Episode 0: Shared Ground Trailer - Stories of Resilience that Emerge in Challenging Times

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What happens when everyday life collides with catastrophe? When a food delivery arrives at your doorstep just as wildfire races down the hillside toward your home? These surreal moments reveal who we truly are and how communities respond when crisis strikes.

Stream the episode here, or follow on your favorite streaming service (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Shared Ground emerged from co-host Sean Knierim's experience losing his family's home in the Los Angeles fires this January. Surrounded by an overwhelming outpouring of community support, Sean began documenting the faces and stories of those who extended kindness during his family's darkest hours. What started as personal photography evolved into this podcast—a platform for sharing powerful narratives about resilience, recovery, and human connection.

Together with co-host Alan Marks, Sean explores conversations with guests whose backgrounds span emergency management, climate science, sustainability, and community building. Each brings their unique expertise, but more importantly, their deeply personal ties to crisis response. From the absurdity of carefully unpacking groceries into a refrigerator that would soon melt in the inferno to the profound ways communities rebuild both physically and emotionally after disaster, these stories offer both comfort and practical wisdom.

Over the coming episodes, Shared Ground will celebrate the extraordinary capacity of ordinary people to support each other when it matters most.   And from there we will explore wider concepts of resilience - how might we develop conditions necessary to help communities thrive in the face of challenging times.  

Whether you've experienced disaster firsthand or simply want to understand how communities recover and grow stronger, these conversations offer insight, inspiration, and actionable guidance. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or visit shared-ground.com to join this journey of resilience and community.

Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.

For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.

Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Episode Transcript

Sean Knierim (00:00):
This is Shared Ground, a podcast about
resilience and community.
I'm Alan Marks and I'm SeanKnierim.
Thanks so much for joining us,you know.

Allan Marks (00:09):
Sean, when you came to me after the fires in which
you and your family lost yourhome in Los Angeles in January
with the idea of doing a podcastabout community and resilience
and the responses to it, I hadtwo thoughts.
I mean, I was honored to beincluded.
I was also surprised at why youwould want to do that and what
angle you would want to take.

Sean Knierim (00:29):
Yeah, when we came out of losing in the house, we
had been surrounded by thiscommunity.
That had been overwhelming andit's literally overwhelming to
me in its outreach to support us, and I started taking pictures
of people who were kind to myfamily.

Allan Marks (00:45):
Yeah.

Sean Knierim (00:46):
And then I started showing people these pictures
and telling the stories and Istarted writing about these
stories and over time it seemedthat these stories meant
something to people.
So I wanted to find differentways to share them out and some
friends suggested a podcast.
When I was talking to youabout it, it just seemed that
that would be a nice extensionand a way to kind of let the

(01:08):
world see what people were doingfor each other.

Allan Marks (01:13):
And I must say, in talking to the guests that we've
been privileged to have on thispodcast, it's been interesting.
Many of them come from abackground of emergency
preparedness or climate orsustainability or community
building in other ways, maybeprofessionally, but they all
have really personal ties, thatsort of speak to broader lessons

(01:34):
.

Sean Knierim (01:35):
And all of them in their lives.
Like you say, they're doingthings to support communities
and fight for the forces of goodwhen faced with a crisis like
what we had going, not often dowe know how we're going to
respond in these situations.
I think there's a neat throughline of the first conversations,
the first talks that we've hadso far, of people who have come

(01:56):
through hard stuff in the pastand have been shown by others or
learned themselves how to showup for others in these kinds of
times of crisis.

Allan Marks (02:06):
What's the last day that was happening before you
left your house during the fire?
Do you remember?

Sean Knierim (02:10):
We shared this in one of the first episodes with
my wife, where my family hadalready gotten out of the
neighborhood or were trying toget out of the neighborhood and
as I was going to the car toleave, the house was locked up.
The food delivery truck showedup with a box of ingredients for
us to prepare and he handed itto me.
And I remember this is the timewhen I'm thinking of two
different parallel processing ofI've got my go bag, my car's

(02:31):
ready.
B ut at the same time reallife is going, and so I point
out to the guy like there'sfires coming down the hill at
the house.
And he goes this is how I getpaid is by the box.
So I'm delivering this stuff.
So I've got a box in my hand,I've got a fire coming at me,
I've got a family to go to, I goin the house.
And not only did I bring thebox in the house, I emptied the
whole thing into the fridgebecause I didn't want my wife,

(02:55):
nina, whom you'll hear from inthis podcast, I didn't want her
to be upset that we wasted food.
So I put it all in that fridgemelted.

Allan Marks (03:04):
So that's what you're worried about your
soon-to-be roasted vegetables.

Sean Knierim (03:07):
Soon-to-be roasted vegetables.
Exactly, they were cooked andyeah, so that was the last thing
I did in the house before Ileft it.

Allan Marks (03:15):
That's good.
Well, look, we're going to betalking to a lot of people with
a lot of different things, manyof them looking further afield.
I need them looking furtherafield at recovery and
rebuilding and the ways thatcommunities come together to do
that and to become moreresilient.

Sean Knierim (03:37):
Yeah, I think there's a lot to learn from
these stories, a lot to learnfrom this community and,
hopefully, an invitation toothers to be there for each
other and with us as we continuethis journey forward.
Good, that's going to be fun.
This has been another episodeof Shared Ground, a podcast
about resilience and community.

Allan Marks (03:50):
Follow us on your favorite platform or learn more
at sharedgroundcom.

Sean Knierim (03:58):
That's shared-ground.
com.