July 27, 2021 • 33 mins
Remember supporting your favorite restaurants by getting takeout during the pandemic? What if your go-to neighborhood spot was not only fighting to stay open during the pandemic, but also started a local initiative to get free food to frontline healthcare workers? Jenny and FeedER, an Oakland based community initiative, were doing just that.
This week’s essential voice is Jenny Schwarz. Roundtable guests: Nate Mook from World Central Kitchen and Elsa Collins from This is About Humanity.
Learn more about Jenny’s restaurant Hopscotch: https://www.hopscotchoakland.com/
Learn more about World Central Kitchen: https://wck.org/
Learn more about This is About Humanity: https://www.thisisabouthumanity.com/
Episode Transcript: https://app.trint.com/public/6cccb118-97e9-4bd5-99db-2ac794182812
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
M R. Are you ready, Let's do it. Hey, I'm
Wilma Wonder Drama and I am the host of this podcast.
I never thought I would ever say that out loud,
But here I am, But here I am, and I'm
m R. Raquel. I am one of the producers. You'll
be hearing my voice from time to time on the show.
So I just wanted to pop in and say, howdy,
(00:21):
We're stoked to be here with you today, introducing our
new show, Essential Voices sent show. You know, we've been
hearing that world a lot. The term essential worker was
everywhere doing the pandemic, but we often didn't hear from
essential workers themselves. I was curious to learn more about
their stories and lives of our grocery workers, our teachers,
(00:43):
our restaurant workers, from the folks who keep this country
up and running. And why did this term essential workers
appear overnight? Haven't the people who put food on our table,
drive really long hours to deliver our packages, provide legal
services to our mostle normal communities, and also provide mental
health resources always been essential totally, m R. And these
(01:06):
folks aren't going to be any less essential ten years
from now. So thinking about all this, I had jumped
on Instagram a few months ago, and I started a
series of conversations called six ft Apart to listen to
and connect with essential workers, hear their stories, and drum
up community support. I spoke with many impactful individuals, like
a farm worker in Alabama, a mom who raised five
(01:28):
kids and was still out in the fields in the
middle of a lockdown. I mean, that's just brave. Wow,
wilmur thanks for sharing that. And so while Wilmore was
out doing his thing, I was working with NPR Story
Corps to virtually record hundreds of audio stories with folks
all around the country. I remember speaking with a couple
in the Midwest who were donating handmade masks for their
(01:49):
local hospital early on in the pandemic, and also with
election poll workers in Texas who were counting ballots and
having to enforce mask mandates. These stories, and so many
others that I heard, challenge the narrative of what is
considered essential. So that's the backstory for this show, right.
We teamed up to see what more we can do
to keep focused on this huge chunk of society that
(02:10):
sustains everything we do. Exactly long after the performative support
the banging of pots and pants, clapping from apartment buildings
with open windows. Thank you science on front lawns fade
from the scene. So each week will be in conversation
with an essential worker, will hear their stories and ignite
a dialogue about how we as a community can support
(02:31):
their work and more importantly, the folks behind the work
to be in solidarity together. We follow this conversation with
a roundtable discussion between thought leaders as we continue to
pave a road for solutions. Today, to kick us off,
we're going to hear from our essential worker, Jenny Schwartz,
who is a restaurateur in Oakland, California, and who last
(02:53):
year founded the organization feed e Er to help get
food to front line workers at the height of the pandemic.
Jenny is a prime example of the type of person
who stepped up during the pandemic, going above and beyond
for her community while also working to keep her business afloat.
She gets candid with us about what it took to
stay open, the pivots she had to make, and how
she's taking what she's learned the past year and looking forward.
(03:16):
After we hear from Jenny, will share a roundtable conversation
with two thought leaders, Nate Mook and Elsa Collins. Nate
is a CEO of World Central Kitchen, an organization that
worked with f d R in Oakland to help make
and distribute meals locally. World Central Kitchen has been on
the front lines all over the country and world in
response to food and security amplified by the pandemic. Elsa
(03:37):
is the co founder of This Is About Humanity, an
organization that advocates for and brings meals and other services
to families and immigrants at the US Mexico border. This
is About Humanity work diligently to continue offering these services
as the world shut down in the face of COVID nineteen. Wilmer,
am I missing anything. I think we're good to go. Next,
we'll be hearing from Jenny Schwartz about her efforts of
(04:00):
FDR in Oakland. Jenny story starts now. Jenny, is such
a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for spending
this moment with me. I wanted to start by maybe
telling us a little bit about what is the day
in a life. In Jenny's life, when you wake up
in the morning, what's the first thing you do? And
then how do you go by your day? It's different
(04:20):
every day, that's for sure. Generally I wake up in
the morning and the first thing I do is check
a lout of emails and see what I have going on.
We have a lot of events and a lot of
staff to manage. We're still doing hundreds of meals a
week for un housed populations. It's a lot of special events,
a lot of moving parts, putting out fires a lot
of days. Hopefully they're not real fires, but that happens
(04:40):
to sometimes. What is the process? How did you come
to be passionate about this? So for PDR, it was
like right when the pandemic started. It was literally the
day the restaurants got shut down. So March of last year,
Alett Waldman, whose local author, had posted something on Twitter
about wanting to buy meals to restaurants and give them
to hospital work rs, and she asked for help and
(05:01):
any restaurants who might be interested in being involved. So
I immediately responded her. She actually called me that night.
We started talking about it, and I think by Monday
morning we had our first board meeting. People had already
started ven mowing her money, and from there we had
nine am board, meeting calls every day, every weekday for
(05:23):
months and months. It's crazy how quickly it all came together,
and we fed thousands of thousands of people and did
a ton to support local restaurants. It was awesome. You
went ahead and created and organized this network or restaurants
that came together to help the community. Yeah, when we
put the whole organization together, my part in it was
(05:43):
to coordinate with all the restaurants. So I was talking
to all the local restaurant owners and we were really
concerned since it was happening at the same time as
Black Lives Matter. So my goal was to have really
good representation across the board of female owned restaurants, minority
owned restaurants, a lot of local mom and pop shops,
and I had the support of getting to know these
(06:04):
other restaurateurs. It was really such a community of all
of us supporting each other and just knowing that I
was doing something to help It really kept me going.
You're connecting to a larger ecosystem of essential workers, specifically
serving hospital personnels and all of that. Did it feel
like you were more connected to the moment in history
more than ever before. I mean, besides being just a restaurant,
(06:26):
but now reaching out and really being there for the
other essential workers, you know, the people there in the
front lines. It's absolutely true. I Mean, one thing for
me is that I'm really if I would have had
to stay home this whole time, I would have gone
completely insane. I don't know what I would have done.
So I'm a superactive person and it was great to
be able to get out of the house and I
feel like I was around people, even though I wasn't
(06:47):
in close contact with a lot of people all the time. Um,
I mean, we had a lot of contact with hospital
workers and that was great because I felt like I
had kind of a line on what was going on
in hospitals and locally more than a lot of people did.
And so much as the news we get, especially now
as national news, local news outlets just aren't as strong
as they used to be, so it's really hard to
(07:07):
get touch with your community. And in that way, I
was and he's very vague and it's very generalized. The
percentages are so impersonal, so you don't really know what's
happening on the local level unless you have a network. Yeah, exactly.
And so one thing that was great about f dr
is that we did have this organization, we were connected
with doctors. We had a ton of volunteers working for
(07:27):
us also, I mean it was another thing is that
we got just regular citizens who didn't know what to
do with themselves during all of this, who weren't working
or had so much extra time, and they were like
what do I do? So that's how we got so
many donations initially, and that's how we got a ton
of people. We had a network of like sixty drivers
who would pick up food from restaurants for free and
drop it off of the hospitals and they were incredible.
(07:50):
And to keep everyone motivated, we would have these monthly
zoom check ins and all the hospital workers could join,
and the restauranturs could join in, and the volunteers could join,
and we get all hands on, and sometimes the hospital
workers would get on and tell their stories and just
talk about how they were so scared and that they
were going to come home and get their family sick.
So they literally hadn't seen their families in like a month.
(08:10):
They would just come home and like lock themselves in
a bedroom and they get on and just be in
tears and talk about how these hot delicious meals meant
so much to them. It was amazing. I bet that
just the sharing of that meal, it's almost healing in
a way, or the least, you know, kind of energizing
to keep going. Yeah, that's absolutely what got me into
this business in the first place. And I'll say that
(08:32):
that was one of the hardest things about the pandemic
for me personally, was that I'm in this business, the
restaurant business that I love because I love creating experiences
for people and sharing in those experiences and curating them.
And my place is a place where people get to
go to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays and meeting each other
and you know, seeing like long lost friends and even
(08:55):
just a simple feeling of being relieved after a long
day at work or rough week or something. And I
didn't get to be part of that for a year,
but we were creating something. It was a beautiful thing.
We raised about six hundred thousand dollars literally immediately within
weeks of the initial shutdown, and our goal was to
spend it as rapidly as we could, because not only
(09:16):
were we trying to feed frontline medical workers and keep
the stamina and morall up, of our local hospital workers.
But we were really trying to support and keep alive
the restaurants and we were suddenly shut down, and it
was one of the only sources of income that a
lot of restaurants have, if they weren't already pivoting to
doing just takeout orders. We were just trying to stay
(09:36):
open and be able to keep our staffs employed as
much as we could. For me, a lot of my
front of house workers were fine going on unemployment, but
my kitchen staff back of house were mostly uneligible for unemployment,
a lot of them undocumented workers. Luckily, with efforts like
(09:57):
FDR and other things that we ended up doing and
then ultimately our takeout orders and then with the assistance
of PPP loans, we were able to keep our backup
house workers fully employed the whole time, and it's really
been amazing. We have had no turnover since. Then you
start thinking about all of a sudden the world where
you had to pivot into take out, How was that
(10:18):
transition for you guys? My restaurant, Hop Scotch, we're coming
up on nine years this month, and we have had
to really committed local following, and so when we had
to switch to take out immediately, and at the same time,
everyone also had to stay home, so we actually had
really strong response right away, and it was extremely sustainable,
particularly in the beginning, sustainable with the staff you had
(10:40):
at that point in percentages, how much of your staff
do you still pad on? So we basically needed hardly
any front of house staff anymore. But we had the
same kitchen staff running. So we've got six to eight
people in the kitchen and they were working. And so
even though our revenue was a little bit less than
it had been when we were doing full service dining,
it is kind of balanced out because our labor costs
(11:02):
went down, were able to still keep the kitchen stuff
fully employed. I went to the point, like all of
your basic costs of the restaurant, your insurance, your rent,
all that stuff is the same. You know, the profit
was gone, but basically we got to keep our business
sustainable and we're still operating. Do you have any thoughts,
any advice, any words of encouragement to the future essential
(11:24):
workers and those who who are going to see what
you've created and built from it and maybe expand on that.
I mean, I'm sure that this will be really inspiring
to a lot of people in the country to think about, oh,
how can we do that on a local level. And
now that the pandemic is getting to a point where
we're not only managing, but we're seeing some type of
fresh air coming into the window finally and we're able
to see the light of the end of the road.
(11:45):
How do you hope that this involves, because I know
we'd love to figure out how our community can continue
to support what you've done. That would be part of
the next phase of these conversations. So for pre DR,
I mean, it's no more. We kind of did our
job and felt really proud of what we did and
we ended it well. But I'm now on the board
of an organization that was established around the same time
(12:06):
called Community Kitchens, and it's also in Oakland, and it's
an organization of restaurants who are working to feed on
house populations. World Central Kitchen came into Oakland and did
a lot of work at the height of the pandemic
to make sure that our hungry populations in Oakland were fed.
But now they're transitioning out, and so now we think
that there will be a need moving forward, and we
(12:26):
need to make sure that all these unhoused populations will
be fed and taken care of. And that's something that
our local restaurants are clearly willing, ready and able to
step up and do so. My advice to people who
want to get involved is, if you have an idea,
just put it out there. I think that your community
will support you. There are going to be people who
want to get involved and be part of it. Ask
(12:48):
for help. I think you'd be so surprised, you know
the response you get, you know, Wilmer. What really strikes
me from what Jenny shared is how she leveraged her
own particular hills and those of her local community to
get things done. She looked around and made real change
just by focusing on and uplifting her own neighbors. Yes,
(13:08):
and while feed e R maybe over for now, Jenny's
efforts are an example of the type of work that
is also being done on a national, global scale to
fight hunger and support those in need. I want to
know more about these larger efforts and how we can
all get more involved. So we'll be back after the
break with Nate much of World Central Kitchen and Elsa
(13:30):
Collins off. This is about humanity. Just a heads up
to our listeners. We recorded with Elsa remotely and at
moments you'll notice some sound quality issues up top. Welcome Nate,
Welcome Elsa. We're so thankful to have you with us today. Nate,
you're the CEO of Rural Central Kitchen and you were
(13:52):
working with Jenny and f DR in Oakland to make
and distribute meals during the pandemic. And Elsa, you're the
co founder of This Is About Humanity, an organization that
was working to provide meals and other services to folks
at the US Mexico border throughout the pandemic. So to
kick off the conversation today, Nate, when you think about
(14:13):
this last year, what images do you see, whose face
do you see, who's cooking? Do you smell? And could
you describe some of these memories. I think for me,
the thing that really resonates the most over the past
year is seeing the images and experiencing myself. I mean,
being there on the front lines as families stood in
(14:35):
long lines to get food for their children. We were
working extensively in New York City and we have families
that would come and show up at four or five
in the morning, even though the food distribution didn't necessarily
start until eleven or twelve PM, maybe waiting for up
to eight hours to get their spot in line. They
would bring a chair because they knew they had to
(14:58):
bring food back to their families that day. And we
rightfully so talk a lot about all of the amazing
heroes during the last year. Our frontline healthcare workers are
first responders, are folks working in grocery stores or picking
food in the fields of California. But I also think
we don't talk enough about the moms, the dad's, the
(15:21):
families that in a really, really difficult time when they
lost so much, really stepped up to take care of
those that they love, and from folks taking care of
their elderly grandparents or parents or their kids. I mean,
I think that to me is really what stands out
over the past year. Turning it over to you, Elsa,
could you also describe some of the memories you have
(15:43):
of the last year. Yeah, I mean, I'll just echo that.
I think that for me, the sort of image is
how people were really coming together to see how they
could help each other. And I think that you've seen
so much humanity in the last year, even in the
face of so much hardship and so many obstacles that
(16:04):
every time I would look around for someone to show
up to an event to help distribute food to help families,
there was no shortage of people who were raising their
hands to do that. So for me, it's really been
just seeing the community around me really stand up and
take action, and that's been really gratifying in such a
(16:26):
hard year. On our recording with Jenny, she described within
twenty four hours that p d R got started. Could
you both describe what your quick pivots were at the
start of the pandemic. World Central Kitchen were nonprofit organization
founded by chefros Andres, founded ten years ago after the
big earthquake in Haiti, looking at the ways that food
(16:49):
can be solutions to some of the big challenges that
the world faces, and our work really transformed dramatically in
the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when we were on the
ground and nobody was focused on food and getting food
to millions of Puerto Ricans that were cut off and
had no electricity, no water, no communications, and built an
(17:10):
operation feeding millions of meals all across the island. And
since that time we've been really heavily focused on our
disaster response work, looking at crises and responding to communities
in need, and as over time that work has expanded
as we focused beyond just natural disasters like wildfires and
hurricanes to sometimes man made disasters like you know, refugee
(17:33):
crisis and a number of other issues. But a global
pandemic is really unlike anything that you can plan for
or have any context for, so we really had to
shift the way that we operate traditionally, and a lot
of hunger emergencies, the situation is generally geographically focused, right
if you think about a hurricane or a wildfire, or
(17:56):
at the border where we work extensively with els in
our team into I WANNA, those are sort of focused
areas where you can get a lot of attention and
support to. But the pandemic was everywhere, right. It was
in our big cities, it was in the small towns.
It was affecting everyone. So we had to really think
up a new model to be able to reach all
(18:17):
of those that needed to be reached who were now
food and secure because of what was going on. We
had a health crisis that transformed into an economic crisis
that then became a hunger crisis because of all of
these factors, and so even the World Central Kitchen as
an organization, we couldn't set up kitchens everywhere where we're cooking,
you know, tens of thousands of meals in these kitchens
(18:38):
and distributing them out because we can't be everywhere. We're
a fairly small nonprofit. But what we thought was that, well,
what if we could activate local restaurants to start providing
meals within their communities, and then World Central Kitchen could
in turn support those restaurants, could pay those restaurants to
then prepare meals, and we would assist sort of in
like an air traffic controllers sort of way, getting them
(19:00):
hills to where they needed to go. And so for us,
this was a big shift to the way that we
operate because we were now, instead of ourselves cooking, we
were now partnering with thousands of restaurants all across the world.
But what was so great about it was that in
the process of supporting these restaurants, as they were feeding
their communities, and most of these restaurants were small businesses themselves,
they could keep their staff employed, they could keep buying
(19:21):
from their distributors, which meant that the distributors could keep
buying from the farmers. You could keep that sort of
you know, cycle of the system going, so you wouldn't
have more people becoming food and secure. So it was
quite a shift for the way that we normally operate,
but definitely one that we thought was very important and
will live on beyond the pandemic, for this is about humanity. Obviously,
(19:45):
a lot of what we were doing was being proximate
to the issue, and with the pandemic, proximity was obviously
not safe for the individuals who were waiting at the border,
who were in shelters that had hundreds of people. Social
distancing is just a dream down. Their access to PPE,
(20:05):
to testing, to vaccines, all those things were not within
the realm of possibility at the time. So really trying
to understand that we didn't want to stop helping these people,
and so really focusing on a couple of different matching
grants to provide these shelters with p PE with the
access to medical care. And as Nate mentioned, the pandemic
(20:28):
showed that food and security is an issue that is
affecting really everybody, and especially those who are in those
shelters who are waiting and so with the World Central Kitchen,
who has a kitchen and the quana their cooking meals,
and they're feeding at least nine of the shelters that
we personally work with every day. And so to me,
that was so incredible to see that that had not
(20:49):
stopped from our end providing the support financially from a distance,
and then also actually focusing more on families that have
been separated who were now reunified living in the unit
I did states and providing them with that support. They're
also experiencing higher levels of infection and death, frontline workers,
(21:09):
essential workers, and not necessarily feeling comfortable maybe going to
the doctor if they got sick, or not having a
hospital nearby, and so really doing drive through distributions for
toiletries and backpacks and school supplies. You know, distance learning
was very hard for a lot of these families who
(21:29):
had no access potentially to a laptop or to the
equipment that was necessary to be able to continue in school.
So giving them that support and then partnering with World
Central Kitchen when they would come by, they would be
able to get a warm meal to take home with
them and their families. So I think the key for
us was. It might look a little bit different, but
(21:51):
we're not going anywhere, and in fact, we're going to
just try to find different ways, safe ways to still
be able to show up for these families. We'll be
right back after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices.
So you both have mentioned now the work in Tijuana
and on the border that connects you. Could you speak
a little bit more about that connection. Yeah, I mean
(22:14):
I'm from Tiquana originally. So when this is about humanity
really started, World Central Kitchen was already on the ground.
As Nate mentioned, they had been working with local chefs
ru Yeah, like chefs who had restaurants in Tijuana who
were showing up to cook and using their kitchens to
provide the food. So when there was that big camp
(22:37):
at World Central Kitchen was out there giving food and
so that was my first introduction. Sam Block, who I
like to say is like a modern day Indiana Jones
who just parachutes to different places, was down there and
anning the kitchen. And really the goal was like, Okay,
how do we work together to try to support these individuals,
(22:59):
And so they're still there and when we've been going
down pre COVID and I'm sure when we start to
go down again, we will be back inside that kitchen.
And I'll just add I think what's so wonderful about
working with el center team is the human centered focus.
Oftentimes we look at some of the challenges that are
(23:20):
being faced in times of disaster, we almost look at
it very statistically. We look at his like numbers, and
you've got to step back and look at the human
context here, and for us, really that's the priority and
why we love working with Els in our team because
they bring such an amazing compliment to what our team
is able to do. Really focusing on the food in
the nourishment and supporting so many of those families there
(23:43):
and then having that sort of collaboration is really wonderful.
When I think about solution making, when we think about
now waiting for your local and national leadership to actually
get in the game, there's a lot of localized solution
that happens, and I think about, how do you invite
the community, how do they feel like I I can get
in the game. You know, um, I love to start
(24:04):
there and then see how we can dig deeper into
finding a roadmap where all of us can really feel
like we can get in the game. Yeah, I mean,
I think what you're really saying is that organizations are
filling the gap for what we traditionally might think that
government would, could, or should be doing. And so as
you see people step in to fill in the gap.
(24:25):
At least one of my goals, and I know World
Central Kitchen has the same one, is to invite people in.
You can grow weary in well doing you don't want
to write, but no, there's a lot of energy output
that goes into that. So you want to bring in
as many people as you can. And I think that
by bringing them closer to the issue. Specifically, when I
think about how we do drive through distributions, or how
(24:46):
we do events or when we do trips, it's about
bringing people closer so they feel more empowered, not just
to speak about the issue, but to think about, Okay,
like what do I have that I can then give
that's unique to me, Whether it's my time, whether it's money,
whether it's like I know somebody who makes backpacks, whatever
it is. I'm hoping to provide an entry point for
(25:07):
you to come in and be able to self engage
and become an activist in real life, yourself and so
I think that to me, it's filling the gap, and
then it's meeting people where they're at, Like, not everybody
is going to be able to go to the border
or feel like they can do all the things. But
if you told somebody come for an hour, paint with
some families, and bring a bag of groceries with you,
(25:29):
I mean that's easy. I think a lot about what's
really happening and the responsibility we all have with platforms
like the ones we're on now, to really broadcast the
ability and empower in the community. So can you talk
a little bit about that. Because everyone is now their
own personal news feed, you don't have to have been
an entertainer, you don't have to be an influencer in quotes.
Now you have the ability to really talk from peer
(25:52):
to peer, from neighbor to neighbor about what can be done.
There's two main things that I think about every time
I go down to the border or meet with a
family or as we're having this conversation. And the first
thing is, nobody decides to leave their life if it's
not imperative. And so when people are like I don't
(26:14):
understand why people are coming or what's happening to me.
It's like these families are really facing two choices. One
is certain death and one is the possibility of it,
and it is human nature capacity to want to survive,
and people are going to take that chance. When you
look at those are the choices that people are being
(26:35):
faced with. We used to say that they want a
better life. Now they just want to live, and so
I think that that's something that we really need to understand. Secondly,
I think a lot of times people think like, well,
you know, like border, it's not really my issue. But
here's the deal. I always tell people, Listen, if you
care about climate change, you should really care about what's
happening at the border. Because a lot of these refugees
(26:57):
and a lot of this migration is being caused by
climate change, people not being able to, you know, cultivate
in the fields where they're from. You should probably care
about what's happening at the border. Sometimes people say like, oh,
my issue is like LGBTQ community. The most traumatic stories
I've ever heard are from lgbt Q asylum seekers. What
we really need to think about this isn't just like
(27:17):
a border issue. This is an issue about where we
are as human beings in society in this world, and
what are we doing each in our own places to
try to make this a better thing. Because there are
between forty to sixty million people right now in some
type of migration and a small percentage, Yes, is happening
at the border, but this is happening globally, and so
(27:39):
I think when we think about that, we have to
think about how we envision these fellow human beings and
why are they doing these things? And it's not to
make your life harder, trust me, They're really just trying
to live and to keep their family safe and alive.
And I think that's something that we can all relate to.
I'm curious what advice you would give to folks on
a community based level who want to start projects like
(28:02):
FDR but maybe don't have the tools and resources or
the know how. What advice would you have for those folks. Well,
one of the things I would mention, which is exactly
kind of what happened with FDR, was they looked for
partners that could augment the things that they might be needing.
(28:23):
They didn't want to reinvent the wheel from scratch. They said,
this is what we want to accomplish. We want to
get food to our frontline healthcare staff that are sacrificing,
that are working crazy hours, that are saving lives every day,
and they don't have time to get food. There's nowhere open,
and so this needs to be a priority. But they
weren't trying to sort of reinvent the wheel. They were
(28:44):
able to tap into restaurants that already had capacity. And
that's how we got linked up with them at World
Central Kitchen because they reached out and said, look, we
can't necessarily deal with and we don't want to build
a finance team and coordinate payments and all of these
logistical administrative things. We just want to get food to
the doctors and the nurses and the cleaning crews and
(29:07):
everybody who right now is right there on the front lines.
And that was great because as World Central Kitchen, we
could say great because we've already built up the infrastructure
the support that so you can just plug right into
what we're already doing and then just focus on what
you need to do. So I think that's a key
thing that I think you don't have to. You know,
sometimes when you're looking at a problem or playing a
(29:29):
role in something, it can be very daunting and overwhelming
because you're like, how am I going to do all
of this stuff? But there might be great organizations, whether
it's something like World Central Kitchen helping an administrative side,
or this is about humanity that's got all of this
experience and can pull on things within their network that
you can just sort of focus in on the things
that are really important to you where you're able to
(29:50):
bring something unique to the table. Our World Central Kitchen
team didn't have all the relationships in the hospitals, we
didn't initially have all the relationships at the local restaurants
that we're serving their community. That's what Jenny and her
team were able to bring to the table. So that
type of collaboration is just such an effective way to
get the work done. I'll just say that, like, I
think that sometimes people feel like you have to start
(30:12):
something big to make an impact, and the truth is
you really don't. A lot of times people will be like, wait,
I don't live near the borders, so I guess that
means nothing, And I'm like, well, actually, I feel like
if you look closely at your neighbors, your colleagues, your
own community, you will find individuals who have come to
this country who would love to have your support and
(30:33):
know that even a smile an introduction wanting to get
closer and getting to know them. And so I think
as we start to see how we can go into
different communities. We did drive throughs in San Diego, we
did them in Los Angeles, we just did one in
San Francisco, and looking to do one in Miami. There's
(30:54):
a lot of places where we have families who would
love to have your guys support. And this is the
other thing. It doesn't have to be if your thing
isn't separating and reunified families or food and security, but
it's something else. Trust me, there's an organization that already
exists where you are locally. You just need to go
find it and say, like, I want to volunteer and
I'm ready, and I think that that's what I'm hoping.
(31:16):
Even if you come just once and participate with me,
that's great, and I would love to have them do
that more often. But I'm also like, find your own passion,
because you're going to be able to more and more
and more because you're loving what you're doing. We encourage
everyone listening to check out both this is about humanity
and World Center Kitchen. We also hope that after listening
(31:40):
to Jenny, Nate and Elsa, you are empowered to look
to your own community for ways that you can be
more of service. As we have learned, we all have
different skills, we have different strengths that we can definitely
bring to the table. Thank you for joining us in
our very first episode of Essential Voices. Tune in next
week to hear us on to our next Essential work
(32:01):
or let a health Teacher, followed by a round table
with guest Monica Gia, a board member from the l
A Unified School District. Essential Voices with Wilmer val Drama
is produced by me M R Raquel, Alison Shano, and
Kevin Rotkowski, with production support from Associate producer Lillian Holman.
(32:21):
Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama, Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem, and
Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by Sean Tracy and
features original music by Will Risotti. Special thanks to this
week's Essential Voice, Jenny Schwarz, and to Brian Crooks, whose
story you'll here on a later episode, for introducing us.
Special thanks for our thought leaders Nate Mook from World
(32:43):
Central Kitchen and Elsa Collins from This Is About Humanity.
Additional thanks to Chloe Matta Crane and Satchel Kaplan Allen.
This is a Clamor and w V Entertainment production in
partnership with I Heart Radios Michael Dura podcast Network. For
more podcasts from I Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(33:06):
H
M R. Are you ready, Let's do it. Hey, I'm
Wilma Wonder Drama and I am the host of this podcast.
I never thought I would ever say that out loud,
But here I am, But here I am, and I'm
m R. Raquel. I am one of the producers. You'll
be hearing my voice from time to time on the show.
So I just wanted to pop in and say, howdy,
(00:21):
We're stoked to be here with you today, introducing our
new show, Essential Voices sent show. You know, we've been
hearing that world a lot. The term essential worker was
everywhere doing the pandemic, but we often didn't hear from
essential workers themselves. I was curious to learn more about
their stories and lives of our grocery workers, our teachers,
(00:43):
our restaurant workers, from the folks who keep this country
up and running. And why did this term essential workers
appear overnight? Haven't the people who put food on our table,
drive really long hours to deliver our packages, provide legal
services to our mostle normal communities, and also provide mental
health resources always been essential totally, m R. And these
(01:06):
folks aren't going to be any less essential ten years
from now. So thinking about all this, I had jumped
on Instagram a few months ago, and I started a
series of conversations called six ft Apart to listen to
and connect with essential workers, hear their stories, and drum
up community support. I spoke with many impactful individuals, like
a farm worker in Alabama, a mom who raised five
(01:28):
kids and was still out in the fields in the
middle of a lockdown. I mean, that's just brave. Wow,
wilmur thanks for sharing that. And so while Wilmore was
out doing his thing, I was working with NPR Story
Corps to virtually record hundreds of audio stories with folks
all around the country. I remember speaking with a couple
in the Midwest who were donating handmade masks for their
(01:49):
local hospital early on in the pandemic, and also with
election poll workers in Texas who were counting ballots and
having to enforce mask mandates. These stories, and so many
others that I heard, challenge the narrative of what is
considered essential. So that's the backstory for this show, right.
We teamed up to see what more we can do
to keep focused on this huge chunk of society that
(02:10):
sustains everything we do. Exactly long after the performative support
the banging of pots and pants, clapping from apartment buildings
with open windows. Thank you science on front lawns fade
from the scene. So each week will be in conversation
with an essential worker, will hear their stories and ignite
a dialogue about how we as a community can support
(02:31):
their work and more importantly, the folks behind the work
to be in solidarity together. We follow this conversation with
a roundtable discussion between thought leaders as we continue to
pave a road for solutions. Today, to kick us off,
we're going to hear from our essential worker, Jenny Schwartz,
who is a restaurateur in Oakland, California, and who last
(02:53):
year founded the organization feed e Er to help get
food to front line workers at the height of the pandemic.
Jenny is a prime example of the type of person
who stepped up during the pandemic, going above and beyond
for her community while also working to keep her business afloat.
She gets candid with us about what it took to
stay open, the pivots she had to make, and how
she's taking what she's learned the past year and looking forward.
(03:16):
After we hear from Jenny, will share a roundtable conversation
with two thought leaders, Nate Mook and Elsa Collins. Nate
is a CEO of World Central Kitchen, an organization that
worked with f d R in Oakland to help make
and distribute meals locally. World Central Kitchen has been on
the front lines all over the country and world in
response to food and security amplified by the pandemic. Elsa
(03:37):
is the co founder of This Is About Humanity, an
organization that advocates for and brings meals and other services
to families and immigrants at the US Mexico border. This
is About Humanity work diligently to continue offering these services
as the world shut down in the face of COVID nineteen. Wilmer,
am I missing anything. I think we're good to go. Next,
we'll be hearing from Jenny Schwartz about her efforts of
(04:00):
FDR in Oakland. Jenny story starts now. Jenny, is such
a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for spending
this moment with me. I wanted to start by maybe
telling us a little bit about what is the day
in a life. In Jenny's life, when you wake up
in the morning, what's the first thing you do? And
then how do you go by your day? It's different
(04:20):
every day, that's for sure. Generally I wake up in
the morning and the first thing I do is check
a lout of emails and see what I have going on.
We have a lot of events and a lot of
staff to manage. We're still doing hundreds of meals a
week for un housed populations. It's a lot of special events,
a lot of moving parts, putting out fires a lot
of days. Hopefully they're not real fires, but that happens
(04:40):
to sometimes. What is the process? How did you come
to be passionate about this? So for PDR, it was
like right when the pandemic started. It was literally the
day the restaurants got shut down. So March of last year,
Alett Waldman, whose local author, had posted something on Twitter
about wanting to buy meals to restaurants and give them
to hospital work rs, and she asked for help and
(05:01):
any restaurants who might be interested in being involved. So
I immediately responded her. She actually called me that night.
We started talking about it, and I think by Monday
morning we had our first board meeting. People had already
started ven mowing her money, and from there we had
nine am board, meeting calls every day, every weekday for
(05:23):
months and months. It's crazy how quickly it all came together,
and we fed thousands of thousands of people and did
a ton to support local restaurants. It was awesome. You
went ahead and created and organized this network or restaurants
that came together to help the community. Yeah, when we
put the whole organization together, my part in it was
(05:43):
to coordinate with all the restaurants. So I was talking
to all the local restaurant owners and we were really
concerned since it was happening at the same time as
Black Lives Matter. So my goal was to have really
good representation across the board of female owned restaurants, minority
owned restaurants, a lot of local mom and pop shops,
and I had the support of getting to know these
(06:04):
other restaurateurs. It was really such a community of all
of us supporting each other and just knowing that I
was doing something to help It really kept me going.
You're connecting to a larger ecosystem of essential workers, specifically
serving hospital personnels and all of that. Did it feel
like you were more connected to the moment in history
more than ever before. I mean, besides being just a restaurant,
(06:26):
but now reaching out and really being there for the
other essential workers, you know, the people there in the
front lines. It's absolutely true. I Mean, one thing for
me is that I'm really if I would have had
to stay home this whole time, I would have gone
completely insane. I don't know what I would have done.
So I'm a superactive person and it was great to
be able to get out of the house and I
feel like I was around people, even though I wasn't
(06:47):
in close contact with a lot of people all the time. Um,
I mean, we had a lot of contact with hospital
workers and that was great because I felt like I
had kind of a line on what was going on
in hospitals and locally more than a lot of people did.
And so much as the news we get, especially now
as national news, local news outlets just aren't as strong
as they used to be, so it's really hard to
(07:07):
get touch with your community. And in that way, I
was and he's very vague and it's very generalized. The
percentages are so impersonal, so you don't really know what's
happening on the local level unless you have a network. Yeah, exactly.
And so one thing that was great about f dr
is that we did have this organization, we were connected
with doctors. We had a ton of volunteers working for
(07:27):
us also, I mean it was another thing is that
we got just regular citizens who didn't know what to
do with themselves during all of this, who weren't working
or had so much extra time, and they were like
what do I do? So that's how we got so
many donations initially, and that's how we got a ton
of people. We had a network of like sixty drivers
who would pick up food from restaurants for free and
drop it off of the hospitals and they were incredible.
(07:50):
And to keep everyone motivated, we would have these monthly
zoom check ins and all the hospital workers could join,
and the restauranturs could join in, and the volunteers could join,
and we get all hands on, and sometimes the hospital
workers would get on and tell their stories and just
talk about how they were so scared and that they
were going to come home and get their family sick.
So they literally hadn't seen their families in like a month.
(08:10):
They would just come home and like lock themselves in
a bedroom and they get on and just be in
tears and talk about how these hot delicious meals meant
so much to them. It was amazing. I bet that
just the sharing of that meal, it's almost healing in
a way, or the least, you know, kind of energizing
to keep going. Yeah, that's absolutely what got me into
this business in the first place. And I'll say that
(08:32):
that was one of the hardest things about the pandemic
for me personally, was that I'm in this business, the
restaurant business that I love because I love creating experiences
for people and sharing in those experiences and curating them.
And my place is a place where people get to
go to celebrate anniversaries and birthdays and meeting each other
and you know, seeing like long lost friends and even
(08:55):
just a simple feeling of being relieved after a long
day at work or rough week or something. And I
didn't get to be part of that for a year,
but we were creating something. It was a beautiful thing.
We raised about six hundred thousand dollars literally immediately within
weeks of the initial shutdown, and our goal was to
spend it as rapidly as we could, because not only
(09:16):
were we trying to feed frontline medical workers and keep
the stamina and morall up, of our local hospital workers.
But we were really trying to support and keep alive
the restaurants and we were suddenly shut down, and it
was one of the only sources of income that a
lot of restaurants have, if they weren't already pivoting to
doing just takeout orders. We were just trying to stay
(09:36):
open and be able to keep our staffs employed as
much as we could. For me, a lot of my
front of house workers were fine going on unemployment, but
my kitchen staff back of house were mostly uneligible for unemployment,
a lot of them undocumented workers. Luckily, with efforts like
(09:57):
FDR and other things that we ended up doing and
then ultimately our takeout orders and then with the assistance
of PPP loans, we were able to keep our backup
house workers fully employed the whole time, and it's really
been amazing. We have had no turnover since. Then you
start thinking about all of a sudden the world where
you had to pivot into take out, How was that
(10:18):
transition for you guys? My restaurant, Hop Scotch, we're coming
up on nine years this month, and we have had
to really committed local following, and so when we had
to switch to take out immediately, and at the same time,
everyone also had to stay home, so we actually had
really strong response right away, and it was extremely sustainable,
particularly in the beginning, sustainable with the staff you had
(10:40):
at that point in percentages, how much of your staff
do you still pad on? So we basically needed hardly
any front of house staff anymore. But we had the
same kitchen staff running. So we've got six to eight
people in the kitchen and they were working. And so
even though our revenue was a little bit less than
it had been when we were doing full service dining,
it is kind of balanced out because our labor costs
(11:02):
went down, were able to still keep the kitchen stuff
fully employed. I went to the point, like all of
your basic costs of the restaurant, your insurance, your rent,
all that stuff is the same. You know, the profit
was gone, but basically we got to keep our business
sustainable and we're still operating. Do you have any thoughts,
any advice, any words of encouragement to the future essential
(11:24):
workers and those who who are going to see what
you've created and built from it and maybe expand on that.
I mean, I'm sure that this will be really inspiring
to a lot of people in the country to think about, oh,
how can we do that on a local level. And
now that the pandemic is getting to a point where
we're not only managing, but we're seeing some type of
fresh air coming into the window finally and we're able
to see the light of the end of the road.
(11:45):
How do you hope that this involves, because I know
we'd love to figure out how our community can continue
to support what you've done. That would be part of
the next phase of these conversations. So for pre DR,
I mean, it's no more. We kind of did our
job and felt really proud of what we did and
we ended it well. But I'm now on the board
of an organization that was established around the same time
(12:06):
called Community Kitchens, and it's also in Oakland, and it's
an organization of restaurants who are working to feed on
house populations. World Central Kitchen came into Oakland and did
a lot of work at the height of the pandemic
to make sure that our hungry populations in Oakland were fed.
But now they're transitioning out, and so now we think
that there will be a need moving forward, and we
(12:26):
need to make sure that all these unhoused populations will
be fed and taken care of. And that's something that
our local restaurants are clearly willing, ready and able to
step up and do so. My advice to people who
want to get involved is, if you have an idea,
just put it out there. I think that your community
will support you. There are going to be people who
want to get involved and be part of it. Ask
(12:48):
for help. I think you'd be so surprised, you know
the response you get, you know, Wilmer. What really strikes
me from what Jenny shared is how she leveraged her
own particular hills and those of her local community to
get things done. She looked around and made real change
just by focusing on and uplifting her own neighbors. Yes,
(13:08):
and while feed e R maybe over for now, Jenny's
efforts are an example of the type of work that
is also being done on a national, global scale to
fight hunger and support those in need. I want to
know more about these larger efforts and how we can
all get more involved. So we'll be back after the
break with Nate much of World Central Kitchen and Elsa
(13:30):
Collins off. This is about humanity. Just a heads up
to our listeners. We recorded with Elsa remotely and at
moments you'll notice some sound quality issues up top. Welcome Nate,
Welcome Elsa. We're so thankful to have you with us today. Nate,
you're the CEO of Rural Central Kitchen and you were
(13:52):
working with Jenny and f DR in Oakland to make
and distribute meals during the pandemic. And Elsa, you're the
co founder of This Is About Humanity, an organization that
was working to provide meals and other services to folks
at the US Mexico border throughout the pandemic. So to
kick off the conversation today, Nate, when you think about
(14:13):
this last year, what images do you see, whose face
do you see, who's cooking? Do you smell? And could
you describe some of these memories. I think for me,
the thing that really resonates the most over the past
year is seeing the images and experiencing myself. I mean,
being there on the front lines as families stood in
(14:35):
long lines to get food for their children. We were
working extensively in New York City and we have families
that would come and show up at four or five
in the morning, even though the food distribution didn't necessarily
start until eleven or twelve PM, maybe waiting for up
to eight hours to get their spot in line. They
would bring a chair because they knew they had to
(14:58):
bring food back to their families that day. And we
rightfully so talk a lot about all of the amazing
heroes during the last year. Our frontline healthcare workers are
first responders, are folks working in grocery stores or picking
food in the fields of California. But I also think
we don't talk enough about the moms, the dad's, the
(15:21):
families that in a really, really difficult time when they
lost so much, really stepped up to take care of
those that they love, and from folks taking care of
their elderly grandparents or parents or their kids. I mean,
I think that to me is really what stands out
over the past year. Turning it over to you, Elsa,
could you also describe some of the memories you have
(15:43):
of the last year. Yeah, I mean, I'll just echo that.
I think that for me, the sort of image is
how people were really coming together to see how they
could help each other. And I think that you've seen
so much humanity in the last year, even in the
face of so much hardship and so many obstacles that
(16:04):
every time I would look around for someone to show
up to an event to help distribute food to help families,
there was no shortage of people who were raising their
hands to do that. So for me, it's really been
just seeing the community around me really stand up and
take action, and that's been really gratifying in such a
(16:26):
hard year. On our recording with Jenny, she described within
twenty four hours that p d R got started. Could
you both describe what your quick pivots were at the
start of the pandemic. World Central Kitchen were nonprofit organization
founded by chefros Andres, founded ten years ago after the
big earthquake in Haiti, looking at the ways that food
(16:49):
can be solutions to some of the big challenges that
the world faces, and our work really transformed dramatically in
the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when we were on the
ground and nobody was focused on food and getting food
to millions of Puerto Ricans that were cut off and
had no electricity, no water, no communications, and built an
(17:10):
operation feeding millions of meals all across the island. And
since that time we've been really heavily focused on our
disaster response work, looking at crises and responding to communities
in need, and as over time that work has expanded
as we focused beyond just natural disasters like wildfires and
hurricanes to sometimes man made disasters like you know, refugee
(17:33):
crisis and a number of other issues. But a global
pandemic is really unlike anything that you can plan for
or have any context for, so we really had to
shift the way that we operate traditionally, and a lot
of hunger emergencies, the situation is generally geographically focused, right
if you think about a hurricane or a wildfire, or
(17:56):
at the border where we work extensively with els in
our team into I WANNA, those are sort of focused
areas where you can get a lot of attention and
support to. But the pandemic was everywhere, right. It was
in our big cities, it was in the small towns.
It was affecting everyone. So we had to really think
up a new model to be able to reach all
(18:17):
of those that needed to be reached who were now
food and secure because of what was going on. We
had a health crisis that transformed into an economic crisis
that then became a hunger crisis because of all of
these factors, and so even the World Central Kitchen as
an organization, we couldn't set up kitchens everywhere where we're cooking,
you know, tens of thousands of meals in these kitchens
(18:38):
and distributing them out because we can't be everywhere. We're
a fairly small nonprofit. But what we thought was that, well,
what if we could activate local restaurants to start providing
meals within their communities, and then World Central Kitchen could
in turn support those restaurants, could pay those restaurants to
then prepare meals, and we would assist sort of in
like an air traffic controllers sort of way, getting them
(19:00):
hills to where they needed to go. And so for us,
this was a big shift to the way that we
operate because we were now, instead of ourselves cooking, we
were now partnering with thousands of restaurants all across the world.
But what was so great about it was that in
the process of supporting these restaurants, as they were feeding
their communities, and most of these restaurants were small businesses themselves,
they could keep their staff employed, they could keep buying
(19:21):
from their distributors, which meant that the distributors could keep
buying from the farmers. You could keep that sort of
you know, cycle of the system going, so you wouldn't
have more people becoming food and secure. So it was
quite a shift for the way that we normally operate,
but definitely one that we thought was very important and
will live on beyond the pandemic, for this is about humanity. Obviously,
(19:45):
a lot of what we were doing was being proximate
to the issue, and with the pandemic, proximity was obviously
not safe for the individuals who were waiting at the border,
who were in shelters that had hundreds of people. Social
distancing is just a dream down. Their access to PPE,
(20:05):
to testing, to vaccines, all those things were not within
the realm of possibility at the time. So really trying
to understand that we didn't want to stop helping these people,
and so really focusing on a couple of different matching
grants to provide these shelters with p PE with the
access to medical care. And as Nate mentioned, the pandemic
(20:28):
showed that food and security is an issue that is
affecting really everybody, and especially those who are in those
shelters who are waiting and so with the World Central Kitchen,
who has a kitchen and the quana their cooking meals,
and they're feeding at least nine of the shelters that
we personally work with every day. And so to me,
that was so incredible to see that that had not
(20:49):
stopped from our end providing the support financially from a distance,
and then also actually focusing more on families that have
been separated who were now reunified living in the unit
I did states and providing them with that support. They're
also experiencing higher levels of infection and death, frontline workers,
(21:09):
essential workers, and not necessarily feeling comfortable maybe going to
the doctor if they got sick, or not having a
hospital nearby, and so really doing drive through distributions for
toiletries and backpacks and school supplies. You know, distance learning
was very hard for a lot of these families who
(21:29):
had no access potentially to a laptop or to the
equipment that was necessary to be able to continue in school.
So giving them that support and then partnering with World
Central Kitchen when they would come by, they would be
able to get a warm meal to take home with
them and their families. So I think the key for
us was. It might look a little bit different, but
(21:51):
we're not going anywhere, and in fact, we're going to
just try to find different ways, safe ways to still
be able to show up for these families. We'll be
right back after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices.
So you both have mentioned now the work in Tijuana
and on the border that connects you. Could you speak
a little bit more about that connection. Yeah, I mean
(22:14):
I'm from Tiquana originally. So when this is about humanity
really started, World Central Kitchen was already on the ground.
As Nate mentioned, they had been working with local chefs
ru Yeah, like chefs who had restaurants in Tijuana who
were showing up to cook and using their kitchens to
provide the food. So when there was that big camp
(22:37):
at World Central Kitchen was out there giving food and
so that was my first introduction. Sam Block, who I
like to say is like a modern day Indiana Jones
who just parachutes to different places, was down there and
anning the kitchen. And really the goal was like, Okay,
how do we work together to try to support these individuals,
(22:59):
And so they're still there and when we've been going
down pre COVID and I'm sure when we start to
go down again, we will be back inside that kitchen.
And I'll just add I think what's so wonderful about
working with el center team is the human centered focus.
Oftentimes we look at some of the challenges that are
(23:20):
being faced in times of disaster, we almost look at
it very statistically. We look at his like numbers, and
you've got to step back and look at the human
context here, and for us, really that's the priority and
why we love working with Els in our team because
they bring such an amazing compliment to what our team
is able to do. Really focusing on the food in
the nourishment and supporting so many of those families there
(23:43):
and then having that sort of collaboration is really wonderful.
When I think about solution making, when we think about
now waiting for your local and national leadership to actually
get in the game, there's a lot of localized solution
that happens, and I think about, how do you invite
the community, how do they feel like I I can get
in the game. You know, um, I love to start
(24:04):
there and then see how we can dig deeper into
finding a roadmap where all of us can really feel
like we can get in the game. Yeah, I mean,
I think what you're really saying is that organizations are
filling the gap for what we traditionally might think that
government would, could, or should be doing. And so as
you see people step in to fill in the gap.
(24:25):
At least one of my goals, and I know World
Central Kitchen has the same one, is to invite people in.
You can grow weary in well doing you don't want
to write, but no, there's a lot of energy output
that goes into that. So you want to bring in
as many people as you can. And I think that
by bringing them closer to the issue. Specifically, when I
think about how we do drive through distributions, or how
(24:46):
we do events or when we do trips, it's about
bringing people closer so they feel more empowered, not just
to speak about the issue, but to think about, Okay,
like what do I have that I can then give
that's unique to me, Whether it's my time, whether it's money,
whether it's like I know somebody who makes backpacks, whatever
it is. I'm hoping to provide an entry point for
(25:07):
you to come in and be able to self engage
and become an activist in real life, yourself and so
I think that to me, it's filling the gap, and
then it's meeting people where they're at, Like, not everybody
is going to be able to go to the border
or feel like they can do all the things. But
if you told somebody come for an hour, paint with
some families, and bring a bag of groceries with you,
(25:29):
I mean that's easy. I think a lot about what's
really happening and the responsibility we all have with platforms
like the ones we're on now, to really broadcast the
ability and empower in the community. So can you talk
a little bit about that. Because everyone is now their
own personal news feed, you don't have to have been
an entertainer, you don't have to be an influencer in quotes.
Now you have the ability to really talk from peer
(25:52):
to peer, from neighbor to neighbor about what can be done.
There's two main things that I think about every time
I go down to the border or meet with a
family or as we're having this conversation. And the first
thing is, nobody decides to leave their life if it's
not imperative. And so when people are like I don't
(26:14):
understand why people are coming or what's happening to me.
It's like these families are really facing two choices. One
is certain death and one is the possibility of it,
and it is human nature capacity to want to survive,
and people are going to take that chance. When you
look at those are the choices that people are being
(26:35):
faced with. We used to say that they want a
better life. Now they just want to live, and so
I think that that's something that we really need to understand. Secondly,
I think a lot of times people think like, well,
you know, like border, it's not really my issue. But
here's the deal. I always tell people, Listen, if you
care about climate change, you should really care about what's
happening at the border. Because a lot of these refugees
(26:57):
and a lot of this migration is being caused by
climate change, people not being able to, you know, cultivate
in the fields where they're from. You should probably care
about what's happening at the border. Sometimes people say like, oh,
my issue is like LGBTQ community. The most traumatic stories
I've ever heard are from lgbt Q asylum seekers. What
we really need to think about this isn't just like
(27:17):
a border issue. This is an issue about where we
are as human beings in society in this world, and
what are we doing each in our own places to
try to make this a better thing. Because there are
between forty to sixty million people right now in some
type of migration and a small percentage, Yes, is happening
at the border, but this is happening globally, and so
(27:39):
I think when we think about that, we have to
think about how we envision these fellow human beings and
why are they doing these things? And it's not to
make your life harder, trust me, They're really just trying
to live and to keep their family safe and alive.
And I think that's something that we can all relate to.
I'm curious what advice you would give to folks on
a community based level who want to start projects like
(28:02):
FDR but maybe don't have the tools and resources or
the know how. What advice would you have for those folks. Well,
one of the things I would mention, which is exactly
kind of what happened with FDR, was they looked for
partners that could augment the things that they might be needing.
(28:23):
They didn't want to reinvent the wheel from scratch. They said,
this is what we want to accomplish. We want to
get food to our frontline healthcare staff that are sacrificing,
that are working crazy hours, that are saving lives every day,
and they don't have time to get food. There's nowhere open,
and so this needs to be a priority. But they
weren't trying to sort of reinvent the wheel. They were
(28:44):
able to tap into restaurants that already had capacity. And
that's how we got linked up with them at World
Central Kitchen because they reached out and said, look, we
can't necessarily deal with and we don't want to build
a finance team and coordinate payments and all of these
logistical administrative things. We just want to get food to
the doctors and the nurses and the cleaning crews and
(29:07):
everybody who right now is right there on the front lines.
And that was great because as World Central Kitchen, we
could say great because we've already built up the infrastructure
the support that so you can just plug right into
what we're already doing and then just focus on what
you need to do. So I think that's a key
thing that I think you don't have to. You know,
sometimes when you're looking at a problem or playing a
(29:29):
role in something, it can be very daunting and overwhelming
because you're like, how am I going to do all
of this stuff? But there might be great organizations, whether
it's something like World Central Kitchen helping an administrative side,
or this is about humanity that's got all of this
experience and can pull on things within their network that
you can just sort of focus in on the things
that are really important to you where you're able to
(29:50):
bring something unique to the table. Our World Central Kitchen
team didn't have all the relationships in the hospitals, we
didn't initially have all the relationships at the local restaurants
that we're serving their community. That's what Jenny and her
team were able to bring to the table. So that
type of collaboration is just such an effective way to
get the work done. I'll just say that, like, I
think that sometimes people feel like you have to start
(30:12):
something big to make an impact, and the truth is
you really don't. A lot of times people will be like, wait,
I don't live near the borders, so I guess that
means nothing, And I'm like, well, actually, I feel like
if you look closely at your neighbors, your colleagues, your
own community, you will find individuals who have come to
this country who would love to have your support and
(30:33):
know that even a smile an introduction wanting to get
closer and getting to know them. And so I think
as we start to see how we can go into
different communities. We did drive throughs in San Diego, we
did them in Los Angeles, we just did one in
San Francisco, and looking to do one in Miami. There's
(30:54):
a lot of places where we have families who would
love to have your guys support. And this is the
other thing. It doesn't have to be if your thing
isn't separating and reunified families or food and security, but
it's something else. Trust me, there's an organization that already
exists where you are locally. You just need to go
find it and say, like, I want to volunteer and
I'm ready, and I think that that's what I'm hoping.
(31:16):
Even if you come just once and participate with me,
that's great, and I would love to have them do
that more often. But I'm also like, find your own passion,
because you're going to be able to more and more
and more because you're loving what you're doing. We encourage
everyone listening to check out both this is about humanity
and World Center Kitchen. We also hope that after listening
(31:40):
to Jenny, Nate and Elsa, you are empowered to look
to your own community for ways that you can be
more of service. As we have learned, we all have
different skills, we have different strengths that we can definitely
bring to the table. Thank you for joining us in
our very first episode of Essential Voices. Tune in next
week to hear us on to our next Essential work
(32:01):
or let a health Teacher, followed by a round table
with guest Monica Gia, a board member from the l
A Unified School District. Essential Voices with Wilmer val Drama
is produced by me M R Raquel, Alison Shano, and
Kevin Rotkowski, with production support from Associate producer Lillian Holman.
(32:21):
Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama, Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem, and
Aaron Hilliard. This episode was edited by Sean Tracy and
features original music by Will Risotti. Special thanks to this
week's Essential Voice, Jenny Schwarz, and to Brian Crooks, whose
story you'll here on a later episode, for introducing us.
Special thanks for our thought leaders Nate Mook from World
(32:43):
Central Kitchen and Elsa Collins from This Is About Humanity.
Additional thanks to Chloe Matta Crane and Satchel Kaplan Allen.
This is a Clamor and w V Entertainment production in
partnership with I Heart Radios Michael Dura podcast Network. For
more podcasts from I Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(33:06):
H
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