiving is I have a
love hate relationship with this holiday.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
For one reason, it's a great holiday.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
It brings the families together, it brings people together, it's
a great way to be thankful for all the good
things in your life. But it's also a holiday that
is incredibly isolating for those who can't afford to do
the big Thanksgiving spreads, who don't have families, who.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Maybe just got displaced, don't have homes.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
And then in the economic and global political environment that
we're in right now, it's even more isolating because a
lot of people have lost a lot of things. And
I live I live in downtown, so there's a lot
of homeless people by my house, and they're you know,
I see them walking by all the time, very sweet people,
like just just normal people have just really terrible circumstances.
(23:11):
And so it just got me thinking that, you know, Thanksgiving,
if everyone is going to be in their homes having
these huge, you know, meals with their families, like the
least I can do is just go out and try
to just offer some food and kind of like bring
some type of.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Happiness and joy to the day.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
As starting to get cold in Houston, and so I
partnered up with this other organization called Moss. My friend Nimra,
she's the CEO founder of that nonprofit. They do a
lot of amazing work here in Houston, and so the
two of us started a food bank and basically we're
collecting donations for food, and then two nights before Thanksgiving,
her and I and a couple of volunteers are going
to be cooking the food. We also partnered up with
(23:49):
another shelter out here in Houston, and we're going to
bring and bring some of those supplies over to them
so that they can cook too, and we'll be packaging everything,
and then Thanksgiving morning we will head out and just
start delivering these like warm meals to everyone so that
at least on Thanksgiving they have something to eat. There's
a couple of organizations We're still actively doing some research here,
but there's a couple of organizations that were sent over
(24:10):
to me that also are doing like clothing drives, like
jacket drives, and they offer vouchers where you can go
and pick out I think like forty five or fifty
dollars worth of jackets or items to just stay warm.
And so we're going to try to incorporate incorporate that
as well, but really it takes a village. And so honestly,
the only thing I ask is like the community buying
and the community support. If you're somebody who wants to
(24:33):
give back on Thanksgiving and you don't know how you
can either donate if you want to actually come out
and help us, we have I can. I can give
you guys all the information if you guys are willing
to share that, and you can reach out to me
on via email. I have a Masters spreadsheet of just
volunteers that have reached out so far, and I think
we're at like eleven people so far, which is great
(24:53):
because we only announced this.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
A few days ago.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
So that's really just kind of the main goal for
this initiative.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And the food bank.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Hopefully like we'll have the food bank available so people
can also take some food home with them, but also
just to have war meals on Thanksgiving. And then lastly,
this is a project that's going to be ongoing, but
downtown Houston doesn't have too many food banks that exist,
and so just trying to find. Right now, I'm actively
researching where we can have a permanent food bank where
once a week people can come and get some food.
(25:23):
And we've already talked to HIV and Kroger. They're willing
to give us, you know, the produce and stuff that
needs to kind of leave the grocery stores by specific dates,
and so we have that commitment.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
So now it's just kind.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Of finding the right place to house that food and
hopefully that's an initiative that will grow this year and
we'll be like a stable part of the Houston community.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Well, if I may, before we let you go, let's
let's let all that stuff live just for our listeners,
because you know, our shows are syndicated, so there will
be people all over the country that will listen to
this conversation and they might hear something in this conversation
(26:05):
that sparks their interest or moves them to support you.
Maybe they needed a person like you, and they are
not in a position to be the person like you,
but they can help you be the person that you're
supposed to be. The way I asked this question is
how does that person listening in Tupelo, Mississippi. You know,
or in Saint Louis, Missouri, or you know, Los Angeles
(26:28):
or Miami or whatever. How does that person get a
dollar from their pocket to your pocket. And maybe there's
a different infrastructure for the specific food drive and you
know holiday charitable events that that you're doing. But in
any case, you know, let's let folks know how they
can support you on your way, and if you're okay
(26:50):
with it, let people tap in with your social media
so that they can kind of bear witness to your
journey as you continue to make impact in the lives
of people that are are that have a lot of
promise as you identify it.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
Okay, yeah, no, well again, thank you so much for
allowing you to use your platform. This is I mean,
I was so shocked to get this call and I
really am so grateful. So I really do appreciate you
guys allowing me to have this space. We are collecting
donations if you want to just donate. We're collecting donations
via zel or Venmo. So if you'd like to zel,
(27:29):
you can send it to g G at Prodigy pathways
dot org.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
Do you guys need me to spell it out or yes?
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Please?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Okay, so you can do.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
G I g I at p r O d I
G y p A t h w A y.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
S dot org helpful.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
And then Venmo, you can just send it at p
r O d I G y p A t h
w A y s so at Prodigy Pathways or z
lggatprodigypathways dot org. And then my Instagram handle is just
Prodigy dot pathways, and so you can find our nonprofit
on there, and if you ever want to just see
(28:10):
what's going on in our community and what we're doing,
or if you ever have any ideas for how we
can continue to expand Prodigy Pathways, I'm always receptive and
open to that feedback, So please send that over to me.
And I'm really grateful to anybody who donates, even if
it is ten cents, it's helpful, and thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
All right, well, thank you so much for your time
and you know your commitment. The world needs more people
like you, and you remind I'll speak for both of us,
me and Q. You remind us of exactly why we
built this vast platform. It's to make sure that people
(28:53):
like you, your voice goes further than in your community.
I'm hoping fingers crossed it the next time we speak,
you know you'll have volunteers and athletes and be making
an impact nationally and eyeing globally.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And you know you won't even need us little guys anymore.
You'll be you know, you'll be reaching back and pulling
us up with you. But we're happy to be your
brothers on this journey and we couldn't be more proud
of you, your new brothers. But please count on us
if you need to come back. We have a place
for you as you as you continue to grow and develop. Please,
you know, keep us in and informed. And you know,
(29:31):
our listeners are we think the best listeners in the
country because they do get involved, they do engage, and
you know, there's a reason that people tune into this show,
and it's to hear stories like yours. So well, that
said once again, today's guest is the founder and CEO
of Prodigy Pathways. She goes by the name of Gigi Assi.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Thank you for your time, Thank you, thank you for
having me.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.