Good Things from Lemonada

Welcome to Bright Spots - a new series from Lemonada that offers bite-sized stories of community impact that will leave you feeling inspired and hopeful about what is possible.

Today, we’re turning our attention to the foster care system. In Oklahoma, the Office of Family Representation ensures every parent dealing with a child welfare case has access to a strong legal defense. We talk to executive director Gwendolyn Clegg ab...

In a country that feels more divided than ever, there’s one thing almost everyone agrees on: our healthcare system is broken. From crushing medical debt to rural hospital closures, deep Medicaid cuts, and the growing burden of insurance denials, too many Americans are falling through the cracks.

In Uncared For, award-winning journalist SuChin Pak (Add to Cart, MTV News) investigates the personal and political forces behind ou...

North Carolina has one of the biggest rural populations in the country, but for a long time, the needs of rural North Carolinians were largely ignored – until Down Home North Carolina came along in 2017. Since then, the grassroots nonprofit has changed the conversation to center the needs of rural people. Host Maya Rupert talks to Down Home Co-Directors Dreama Caldwell and Todd Zimmer about what it takes to build multiracial ...

As the federal government has been making unprecedented funding cuts, many communities are facing more uncertainty and less support. In response, the Marguerite Casey Foundation is making a bold move: they’re distributing $130 million this year to organizations working for racial and economic justice. In this episode, Carmen Rojas, the foundation’s president and CEO, gets into the reasons behind the move, which organiza...

Gun violence in America is at a crisis point. It’s now the number one killer of kids and teens – a stat that should make us all pause. But instead of throwing up their hands, healthcare leaders, gun violence survivors, physicians, community members and faith leaders are doing something about it. In this episode, we’re diving into Northwell Health’s groundbreaking Gun Violence Prevention Forum, where they&rsq...

The rent is too damn high, housing quality standards are far too low, and Tara Raghuveer is doing something about it. Tara is director of Kansas City Tenants, a tenant union which organizes to ensure that everyone in KC has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home. In this powerful conversation with host Gloria Riviera, Tara explains how the union of more than 10,000 members is fighting against our country’s dysfunctiona...

Is it time to rethink how we do school? In 2022, over 2 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 left school without earning a high school diploma or GED. But what if we could change that by taking an innovative approach to education? In part three of our three-part series about helping young people thrive economically within safe communities, Allison Gerber (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) and Betsy Delgado (Goodwill Excel Ce...

Does the key to preventing gun violence lie within our own communities? In this episode, guests DeVone Boggan (Executive Director, Advance Peace) and Timmeka Perkins (Senior Associate, The Annie E. Casey Foundation) share the data about the power of credible messengers to transform neighborhood safety. In part two of our three-part series about helping young people thrive economically within safe communities, we are diving into dat...

What happens when an award-winning actress, producer, director, author, and activist uses her platform to shine a light on the criminal justice system? Kerry Washington's recent projects, UnPrisoned and Daughters, tell stories of incarceration, family separation, unification, and love that we rarely get to see. In our conversation, she explains how portraying a daughter navigating her father's return from prison transformed her und...

In Baltimore, young people are finding ways to create their own economic opportunities through entrepreneurship. Dr. Ron Williams (Coppin State University) and Sara Cooper (The Annie E. Casey Foundation) join us to dig into research about youth entrepreneurship in Baltimore and show how community collaborations  like the Baltimore-based Excellence in Entrepreneurial Learning (EXCEL) Research Project are creating pathways to su...

What does it mean to be smart on crime? Jeanne Woodford, former warden at San Quentin State prison, has been a longtime advocate for rehabilitation. In our conversation, she offers a new vision of what prisons could look like, from removing prison cells to providing opportunities for incarcerated people to garden, take college courses, and even play chess with correctional officers. 

Follow When it Cl...

In Illinois, like in other places affected by the War on Drugs, many people are feeling the impacts of incarceration and its negative, prohibitive effects on their futures. In this episode, Richard Wallace, founder of the organization Equity and Transformation (EAT), shares how guaranteed income has proven to be a transformative tool for this kind of systemic disruption. EAT is built on a reparations framework, providing direct cas...

What happens when we give someone a second chance? For Glenn Dahl, it led to Dave's Killer Bread, a family business success story that not only revolutionized bread, but also changed how companies think about second chance hiring. Glenn, the former CEO, opens up about taking a chance on his brother Dave after his release from prison, and continuing to take a groundbreaking approach to hiring people with criminal record...

The juvenile court system in Pierce County, Washington recognizes that most youth who get in trouble with the law can get back on track without incarceration. And they're more likely to thrive in their own communities than in detention. Kevin Williams, Manager of Probation Services for Pierce County Juvenile Court, and Steve Bishop, Associate Director for Probation and System Transformation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, talk wi...

What happens when the criminal justice system invests in education instead of punishment? Larry Miller is the Chairman of the Jordan Brand Advisory Board and played a pivotal role in the brand’s growth. Yet behind his success was a secret – at age 16, he was convicted of second degree murder, which he shares in his book, “Jump: My Secret Journey from the Streets to the Boardroom.” For Larry, it was education...

Steve Bishop used to be a youth probation officer. He wanted to help young people navigate out of a juvenile justice system he knew was flawed. Now, as the Associate Director for Probation and System Transformation at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Steve works to transform youth probation systems around the country – from one that punishes making mistakes in ways that leave young people worse off and neighborhoods less safe t...

How can art transform a life? For Clarence Maclin, the answer unfolded during his incarceration at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Through a program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts, he used theater as a way to process trauma onstage and off. Now starring in the A24 film "Sing Sing", Clarence tells us what it was like acting out his own story on the big screen. Plus, how a more compassionate justice system doesn...

A lot of us did some questionable things as teenagers, like drinking alcohol, doing drugs, and shoplifting. We’re likely not proud of these moments, but they happened, and we moved on. For some of us though, this normal adolescent boundary-testing can lead to involvement in the juvenile justice system, which is ripe with racial disparities and poor results. Nate Balis, Director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the An...

What’s it like to spend years in a state penitentiary and then make it big in Hollywood? What makes a death row warden become a leading voice in prison reform? How does a conservative Christian in the deep South decide we can’t incarcerate our way out of a drug crisis? For all of these people, they had a moment when their thinking about justice and safety changed. In this series, host Ana Zamora – founder of The J...