July 23, 2025 • 42 mins
As a kid, Richard Burrell lived in the motels along Parkway Drive in Fresno, California. As an adult he founded and runs an organization that supports the wellbeing of the kids who live there now.
Richard Burrell is the founder and executive director of Live Again Fresno, a nonprofit after-school and community support organization that “co-powers” children and families in Fresno’s most vulnerable communities by providing mentorship, education, and holistic support to break cycles of poverty and build brighter futures.
In this conversation, Richard reflects on his own childhood growing up on “Motel Drive” and the day he informally started what has now formally grown into Live Again Fresno. Richard’s work exemplifies the healing powers of trauma-informed frameworks and the importance of organizational leadership living in deep relationship with the community it serves.
Learn more about Live Again Fresno
Read more about the documentary Richard was part of called Motel Drive
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
To the average passer by, Parkway Drive in Fresno, CA
might look like a bunch of motels clustered on a service
Rd. by the freeway. But to an entire community of
children and families, that cluster of motels is a
neighborhood, and the rooms in those buildings are their homes.
I tend to have this very optimistic, very colorful lens
(00:26):
in which I see this community because I love it so deeply and
I walk it regularly. That was Richard Burrell and the
community, this community that he loves so deeply is one that
he knows very well because it's where he spent many years of his
own childhood. And that history there gives him
the ability to see that neighborhood through two sets of
(00:46):
eyes if we were visiting him now.
I would be walking you to some of the best tacos, Taco places,
restaurants that exist in Fresno.
What other folks would see is the gang culture that exists
here. What I would be describing to
you are mothers who are doing their absolute best to take care
(01:09):
of their children. What most folks see is sex
workers. Parkway Drive has seen decades
of disinvestment and you can seethe results of that every day.
And and to be totally like just blunt and clear.
Parkway Drive is an active crimescene, non star.
There is always something going on there.
(01:29):
Always. Still today.
Yeah, I just came from there. Yes, still today, like right
now. I've lived on and in the motels
along Parkway Drive through various part parts of my life
right as a child, as an adult dealing with some unresolved
trauma, and for the last 12 to 13 years as an adult who is
(01:55):
facilitating conversations that as as a community, will help us
heal. These conversations that Richard
is referring to and a lot of other high impact youth
programming all happened under the umbrella of a nonprofit
Community Center Richard startedin 2012 called Live Again
Fresno. I refer to this as a sacred
(02:15):
space in the middle of a neighborhood that doesn't hold
much sacred. Now, Richard is building off of
his long history in Fresno to help reshape its future.
Welcome to Path Breakers, a showabout what it takes to cut
through the noise and red tape and all of the other obstacles
to progress. I'm Tracy Pearson and I work on
the communications team with theKresge Foundation.
(02:37):
And I'm Jamie Bennett. I work at the intersection of
arts, culture, and equitable community development.
On each episode, we talk with a different path breaker who's
forging new ways forward in their community.
On this episode, Jamie is talking to Richard Burrell about
making physical and emotional space for the generational work
of Deep Healing. Yep, as you may have guessed
(02:59):
from the way Tracy phrase that, I got to host this one solo
while Tracy was off on a well deserved break.
Richard, it is great to be with you today.
As we kick off, would you just mind introducing yourself?
Give us your name. Tell us your title, your
affiliations, and where you're calling in from today.
(03:20):
Absolutely. Thank you.
My name is Richard Burrell. I'm the Executive director and
founder of Living in Fresno. We're calling in from the dead
center of Fresno, Parkside Jane Addams neighborhood.
I, you know, I feel a little guilty admitting this, but I've
never been to Fresno. But just, you know, for folks
that are like me who haven't visited, tell me just a little
(03:43):
bit about Fresno. What, what is this place?
What is there? First of all, we are dead center
middle of California could not get any more central in the
Central Valley than Fresno. Fresno has a very rich and
unique history to it, whether you're looking at it through the
Native American perspective or or the farmers and multiple
(04:07):
immigrant immigrant groups that have come here and contributed
to the culture that exists. Or on a smaller scale, the
specific neighborhood that living in Fresno operates out of
and partners with folks in. We are in the Parkside Jane
Addams neighborhood. This neighborhood was
established in the early 50s andbefore the creation of
(04:30):
Interstate 5, like, this was a place where, like, Nat King
Cole, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones, Elvis Presley, like, they all were here in this place
less than half a mile away from where I'm at right now, at this
place called the Hacienda. That culture that existed
created this, like, very rich and vibrant community.
(04:53):
Yeah. It also was the beginning of
this sex, drugs, rock'n'roll thing happening in Fresno.
Once airline travel got more efficient and the Interstate 5
was created, the rock'n'roll left and the sex and drugs
stayed here. Wow.
And is that history? And like if I wanted to learn
(05:14):
more about that history, is there a book?
A documentary? I am so glad that you asked that
question. It took a lot of discipline for
me to not mention this documentary.
It's called Motel Drive in that that that film is 8 years of our
work here in this community, working with this neighborhood.
It also this film is important because it shows one family, a
(05:38):
husband, a wife and his son who lived almost their entire life
here in the motels on Parkway Drive.
It is intense. It is a very hard to watch film
that does a phenomenal job at capturing what real life is like
through the eyes of one family and and highlighting the
importance of place to base organizations and leadership who
(06:02):
stays in close proximity to to their community members.
How did? You arrive on Parkway Drive.
Did you grow up in Fresno? I was actually born in the Bay
Area. I was born in the foster care
system to a mother who was only 15 years old.
My mom's foster mother at that time had learned that my mother
(06:24):
was pregnant from an Indigenous man and kicked her out.
So we went from home to home to home to battered women's shelter
to battered women's shelter all over the Bay Area.
I had a really hard time at one point in my life, just endured a
lot of abuse, and then I got shipped off to Montana to go
live with my grandfather. That was probably the most
(06:48):
beautiful time in my in my childhood that I could remember,
and it taught me a lot of the core values that I hold on to
today as far as being present and emotionally available.
When my mom had sent back for meto come back to California, this
is where she brought me to. To Fresno.
This is to Parkway Drive to Motel Drive where I'm at today.
(07:09):
And so I didn't know any different as a kid.
Drug addiction knows no prejudice nor does poverty,
Right. So like everyone is kind of in
the same boat and it didn't matter what race, ethnicity,
color you were, we were all juststruggling.
And so as far as I was concernedas a little kid, I lived in an
apartment complex where all these different things happened,
(07:31):
right? And it was normal.
Then there became a time in my adult life we had moved away and
obviously life goes on. There was a time in my adult
life when I had this inner struggle, had spent 20 years
raised up in gang culture and 100% not just identified, but
(07:51):
like believed in the cause. And then I started having kids
and I wanted to be a father. But to me, this was this like
magical, mythical thing that I had heard about and not seeing
movies, but it didn't exist in my neighborhood.
It, it didn't exist anywhere in my life.
(08:12):
I wanted to be that thing. I just didn't have the tools or
the vehicle to get me there. And so I knew that not like I
couldn't carry a firearm or be an active gang member and be a
father at the same time. It was ACC to a counselor in
prison who actually, like, taught me this lesson.
I was a very big man. He was a very relatively small
(08:36):
man. And he scared the shit out of
me, to be honest. I sat down, cuffed up.
He asked me my name and what I did.
I said my name is Richard Burrell.
It's in your file. I'm a father.
And he slammed his file shut so hard that it made me jump.
And he started tearing up and said you cannot be.
(08:58):
You cannot be. Your children are at home and
you are here. You cannot be a father.
A father, Richard, is a highest title a man can carry.
You are not that. You may be at some point today,
you are not. And I cried, I'm in a level 4
(09:18):
prison getting ready to get shipped to another maximum
security prison. And that man's words stung.
They were true. They stung so bad.
And when I was being escorted back to my cell, like I held on
to that was like, man, I want tobe a father, though.
And so when I was paroled from prison, I didn't know, like,
(09:40):
where does a father start? What?
What do I do? And so I started seeking out
like mentors and, and folks in the community who I could see
that they were doing a good job at being a dad.
And I started asking them questions and spending time with
them. But during that challenge, the
(10:01):
inner conflict of like identifying as a member of this
specific gang for so long and wanting to be this thing that I
had no idea what it was, createda bunch of inner conflict that I
just started self medicating anddrinking.
And so that there was a period of my life, probably about a
year, where I came back to the motels and I lived there and
(10:24):
then was able to find some help and, and get myself on my feet
and figure out how to move forward to learn about emotional
intelligence and to actually like take the steps towards
becoming a father. Then in 2009, I went and sat on
a mountain. It sounds crazy, but I sat on a
mountain for a few months just seeking out, calling out to
(10:46):
creator, calling out to God, saying like, I I want to do
better. How where right, Like what do I
do? I had this very beautiful
mountaintop experience that's probably a whole nother podcast.
And then I came back home to Fresno and I understood exactly
what I was supposed to do. I didn't know anything about
(11:08):
A5O1C3 nonprofit CBO, like that was all a foreign language to
me. What I did know is that there
were forty children who are living out of motel that had
these huge, huge challenges in front of them.
And so I decided that I would take, I worked at this glass
plant called PPG that I would take a portion of my work check
(11:29):
and I would invest it in the lives of those children.
And so we started an after school lunch program there and
then an art program and then a music program in the middle of
all the things. The Parkway Drive is federal law
enforcement is on the scene off in Fresno Police Department is
on the scene off all day. And I've heard local leadership
(11:52):
from law enforcement say there'sno way to stop it.
Once they take folks out of leadership, it's a vacuum,
right? It's just the next folks that
are willing to rise up and take over that spot.
And so it's very challenging. And Richard, for folks that sort
of aren't familiar with what today is an organization, your
work, just take us a step back. What why are 40 children living
(12:15):
in a motel? Just talk to us a little bit
about those motels and, and whatthe community is that's there.
Yeah. So I can talk about what was,
what isn't, what will be. So what was what was was
absentee owners who owned the motels along Motel Drive but
didn't live here. So for the Fresno Inn, which
(12:37):
doesn't exist anymore, it's the southbound on Rapid Clinton in
99. Now, the folks who own that were
a plastic surgeon, a tax attorney and some other wealthy
man who lived in Lai only know this because I tried to track
them down to talk to them about things that were going on there,
right? So for the most part, it was
folks who didn't live here didn't have any interest at all.
(12:58):
And what was happening, it was in some cases revenue for them
and others a tax write off because the business was failing
and falling apart, right. But on a much smaller scale and
and dealing with real life, these were some of the most
corrupt and inhabitable places where families actually lived
(13:23):
for very long periods of time. So in these motels, which are
depicted in the film Motel Drive, you have families who
lived in, I mean, just utter chaos and squalor.
There was literally raw sewage that poured out into parking
lots where children played at. And it took me about a year to
(13:46):
get to a place where the motherswho lived there trusted that I
wasn't a social worker or undercover police officer to
where I finally, like, cultivated a relationship to
ask, hey, why do the kids play where the raw sewage is pouring
out? Mary's response was, where else
are they supposed to play? There's 27 high level sex
(14:07):
offenders registered to 90s who lived there.
Of course, we're going to let them play here.
So it made more sense for the moms to like, let their kids
play where this entire 4 units of raw sewage poured out into a
parking lot, in their words. And they would prefer to do that
instead of dangle their childrenin front of the windows of these
(14:31):
known sex offenders. It was the harsh reality of that
place. Folks were not supposed to live
there under the conditional use permits for longer than 28 days.
The average stay for families inthe motels along Parkway Drive
was three to five years. That was on average.
Some stayed there, as many as 7 to 9, very challenging.
(14:56):
That is what was what is happening today is you have
Fresno Housing and the city of Fresno making substantial
investments in improving the waythat the entire landscape along
Parkway Drive looks like. So they've bought the motels,
they have renovated a handful ofthem.
(15:18):
Fresno Housing is just completed, the second brand new
low income sustainable long termhousing apartment complex on
Parkway Drive. So you have Promesa, which is
already full Manzanita, which isleasing up and will be open in
June. Yeah, it's, it's, it's
incredible to work and partner, work in and partner with this
(15:43):
community for as long as I have and see this much change come in
just the past three years. Listening to you talk about this
and listening to talk about the work, I'm remembering a a sermon
that a pastor gave who sort of said all you can do is the next
right thing, right? And we've been talking in the
(16:06):
series with a bunch of folks wholead organizations and lead
programs and have sequenced and scaffolded programming.
And you have outcomes and theories of change.
And it seems like you sort of came into this community,
joined, rejoined this community and said, let's going to do the
next right thing. And how do you sort of go from
(16:29):
looking at that thing in front of you that you need to do and
turning it into this sort of structured program, this
organization getting national funding from the Kresge
Foundation? How do you go from that sort of
spontaneous be with the person and turn something into
something that exists in that language of CB OS and nonprofits
(16:49):
and all of that nonsense? Yeah, so that's a great
question. It's making me smile right now
because initially I got told, I mean, for years that I was doing
everything wrong and I was doingit backwards because the model
that existed, which I didn't have this great education,
right, Like this huge education behind me.
So I didn't know about it, but the model that existed was you
(17:12):
find the funding, right? You create your 5O1C3, you find
the funding, you get your staff,you get your building and then
you connect to the people. Why did it backwards?
I connected to the people with the people for over 2 years
paying everything out of my own pocket and then created the five
O 1C3 and then found the fundingand then created jobs for the
(17:34):
people from the community right again, our bodies heal just like
our communities from the inside out.
So to speak to a community and say I see you, I love you, we
eat, shop everything in the sameplace and then go hire folks
from some other place to come facilitate the healing made
(17:54):
absolutely no sense to me. Yeah, it's I can't.
I mean, the thing, maybe the themost painful thing that I've
heard you share today is that people thought that starting
with people was backwards and that, you know, anytime you
start with a pile of money looking for a problem to solve,
you've already gone wrong. I, I believe so and, and so like
(18:17):
just to double down on that, we have monthly community meetings
here. And if you didn't know any
better, you would think it was just a party.
Very loud music, excellent food,very diverse crowd from all over
the community gathering right? And we sit and we eat and we
play Lotteria and bingo. We have fun games and, and our
(18:40):
team and some other folks are are in the crowd in the
community that we walk alongsidewith.
And they're asking questions while we're sitting down at
family style cookout style mealsto figure out what is the next
right thing that we need to do? Is it getting a school bus stop
moved? Is it crosswalks?
(19:00):
Is it advocating for sidewalks? Is it addressing air pollution
because of the significantly higher percentage of kids in
this neighborhood who suffer from chronic asthma, right?
What is the next right thing forus to do?
And as a community, that voice is elevated and we walk forward
in that. There's AI have a a sort of
(19:23):
community organizer elder that I've learned a lot from who said
that the only three things you need to organize any community
are music, food in children. And it sounds like, you know,
Parkside Jane Addams has the three of those in spades.
So it's going to do just fine. You, you've said a couple of
times you've talked about healing and the need to heal
(19:44):
from the inside out, and you talked about the issue of trust.
And how do I know that you're actually here to help me in the
way I need to be helped and not to take my kids away and not to,
you know, kick me out, not to dothese other things.
There's so much trauma and so many different kinds of trauma
(20:06):
that folks that you work with have been experiencing.
How do you deal with that sort of trauma as you think about the
next right thing, as you think about building the programming,
as you think about developing this campus?
Yeah, We actually have a room here that's called the Refocus
Room. It's a small office.
It has like sensory toys and andjournals and coloring books.
(20:30):
And what I've learned is that when we are given the
opportunity to enter a space that is safe and we give
ourselves permission to feel safe, repressed or unprocessed,
traumas will come up. And so that room serves a very
(20:50):
specific purpose for our young people here who come here and
they're able to have some quiet time for.
So for a child who had been living in a motel three to five
years at a time, like there is no privacy there.
So the luxury of having a quiet room to yourself is huge.
And so that young person being able to access a room with a
(21:12):
comfortable chair to themselves is disarming in itself.
And then we have staff who comesin and sits and talks with them,
helps them work through some of the stuff, the hardship,
identify whatever the challenge is to the challenge could be.
I haven't seen my mom in two days.
I haven't eaten in the last day because I haven't been at
school, whatever The thing is. And and to be quite honest, like
(21:36):
more times than not, a young person will enter that room
because they've disrespected somebody here on staff, cussed
at them or just done something super offensive.
And so it's their choice to enter that room, which then
after a 5, seven minute time by themselves, two adults like
staff will go in there and sit and work through a script to
(21:58):
help them figure out what's wrong.
We help the young person to identify exactly what the
challenge is, right? So it's identify it, deconstruct
it. What are our options towards
healing that? Like, what are the avenues
reconstruction. Then the most important part is
reintroduction to tribe or reintroduction to family.
(22:20):
And what that looks like is Little Richard apologizing to
Miss Janessa, our program manager, who I may have cussed
out or whatever, Right. And so for our young men here,
that's a, that is super important.
The context and the language forwhich they view and speak to
(22:40):
women that's modeled here in thecommunity is very vulgar, very
disrespectful. The assignment or the what's
being asked of the young man is did you hurt anyone by your
Lang, by your words or your actions here today?
Yes, so they take accountability.
(23:00):
I said whatever it was to Miss Janessa.
Do you want to heal that? Yes.
My bad. Does not cut it.
I apologize. Not even close.
The language that we suggest to them is Miss Janessa, I said
(23:22):
this thing that was offensive and disrespectful.
When you're ready, will you please accept my apology?
I have not yet seen one young person, male or female, work
through that entire phrase. They get as far as I am sorry
for what I did when you are ready, and then they break into
(23:43):
tears. The vulnerability that that
comes in that moment of saying I, I love you and I know I did
something to hurt you. I'm accepting accountability for
it. When you're ready, will you
please accept? Like they can't get there.
It's usually just like drowned out by tears and don't want to
(24:04):
be nurtured. This is how we heal.
So it wasn't necessarily on the staff member or on our team to
like address that or to carry that.
It was to help facilitate a conversation to figure out like
what the actual cause to this thing was and then leave it on
the individual to say like, yes,I'm choosing to accept
(24:25):
accountability and I want to walk towards healing.
I want this relationship. I want reciprocity.
I want like to know when to be known.
And I know that I can't do that by pushing everyone away from
me. And so we understand as adults
who have endured healing and done some of the inner work,
right, that like those moments can be very intense for the
(24:50):
person because like the vulnerability and the fear of
rejection and, and all of that, right?
Like we need to just be as open and as comforting as we possibly
can. Understand this is probably
something that's very new to this person.
Richard I I'm sure there's a better someone has said it in a
(25:10):
better way, but you know, my experience is that often times
the only way through is through and you got to do it.
You got to do the work and you got to get through all the steps
and you know, there aren't shortcuts and there isn't going
around. Talk to me about your
organization. How many people does it take to
make sure kids got lunch, got a place to like, you know, you
(25:32):
must be a gazillion dollar thousands of people entity doing
all of this work. That's the dream.
Yeah, right. My favorite Bob Marley quote.
I won't even get into that. There's a quote where Bob Marley
talks about, like, numbers. This man asked him about him
being wealthy and being rich. And Bob Marley says you you're
talking about numbers. Numbers never end, which means
(25:53):
you're forever chasing them, right?
I am wealthy because of my relationships.
And so I can start like at the relationships that are the
closest to me. It would be our staff, our team
here, which is comprised mostly of moms from the community.
There are 12 folks who are on staff here who do an an amazing,
(26:13):
I mean incredibly amazing job from art, music, social,
emotional groups, all the curriculum that's taught here,
meals that are cooked every day by us.
They do an amazing job, including transportation.
We have drivers who go to the neighborhood, pick up kids and
bring them here just to make sure that they're safe, that
they're never risking exchangingtheir personal safety for a hot
(26:38):
meal or to connect with a mentoror tutor, right?
We make sure that we pick them up for free, they're here for
the duration of program, and then we take them back home.
And then we have our community members, the moms, grandmothers,
and fathers from this community who show up and actively support
everything that we do here. We understand that it literally
takes a village. And so the village is showing
(26:59):
up. The village knows that they are
seeing, they are heard, they areknown and they are always
welcome here. I have an incredible board for
the for a living in Fresno. The board very active in
everything that we do. And then we have folks like
Kresge and, and some of our other community partners here,
(27:19):
including the Central Valley Community Foundation that do an
amazing job at making sure that there are resources made
available so that we can can continue to do the work that we
do. That's amazing.
And you talked about a lot of construction that's happening.
So talk to talk to me a little bit about the construction,
what's what's going on, what's being built.
(27:40):
So the goal was creating the organization and then creating
the space and then creating jobsfor people from the community
and then art, music, garden and then buying the land that we're
on, which is state of Californiaand walking a Rambula.
State Assembly member walking a Rambula allocated $1,000,000 out
(28:02):
of the California State budget for us to buy the piece of land
that we're on right now. So it was, and then buy the
place and then build a new building, which we're literally
a few weeks, weeks away from, like the beginning of that.
Now we're at the final end of our permitting phase.
I needed to raise 1.3 million. I'm like 900 and something into
(28:23):
it. And so like, we're almost,
almost, almost almost there. Yeah, yeah.
And so this place where we're atright now is a Ethiopian church.
It was owned by an Ethiopian church.
We've totally outgrown this space here.
We know that we need a much larger space to meet up for our
community. And we need a kitchen that will
help us scale the meals that we do daily.
(28:45):
Right. And so one of the most beautiful
things about this Kitchen 1 is that like it's day near
restaurant almost commercial space 2 is that our kids, our
young people from the community will be helping us to create the
meals there. From the outside looking in,
(29:05):
from the inside looking out, thenotes that they're taking, the
measurements that they're writing down, the ingredient
list that goes into the the journals or the books that
they're writing is a cookbook that they will take home.
We know that there's two very different groups of young people
that come here. For some of them, their parents
are involved in sex work or drugactivity in the neighborhood.
(29:26):
For a much larger percentage of the young people here, their
families are migrant farm workers.
So they as well might not see mom and dad for a few days at a
time while they're up working Salinas, Watsonville, Gilroy in
the fields. And so making sure that they
have a cookbook, right, so that they can support their siblings
(29:47):
that wasn't handed to them, theyliterally helped to write the
thing, gives them so much ownership in it.
Richard, we've, we've had a, we've talked with a couple of
folks in this series who are involved with campuses.
There's someone who's working with HB CU campuses.
There's the Marygrove campus in the middle of Detroit.
It sounds to me like with all ofthese buildings and all of
(30:09):
these, all of these physical spaces going on, that that you
all have something of a campus there.
Can you just Orient me, give me the map of sort of what are all
of the places that make this up?Absolutely.
So 1145 W Hedges. This is our headquarters.
This is this is where a lot of the magic happens at.
I love this space because we arein the neighborhood, but not of
(30:33):
the neighborhood. Parkway Drive and all of the
beautiful and wild stuff that exists there is right across the
street, like just down across the intersection.
We are at the end of a cul-de-sac, which creates a
space where whatever happens here, like folks from the
neighborhood who may be a threat, that threat isn't seen
(30:56):
here or felt here. Because when you are here, you
feel like you're literally in a different place.
The new building that will be built here is just to the South
of this building. So again, this was a building
that was owned by an Ethiopian church.
This space will be strictly admin.
(31:16):
We're undergoing A remodeling here in this building.
And to add to that, we also havesmaller satellite size
throughout the community. So there are large, 2 very large
mobile home parks that house a huge Wahaka population.
And so we utilize their community spaces there.
(31:38):
They call them clubhouses, clubhouses at those places.
And we've also created jobs for folks from there, one as a way
to say like we totally value your input.
We want you at the table with us.
And then also the language barrier that exists, right?
Most folks from Oaxaca, they mayunderstand Spanish, but they
speak Mishteko, one of the two, one of the higher low dialects.
(32:02):
And so making sure that we have folks on our team they can like
clearly and concisely like translate what it is that we're
trying to say is super important.
And lastly, because we have likea very beautiful zoo house in an
amazing park just across the street here that is our third
(32:23):
satellite site. So every Thursday from the hours
of three to six, the Zoo, Chaffee Zoo, shuts it down to
public and opens it up just to our young people from the
community. They've given us an education
space there and a green space which we share in meals there,
help with homework, and then they're amazing staff helps our
young people learn about the different exhibits that exist
(32:45):
there. How to care for what goes into
it is amazing. That's fantastic.
And I even let your you've done it again.
I love that you don't see a deadend.
You see a cul-de-sac. So I just, I love everything
about the way you roll. I totally love it, but there are
two things that really are striking to me about your work.
Which is. One, you're really doing
(33:06):
generational work, you're reallytalking about mothers and their
kids, and we're talking about a 20 year time horizon, not a 12
month one. And the other thing is that
you're really inviting people tosee multiple truths at the same
time, right? To see the sex workers and to
see the mothers, to see the the dad who's crying and to see the
(33:31):
systems that cause him to feel unsafe and to be unfed.
How do you reconcile? How do you deal with the tyranny
of time that's so much about philanthropy and nonprofits
tries to impose? That is such a challenging
question. I think, to be totally honest,
Kresge has been the first foundation, the first group of
(33:54):
people to actually give me a platform to string together
words. To try to sum that up, so often
in philanthropy you're given this one year, 2 year funding
cycle where you're expected to scale or franchise the work that
(34:15):
you're doing rather than cultivate and harvest
relationships. In my experience, it takes a
year to start to build a relationship.
It takes another year after thatto build trust.
It probably takes another year or two after that to organize
people around an idea and maybe another year to like activate
(34:39):
them around that idea. And so to expect actual change
in a one to two year funding cycle is challenging.
Unless unless the goal is to franchise and just have a bunch
of flags planted in a place to cultivate.
Actual change takes time. Yeah.
(35:00):
How can I move on and scale whenwe haven't finished with those
forty children yet, right? The work is still there.
They're still growing. This was the question that was
asked by a Kreski board member. I'm short of millions of dollars
falling on your head today, Richard.
What is your plan for scaling and sustainability?
Jamie, I started sweating because I said this is my answer
(35:24):
with respect to my colleagues here on this panel.
We all need money like we need money to do what we do.
But scaling to to us as an organization doesn't look like
bigger, shiny, brighter. It doesn't look like
franchising. It looks like deepening
relationships. It looks like that that's that's
(35:45):
scaling the work in a way that promotes health and healing and
sustainability has to do with more relationship than it has to
do with revenue. It has to.
I've watched cities just like the city of Fresno go through
huge budget deficits and shut down community centers at at
(36:06):
city parks that feed children who don't have access to food.
Like they shut those down. The CB OS and nonprofits around
those community centers and around those parks stepped up,
had those centers open and they implemented curriculum,
resources, art, music, gardening, right.
Because of the relationships that existed within that
(36:30):
community. The resources continue to keep
growing and thriving. If we focus more on the
relationship part and stop focuson like who else is competing
for this grant, right? If we focused a lot more on the
relationship building, that's long term scalable, right?
(36:54):
Healing that actually happens. That is needed if we're going to
address what's going on in the community.
Look at the symptoms, of course,right?
Identify what the symptoms are, but let's start to like move
towards what is causing this or what has caused this in the past
so that we can work towards healing as a community, as us.
(37:19):
Yeah, Well, Richard, I, there's a, there's a another person in
the Kresge orbit called Mindy Foleylove who's done some.
Really amazing work around collective recovery, around root
shock, around the kind of analysis.
And I'd love to sort of bring her into conversation with you,
(37:40):
ideally over tacos on the Strip,listening to some music,
walking, walking along Parkway Drive, getting another Jane
Addams neighborhood. But before we adjourn so we can
do that, I want to close with just a lightning round of
questions. Just a different mood, a
different part of your brain. I'm just going to sort of rapid
(38:01):
fire ten of these things for you.
So, Richard, if you and I went to karaoke tonight, what song
would you sing? Oh my gosh, I was just singing
this the other day. I don't know the name to it.
Making my way downtown, something something.
I was just singing that the other day.
I love that. When you wake up in the morning,
(38:21):
coffee, tea, or something else? Coffee for.
Sure, awesome. What's the best thing about
being a girl dad? My gosh, there's so many things
I wouldn't even know where to start.
I don't Waking up to breakfast on Sunday mornings that they
(38:42):
made getting I love you text throughout the day and
throughout the week. Being able to drop my beautiful
children off in the morning time.
The way that it leaves my cars, my truck smelling like all their
different perfumes and whatever else going on.
Yeah, I love it. I love that this may be the
easiest question asked today. Who's going to win the next
(39:03):
Super Bowl? 49ers?
What's the first book you remember reading?
First book I remember reading was a Father Richard Rohr book
called Breathing Underwater. I I still subscribe to the I
read every day the Center for Action and Contemplation.
Yes, amazing. Father Rohr, So thank you for
(39:27):
that. Who's who's someone who broke a
path that allowed you to become the man you are today?
Who's a path breaker? Who made way for you?
Richard Allen Berry Rick Berry. He is an incredibly passionate,
talented, gifted man. He is an incredibly great model
(39:48):
for how a husband should be. Exemplary father, great
community member and mentor. I love him.
If we walk down to your office right now, what tabs would be
open on your computer? None.
Absolutely none. That's the safest.
Way what? What's your favorite recipe they
(40:11):
make in the kitchen? Peanut butter cookies.
Peanut butter cookies. If you could travel anywhere in
the world, where would you go tomorrow?
Back to Montana. And finally, if you could write
an official motto for Fresno, what would you make the motto of
the city of Fresno? We love hard.
(40:40):
Richard, I can't thank you for taking time away from everyone
to have this conversation today.Tracy is going to be so mad that
this is the one she had to miss.And I just, I really do look
forward to picking up this conversation, hopefully in
Fresno over tacos. So just, Richard, thank you so
much for taking the time today. Thank you.
It's been an honor. Richard Burrell is the founder
(41:05):
and executive director of Live Again Fresno.
We've put links to Live Again Fresno, as well as the Motel
Drive documentary that we spoke about in the show notes.
Path Breakers is produced by theKresge Foundation, which was
founded in 1924 with a mission to promote human progress.
Today, Kresge works to expand equity and opportunity in
(41:26):
America's cities. Read the stories of all of this
season's Path Breakers and learnabout our grant making and
social investing work in Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans,
Fresno, and cities across the USat kresge.org.
To hear more stories from the Path Breakers, be sure to
subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
(41:47):
Our producers are Juliet Hindleyand Zach Rosen.
Managing editor is Krista Yankee.
Our show art is by Rochelle Baker and Creative direction by
Alejandro Herrera. Special thanks on this episode
to audio engineer Keith Little for the tape sink in Fresno, and
special thank you also to my colleagues on the American
Cities and health programs for lifting up Richard and speaking
(42:10):
his name as a truly phenomenal path breaker.
We'll talk to you all next week.
To the average passer by, Parkway Drive in Fresno, CA
might look like a bunch of motels clustered on a service
Rd. by the freeway. But to an entire community of
children and families, that cluster of motels is a
neighborhood, and the rooms in those buildings are their homes.
I tend to have this very optimistic, very colorful lens
(00:26):
in which I see this community because I love it so deeply and
I walk it regularly. That was Richard Burrell and the
community, this community that he loves so deeply is one that
he knows very well because it's where he spent many years of his
own childhood. And that history there gives him
the ability to see that neighborhood through two sets of
(00:46):
eyes if we were visiting him now.
I would be walking you to some of the best tacos, Taco places,
restaurants that exist in Fresno.
What other folks would see is the gang culture that exists
here. What I would be describing to
you are mothers who are doing their absolute best to take care
(01:09):
of their children. What most folks see is sex
workers. Parkway Drive has seen decades
of disinvestment and you can seethe results of that every day.
And and to be totally like just blunt and clear.
Parkway Drive is an active crimescene, non star.
There is always something going on there.
(01:29):
Always. Still today.
Yeah, I just came from there. Yes, still today, like right
now. I've lived on and in the motels
along Parkway Drive through various part parts of my life
right as a child, as an adult dealing with some unresolved
trauma, and for the last 12 to 13 years as an adult who is
(01:55):
facilitating conversations that as as a community, will help us
heal. These conversations that Richard
is referring to and a lot of other high impact youth
programming all happened under the umbrella of a nonprofit
Community Center Richard startedin 2012 called Live Again
Fresno. I refer to this as a sacred
(02:15):
space in the middle of a neighborhood that doesn't hold
much sacred. Now, Richard is building off of
his long history in Fresno to help reshape its future.
Welcome to Path Breakers, a showabout what it takes to cut
through the noise and red tape and all of the other obstacles
to progress. I'm Tracy Pearson and I work on
the communications team with theKresge Foundation.
(02:37):
And I'm Jamie Bennett. I work at the intersection of
arts, culture, and equitable community development.
On each episode, we talk with a different path breaker who's
forging new ways forward in their community.
On this episode, Jamie is talking to Richard Burrell about
making physical and emotional space for the generational work
of Deep Healing. Yep, as you may have guessed
(02:59):
from the way Tracy phrase that, I got to host this one solo
while Tracy was off on a well deserved break.
Richard, it is great to be with you today.
As we kick off, would you just mind introducing yourself?
Give us your name. Tell us your title, your
affiliations, and where you're calling in from today.
(03:20):
Absolutely. Thank you.
My name is Richard Burrell. I'm the Executive director and
founder of Living in Fresno. We're calling in from the dead
center of Fresno, Parkside Jane Addams neighborhood.
I, you know, I feel a little guilty admitting this, but I've
never been to Fresno. But just, you know, for folks
that are like me who haven't visited, tell me just a little
(03:43):
bit about Fresno. What, what is this place?
What is there? First of all, we are dead center
middle of California could not get any more central in the
Central Valley than Fresno. Fresno has a very rich and
unique history to it, whether you're looking at it through the
Native American perspective or or the farmers and multiple
(04:07):
immigrant immigrant groups that have come here and contributed
to the culture that exists. Or on a smaller scale, the
specific neighborhood that living in Fresno operates out of
and partners with folks in. We are in the Parkside Jane
Addams neighborhood. This neighborhood was
established in the early 50s andbefore the creation of
(04:30):
Interstate 5, like, this was a place where, like, Nat King
Cole, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones, Elvis Presley, like, they all were here in this place
less than half a mile away from where I'm at right now, at this
place called the Hacienda. That culture that existed
created this, like, very rich and vibrant community.
(04:53):
Yeah. It also was the beginning of
this sex, drugs, rock'n'roll thing happening in Fresno.
Once airline travel got more efficient and the Interstate 5
was created, the rock'n'roll left and the sex and drugs
stayed here. Wow.
And is that history? And like if I wanted to learn
(05:14):
more about that history, is there a book?
A documentary? I am so glad that you asked that
question. It took a lot of discipline for
me to not mention this documentary.
It's called Motel Drive in that that that film is 8 years of our
work here in this community, working with this neighborhood.
It also this film is important because it shows one family, a
(05:38):
husband, a wife and his son who lived almost their entire life
here in the motels on Parkway Drive.
It is intense. It is a very hard to watch film
that does a phenomenal job at capturing what real life is like
through the eyes of one family and and highlighting the
importance of place to base organizations and leadership who
(06:02):
stays in close proximity to to their community members.
How did? You arrive on Parkway Drive.
Did you grow up in Fresno? I was actually born in the Bay
Area. I was born in the foster care
system to a mother who was only 15 years old.
My mom's foster mother at that time had learned that my mother
(06:24):
was pregnant from an Indigenous man and kicked her out.
So we went from home to home to home to battered women's shelter
to battered women's shelter all over the Bay Area.
I had a really hard time at one point in my life, just endured a
lot of abuse, and then I got shipped off to Montana to go
live with my grandfather. That was probably the most
(06:48):
beautiful time in my in my childhood that I could remember,
and it taught me a lot of the core values that I hold on to
today as far as being present and emotionally available.
When my mom had sent back for meto come back to California, this
is where she brought me to. To Fresno.
This is to Parkway Drive to Motel Drive where I'm at today.
(07:09):
And so I didn't know any different as a kid.
Drug addiction knows no prejudice nor does poverty,
Right. So like everyone is kind of in
the same boat and it didn't matter what race, ethnicity,
color you were, we were all juststruggling.
And so as far as I was concernedas a little kid, I lived in an
apartment complex where all these different things happened,
(07:31):
right? And it was normal.
Then there became a time in my adult life we had moved away and
obviously life goes on. There was a time in my adult
life when I had this inner struggle, had spent 20 years
raised up in gang culture and 100% not just identified, but
(07:51):
like believed in the cause. And then I started having kids
and I wanted to be a father. But to me, this was this like
magical, mythical thing that I had heard about and not seeing
movies, but it didn't exist in my neighborhood.
It, it didn't exist anywhere in my life.
(08:12):
I wanted to be that thing. I just didn't have the tools or
the vehicle to get me there. And so I knew that not like I
couldn't carry a firearm or be an active gang member and be a
father at the same time. It was ACC to a counselor in
prison who actually, like, taught me this lesson.
I was a very big man. He was a very relatively small
(08:36):
man. And he scared the shit out of
me, to be honest. I sat down, cuffed up.
He asked me my name and what I did.
I said my name is Richard Burrell.
It's in your file. I'm a father.
And he slammed his file shut so hard that it made me jump.
And he started tearing up and said you cannot be.
(08:58):
You cannot be. Your children are at home and
you are here. You cannot be a father.
A father, Richard, is a highest title a man can carry.
You are not that. You may be at some point today,
you are not. And I cried, I'm in a level 4
(09:18):
prison getting ready to get shipped to another maximum
security prison. And that man's words stung.
They were true. They stung so bad.
And when I was being escorted back to my cell, like I held on
to that was like, man, I want tobe a father, though.
And so when I was paroled from prison, I didn't know, like,
(09:40):
where does a father start? What?
What do I do? And so I started seeking out
like mentors and, and folks in the community who I could see
that they were doing a good job at being a dad.
And I started asking them questions and spending time with
them. But during that challenge, the
(10:01):
inner conflict of like identifying as a member of this
specific gang for so long and wanting to be this thing that I
had no idea what it was, createda bunch of inner conflict that I
just started self medicating anddrinking.
And so that there was a period of my life, probably about a
year, where I came back to the motels and I lived there and
(10:24):
then was able to find some help and, and get myself on my feet
and figure out how to move forward to learn about emotional
intelligence and to actually like take the steps towards
becoming a father. Then in 2009, I went and sat on
a mountain. It sounds crazy, but I sat on a
mountain for a few months just seeking out, calling out to
(10:46):
creator, calling out to God, saying like, I I want to do
better. How where right, Like what do I
do? I had this very beautiful
mountaintop experience that's probably a whole nother podcast.
And then I came back home to Fresno and I understood exactly
what I was supposed to do. I didn't know anything about
(11:08):
A5O1C3 nonprofit CBO, like that was all a foreign language to
me. What I did know is that there
were forty children who are living out of motel that had
these huge, huge challenges in front of them.
And so I decided that I would take, I worked at this glass
plant called PPG that I would take a portion of my work check
(11:29):
and I would invest it in the lives of those children.
And so we started an after school lunch program there and
then an art program and then a music program in the middle of
all the things. The Parkway Drive is federal law
enforcement is on the scene off in Fresno Police Department is
on the scene off all day. And I've heard local leadership
(11:52):
from law enforcement say there'sno way to stop it.
Once they take folks out of leadership, it's a vacuum,
right? It's just the next folks that
are willing to rise up and take over that spot.
And so it's very challenging. And Richard, for folks that sort
of aren't familiar with what today is an organization, your
work, just take us a step back. What why are 40 children living
(12:15):
in a motel? Just talk to us a little bit
about those motels and, and whatthe community is that's there.
Yeah. So I can talk about what was,
what isn't, what will be. So what was what was was
absentee owners who owned the motels along Motel Drive but
didn't live here. So for the Fresno Inn, which
(12:37):
doesn't exist anymore, it's the southbound on Rapid Clinton in
99. Now, the folks who own that were
a plastic surgeon, a tax attorney and some other wealthy
man who lived in Lai only know this because I tried to track
them down to talk to them about things that were going on there,
right? So for the most part, it was
folks who didn't live here didn't have any interest at all.
(12:58):
And what was happening, it was in some cases revenue for them
and others a tax write off because the business was failing
and falling apart, right. But on a much smaller scale and
and dealing with real life, these were some of the most
corrupt and inhabitable places where families actually lived
(13:23):
for very long periods of time. So in these motels, which are
depicted in the film Motel Drive, you have families who
lived in, I mean, just utter chaos and squalor.
There was literally raw sewage that poured out into parking
lots where children played at. And it took me about a year to
(13:46):
get to a place where the motherswho lived there trusted that I
wasn't a social worker or undercover police officer to
where I finally, like, cultivated a relationship to
ask, hey, why do the kids play where the raw sewage is pouring
out? Mary's response was, where else
are they supposed to play? There's 27 high level sex
(14:07):
offenders registered to 90s who lived there.
Of course, we're going to let them play here.
So it made more sense for the moms to like, let their kids
play where this entire 4 units of raw sewage poured out into a
parking lot, in their words. And they would prefer to do that
instead of dangle their childrenin front of the windows of these
(14:31):
known sex offenders. It was the harsh reality of that
place. Folks were not supposed to live
there under the conditional use permits for longer than 28 days.
The average stay for families inthe motels along Parkway Drive
was three to five years. That was on average.
Some stayed there, as many as 7 to 9, very challenging.
(14:56):
That is what was what is happening today is you have
Fresno Housing and the city of Fresno making substantial
investments in improving the waythat the entire landscape along
Parkway Drive looks like. So they've bought the motels,
they have renovated a handful ofthem.
(15:18):
Fresno Housing is just completed, the second brand new
low income sustainable long termhousing apartment complex on
Parkway Drive. So you have Promesa, which is
already full Manzanita, which isleasing up and will be open in
June. Yeah, it's, it's, it's
incredible to work and partner, work in and partner with this
(15:43):
community for as long as I have and see this much change come in
just the past three years. Listening to you talk about this
and listening to talk about the work, I'm remembering a a sermon
that a pastor gave who sort of said all you can do is the next
right thing, right? And we've been talking in the
(16:06):
series with a bunch of folks wholead organizations and lead
programs and have sequenced and scaffolded programming.
And you have outcomes and theories of change.
And it seems like you sort of came into this community,
joined, rejoined this community and said, let's going to do the
next right thing. And how do you sort of go from
(16:29):
looking at that thing in front of you that you need to do and
turning it into this sort of structured program, this
organization getting national funding from the Kresge
Foundation? How do you go from that sort of
spontaneous be with the person and turn something into
something that exists in that language of CB OS and nonprofits
(16:49):
and all of that nonsense? Yeah, so that's a great
question. It's making me smile right now
because initially I got told, I mean, for years that I was doing
everything wrong and I was doingit backwards because the model
that existed, which I didn't have this great education,
right, Like this huge education behind me.
So I didn't know about it, but the model that existed was you
(17:12):
find the funding, right? You create your 5O1C3, you find
the funding, you get your staff,you get your building and then
you connect to the people. Why did it backwards?
I connected to the people with the people for over 2 years
paying everything out of my own pocket and then created the five
O 1C3 and then found the fundingand then created jobs for the
(17:34):
people from the community right again, our bodies heal just like
our communities from the inside out.
So to speak to a community and say I see you, I love you, we
eat, shop everything in the sameplace and then go hire folks
from some other place to come facilitate the healing made
(17:54):
absolutely no sense to me. Yeah, it's I can't.
I mean, the thing, maybe the themost painful thing that I've
heard you share today is that people thought that starting
with people was backwards and that, you know, anytime you
start with a pile of money looking for a problem to solve,
you've already gone wrong. I, I believe so and, and so like
(18:17):
just to double down on that, we have monthly community meetings
here. And if you didn't know any
better, you would think it was just a party.
Very loud music, excellent food,very diverse crowd from all over
the community gathering right? And we sit and we eat and we
play Lotteria and bingo. We have fun games and, and our
(18:40):
team and some other folks are are in the crowd in the
community that we walk alongsidewith.
And they're asking questions while we're sitting down at
family style cookout style mealsto figure out what is the next
right thing that we need to do? Is it getting a school bus stop
moved? Is it crosswalks?
(19:00):
Is it advocating for sidewalks? Is it addressing air pollution
because of the significantly higher percentage of kids in
this neighborhood who suffer from chronic asthma, right?
What is the next right thing forus to do?
And as a community, that voice is elevated and we walk forward
in that. There's AI have a a sort of
(19:23):
community organizer elder that I've learned a lot from who said
that the only three things you need to organize any community
are music, food in children. And it sounds like, you know,
Parkside Jane Addams has the three of those in spades.
So it's going to do just fine. You, you've said a couple of
times you've talked about healing and the need to heal
(19:44):
from the inside out, and you talked about the issue of trust.
And how do I know that you're actually here to help me in the
way I need to be helped and not to take my kids away and not to,
you know, kick me out, not to dothese other things.
There's so much trauma and so many different kinds of trauma
(20:06):
that folks that you work with have been experiencing.
How do you deal with that sort of trauma as you think about the
next right thing, as you think about building the programming,
as you think about developing this campus?
Yeah, We actually have a room here that's called the Refocus
Room. It's a small office.
It has like sensory toys and andjournals and coloring books.
(20:30):
And what I've learned is that when we are given the
opportunity to enter a space that is safe and we give
ourselves permission to feel safe, repressed or unprocessed,
traumas will come up. And so that room serves a very
(20:50):
specific purpose for our young people here who come here and
they're able to have some quiet time for.
So for a child who had been living in a motel three to five
years at a time, like there is no privacy there.
So the luxury of having a quiet room to yourself is huge.
And so that young person being able to access a room with a
(21:12):
comfortable chair to themselves is disarming in itself.
And then we have staff who comesin and sits and talks with them,
helps them work through some of the stuff, the hardship,
identify whatever the challenge is to the challenge could be.
I haven't seen my mom in two days.
I haven't eaten in the last day because I haven't been at
school, whatever The thing is. And and to be quite honest, like
(21:36):
more times than not, a young person will enter that room
because they've disrespected somebody here on staff, cussed
at them or just done something super offensive.
And so it's their choice to enter that room, which then
after a 5, seven minute time by themselves, two adults like
staff will go in there and sit and work through a script to
(21:58):
help them figure out what's wrong.
We help the young person to identify exactly what the
challenge is, right? So it's identify it, deconstruct
it. What are our options towards
healing that? Like, what are the avenues
reconstruction. Then the most important part is
reintroduction to tribe or reintroduction to family.
(22:20):
And what that looks like is Little Richard apologizing to
Miss Janessa, our program manager, who I may have cussed
out or whatever, Right. And so for our young men here,
that's a, that is super important.
The context and the language forwhich they view and speak to
(22:40):
women that's modeled here in thecommunity is very vulgar, very
disrespectful. The assignment or the what's
being asked of the young man is did you hurt anyone by your
Lang, by your words or your actions here today?
Yes, so they take accountability.
(23:00):
I said whatever it was to Miss Janessa.
Do you want to heal that? Yes.
My bad. Does not cut it.
I apologize. Not even close.
The language that we suggest to them is Miss Janessa, I said
(23:22):
this thing that was offensive and disrespectful.
When you're ready, will you please accept my apology?
I have not yet seen one young person, male or female, work
through that entire phrase. They get as far as I am sorry
for what I did when you are ready, and then they break into
(23:43):
tears. The vulnerability that that
comes in that moment of saying I, I love you and I know I did
something to hurt you. I'm accepting accountability for
it. When you're ready, will you
please accept? Like they can't get there.
It's usually just like drowned out by tears and don't want to
(24:04):
be nurtured. This is how we heal.
So it wasn't necessarily on the staff member or on our team to
like address that or to carry that.
It was to help facilitate a conversation to figure out like
what the actual cause to this thing was and then leave it on
the individual to say like, yes,I'm choosing to accept
(24:25):
accountability and I want to walk towards healing.
I want this relationship. I want reciprocity.
I want like to know when to be known.
And I know that I can't do that by pushing everyone away from
me. And so we understand as adults
who have endured healing and done some of the inner work,
right, that like those moments can be very intense for the
(24:50):
person because like the vulnerability and the fear of
rejection and, and all of that, right?
Like we need to just be as open and as comforting as we possibly
can. Understand this is probably
something that's very new to this person.
Richard I I'm sure there's a better someone has said it in a
(25:10):
better way, but you know, my experience is that often times
the only way through is through and you got to do it.
You got to do the work and you got to get through all the steps
and you know, there aren't shortcuts and there isn't going
around. Talk to me about your
organization. How many people does it take to
make sure kids got lunch, got a place to like, you know, you
(25:32):
must be a gazillion dollar thousands of people entity doing
all of this work. That's the dream.
Yeah, right. My favorite Bob Marley quote.
I won't even get into that. There's a quote where Bob Marley
talks about, like, numbers. This man asked him about him
being wealthy and being rich. And Bob Marley says you you're
talking about numbers. Numbers never end, which means
(25:53):
you're forever chasing them, right?
I am wealthy because of my relationships.
And so I can start like at the relationships that are the
closest to me. It would be our staff, our team
here, which is comprised mostly of moms from the community.
There are 12 folks who are on staff here who do an an amazing,
(26:13):
I mean incredibly amazing job from art, music, social,
emotional groups, all the curriculum that's taught here,
meals that are cooked every day by us.
They do an amazing job, including transportation.
We have drivers who go to the neighborhood, pick up kids and
bring them here just to make sure that they're safe, that
they're never risking exchangingtheir personal safety for a hot
(26:38):
meal or to connect with a mentoror tutor, right?
We make sure that we pick them up for free, they're here for
the duration of program, and then we take them back home.
And then we have our community members, the moms, grandmothers,
and fathers from this community who show up and actively support
everything that we do here. We understand that it literally
takes a village. And so the village is showing
(26:59):
up. The village knows that they are
seeing, they are heard, they areknown and they are always
welcome here. I have an incredible board for
the for a living in Fresno. The board very active in
everything that we do. And then we have folks like
Kresge and, and some of our other community partners here,
(27:19):
including the Central Valley Community Foundation that do an
amazing job at making sure that there are resources made
available so that we can can continue to do the work that we
do. That's amazing.
And you talked about a lot of construction that's happening.
So talk to talk to me a little bit about the construction,
what's what's going on, what's being built.
(27:40):
So the goal was creating the organization and then creating
the space and then creating jobsfor people from the community
and then art, music, garden and then buying the land that we're
on, which is state of Californiaand walking a Rambula.
State Assembly member walking a Rambula allocated $1,000,000 out
(28:02):
of the California State budget for us to buy the piece of land
that we're on right now. So it was, and then buy the
place and then build a new building, which we're literally
a few weeks, weeks away from, like the beginning of that.
Now we're at the final end of our permitting phase.
I needed to raise 1.3 million. I'm like 900 and something into
(28:23):
it. And so like, we're almost,
almost, almost almost there. Yeah, yeah.
And so this place where we're atright now is a Ethiopian church.
It was owned by an Ethiopian church.
We've totally outgrown this space here.
We know that we need a much larger space to meet up for our
community. And we need a kitchen that will
help us scale the meals that we do daily.
(28:45):
Right. And so one of the most beautiful
things about this Kitchen 1 is that like it's day near
restaurant almost commercial space 2 is that our kids, our
young people from the community will be helping us to create the
meals there. From the outside looking in,
(29:05):
from the inside looking out, thenotes that they're taking, the
measurements that they're writing down, the ingredient
list that goes into the the journals or the books that
they're writing is a cookbook that they will take home.
We know that there's two very different groups of young people
that come here. For some of them, their parents
are involved in sex work or drugactivity in the neighborhood.
(29:26):
For a much larger percentage of the young people here, their
families are migrant farm workers.
So they as well might not see mom and dad for a few days at a
time while they're up working Salinas, Watsonville, Gilroy in
the fields. And so making sure that they
have a cookbook, right, so that they can support their siblings
(29:47):
that wasn't handed to them, theyliterally helped to write the
thing, gives them so much ownership in it.
Richard, we've, we've had a, we've talked with a couple of
folks in this series who are involved with campuses.
There's someone who's working with HB CU campuses.
There's the Marygrove campus in the middle of Detroit.
It sounds to me like with all ofthese buildings and all of
(30:09):
these, all of these physical spaces going on, that that you
all have something of a campus there.
Can you just Orient me, give me the map of sort of what are all
of the places that make this up?Absolutely.
So 1145 W Hedges. This is our headquarters.
This is this is where a lot of the magic happens at.
I love this space because we arein the neighborhood, but not of
(30:33):
the neighborhood. Parkway Drive and all of the
beautiful and wild stuff that exists there is right across the
street, like just down across the intersection.
We are at the end of a cul-de-sac, which creates a
space where whatever happens here, like folks from the
neighborhood who may be a threat, that threat isn't seen
(30:56):
here or felt here. Because when you are here, you
feel like you're literally in a different place.
The new building that will be built here is just to the South
of this building. So again, this was a building
that was owned by an Ethiopian church.
This space will be strictly admin.
(31:16):
We're undergoing A remodeling here in this building.
And to add to that, we also havesmaller satellite size
throughout the community. So there are large, 2 very large
mobile home parks that house a huge Wahaka population.
And so we utilize their community spaces there.
(31:38):
They call them clubhouses, clubhouses at those places.
And we've also created jobs for folks from there, one as a way
to say like we totally value your input.
We want you at the table with us.
And then also the language barrier that exists, right?
Most folks from Oaxaca, they mayunderstand Spanish, but they
speak Mishteko, one of the two, one of the higher low dialects.
(32:02):
And so making sure that we have folks on our team they can like
clearly and concisely like translate what it is that we're
trying to say is super important.
And lastly, because we have likea very beautiful zoo house in an
amazing park just across the street here that is our third
(32:23):
satellite site. So every Thursday from the hours
of three to six, the Zoo, Chaffee Zoo, shuts it down to
public and opens it up just to our young people from the
community. They've given us an education
space there and a green space which we share in meals there,
help with homework, and then they're amazing staff helps our
young people learn about the different exhibits that exist
(32:45):
there. How to care for what goes into
it is amazing. That's fantastic.
And I even let your you've done it again.
I love that you don't see a deadend.
You see a cul-de-sac. So I just, I love everything
about the way you roll. I totally love it, but there are
two things that really are striking to me about your work.
Which is. One, you're really doing
(33:06):
generational work, you're reallytalking about mothers and their
kids, and we're talking about a 20 year time horizon, not a 12
month one. And the other thing is that
you're really inviting people tosee multiple truths at the same
time, right? To see the sex workers and to
see the mothers, to see the the dad who's crying and to see the
(33:31):
systems that cause him to feel unsafe and to be unfed.
How do you reconcile? How do you deal with the tyranny
of time that's so much about philanthropy and nonprofits
tries to impose? That is such a challenging
question. I think, to be totally honest,
Kresge has been the first foundation, the first group of
(33:54):
people to actually give me a platform to string together
words. To try to sum that up, so often
in philanthropy you're given this one year, 2 year funding
cycle where you're expected to scale or franchise the work that
(34:15):
you're doing rather than cultivate and harvest
relationships. In my experience, it takes a
year to start to build a relationship.
It takes another year after thatto build trust.
It probably takes another year or two after that to organize
people around an idea and maybe another year to like activate
(34:39):
them around that idea. And so to expect actual change
in a one to two year funding cycle is challenging.
Unless unless the goal is to franchise and just have a bunch
of flags planted in a place to cultivate.
Actual change takes time. Yeah.
(35:00):
How can I move on and scale whenwe haven't finished with those
forty children yet, right? The work is still there.
They're still growing. This was the question that was
asked by a Kreski board member. I'm short of millions of dollars
falling on your head today, Richard.
What is your plan for scaling and sustainability?
Jamie, I started sweating because I said this is my answer
(35:24):
with respect to my colleagues here on this panel.
We all need money like we need money to do what we do.
But scaling to to us as an organization doesn't look like
bigger, shiny, brighter. It doesn't look like
franchising. It looks like deepening
relationships. It looks like that that's that's
(35:45):
scaling the work in a way that promotes health and healing and
sustainability has to do with more relationship than it has to
do with revenue. It has to.
I've watched cities just like the city of Fresno go through
huge budget deficits and shut down community centers at at
(36:06):
city parks that feed children who don't have access to food.
Like they shut those down. The CB OS and nonprofits around
those community centers and around those parks stepped up,
had those centers open and they implemented curriculum,
resources, art, music, gardening, right.
Because of the relationships that existed within that
(36:30):
community. The resources continue to keep
growing and thriving. If we focus more on the
relationship part and stop focuson like who else is competing
for this grant, right? If we focused a lot more on the
relationship building, that's long term scalable, right?
(36:54):
Healing that actually happens. That is needed if we're going to
address what's going on in the community.
Look at the symptoms, of course,right?
Identify what the symptoms are, but let's start to like move
towards what is causing this or what has caused this in the past
so that we can work towards healing as a community, as us.
(37:19):
Yeah, Well, Richard, I, there's a, there's a another person in
the Kresge orbit called Mindy Foleylove who's done some.
Really amazing work around collective recovery, around root
shock, around the kind of analysis.
And I'd love to sort of bring her into conversation with you,
(37:40):
ideally over tacos on the Strip,listening to some music,
walking, walking along Parkway Drive, getting another Jane
Addams neighborhood. But before we adjourn so we can
do that, I want to close with just a lightning round of
questions. Just a different mood, a
different part of your brain. I'm just going to sort of rapid
(38:01):
fire ten of these things for you.
So, Richard, if you and I went to karaoke tonight, what song
would you sing? Oh my gosh, I was just singing
this the other day. I don't know the name to it.
Making my way downtown, something something.
I was just singing that the other day.
I love that. When you wake up in the morning,
(38:21):
coffee, tea, or something else? Coffee for.
Sure, awesome. What's the best thing about
being a girl dad? My gosh, there's so many things
I wouldn't even know where to start.
I don't Waking up to breakfast on Sunday mornings that they
(38:42):
made getting I love you text throughout the day and
throughout the week. Being able to drop my beautiful
children off in the morning time.
The way that it leaves my cars, my truck smelling like all their
different perfumes and whatever else going on.
Yeah, I love it. I love that this may be the
easiest question asked today. Who's going to win the next
(39:03):
Super Bowl? 49ers?
What's the first book you remember reading?
First book I remember reading was a Father Richard Rohr book
called Breathing Underwater. I I still subscribe to the I
read every day the Center for Action and Contemplation.
Yes, amazing. Father Rohr, So thank you for
(39:27):
that. Who's who's someone who broke a
path that allowed you to become the man you are today?
Who's a path breaker? Who made way for you?
Richard Allen Berry Rick Berry. He is an incredibly passionate,
talented, gifted man. He is an incredibly great model
(39:48):
for how a husband should be. Exemplary father, great
community member and mentor. I love him.
If we walk down to your office right now, what tabs would be
open on your computer? None.
Absolutely none. That's the safest.
Way what? What's your favorite recipe they
(40:11):
make in the kitchen? Peanut butter cookies.
Peanut butter cookies. If you could travel anywhere in
the world, where would you go tomorrow?
Back to Montana. And finally, if you could write
an official motto for Fresno, what would you make the motto of
the city of Fresno? We love hard.
(40:40):
Richard, I can't thank you for taking time away from everyone
to have this conversation today.Tracy is going to be so mad that
this is the one she had to miss.And I just, I really do look
forward to picking up this conversation, hopefully in
Fresno over tacos. So just, Richard, thank you so
much for taking the time today. Thank you.
It's been an honor. Richard Burrell is the founder
(41:05):
and executive director of Live Again Fresno.
We've put links to Live Again Fresno, as well as the Motel
Drive documentary that we spoke about in the show notes.
Path Breakers is produced by theKresge Foundation, which was
founded in 1924 with a mission to promote human progress.
Today, Kresge works to expand equity and opportunity in
(41:26):
America's cities. Read the stories of all of this
season's Path Breakers and learnabout our grant making and
social investing work in Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans,
Fresno, and cities across the USat kresge.org.
To hear more stories from the Path Breakers, be sure to
subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
(41:47):
Our producers are Juliet Hindleyand Zach Rosen.
Managing editor is Krista Yankee.
Our show art is by Rochelle Baker and Creative direction by
Alejandro Herrera. Special thanks on this episode
to audio engineer Keith Little for the tape sink in Fresno, and
special thank you also to my colleagues on the American
Cities and health programs for lifting up Richard and speaking
(42:10):
his name as a truly phenomenal path breaker.
We'll talk to you all next week.
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