(upbeat music) - Next on, You Oughta Know.

Meet the creator behind handcrafted dolls designed to reaffirm people of color.

Plus, we'll check out an organization that's teaching Camden homeowners the skills to improve their homes and communities, and a delivery service dashes to help seniors facing food insecurity.

(upbeat music continues) Welcome to the show, I'm Shirley Min.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

The Share Food Program is getting a lot of attention for how it's meeting skyrocketing demand for senior food assistance.

The Philly Food Bank has partnered with online food ordering and delivery app, DoorDash, to get food where it's needed.

(suspenseful music) DoorDashers are lined up in the North Philly parking lot of Share Food Program, each waiting to pick up roughly 10 food boxes.

The 32 pound boxes are going to low-income seniors in Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Chester Counties as part of Share's Food for Seniors program.

The food bank runs the largest senior hunger relief program in all of Pennsylvania.

(box thudding) (upbeat music) - This program to us is so core to really to our DNA as an organization that ultimately, we're about access to nutritious food and eliminating any barriers to access.

It started, as you know, Share Food Program organizing volunteers to do in the first month about 800 home deliveries.

The month after that was a little over 1,000 and it kept growing.

Grew so large that we knew it was beyond what our capacity was within our volunteers.

So, we ended up bringing in a third party, DoorDash, to help us coordinate the delivery to all of those seniors.

They've been a huge and helpful partner for us in being able to scale that program up.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Shirley] Share sends out 4,500 food boxes with DoorDash a month, making the food bank the undisputed leader when it comes to DoorDash pickups.

More delivery orders than any store or restaurant in the world.

- And we're proud that we're doing across the country this groundbreaking work here in Philadelphia at Share Food Program.

But then there's a sadness that we have to do this work at all.

(somber music) - [Shirley] On this day, 1,000 boxes are marked for delivery.

The highest number of single-day deliveries the food bank has ever done.

(somber music continues) - [George] It's a 32-pound box of food, it's a heavy box of food.

A lot of the seniors that we serve might not be driving themselves.

They might be on public transportation.

This makes it so much easier for them to get access to the nutritious food that they need.

- [Shirley] Boxes packed by dedicated volunteers.

Share relies on their volunteers to stuff the food boxes with shelf stable foods like cereal, juice, and canned goods.

(somber music) (somber music continues) - [George] To come into a place like this to see community rally around the work that we're doing here gives you a lot of hope and inspiration for what we can as a society be able to do.

I hate that we have to do this work at all, but to see community come together in this way I think is really inspiring for all of us here at Share Food Program.

(somber music continues) - While DoorDash has a charitable arm, Share Food still has to fundraise to make sure it can feed its seniors on a monthly basis.

Okay, let's head to Merchantville, New Jersey now where there's a place that supports and empowers women to thrive and pursue their dreams through love, community, and faith.

- Wow stands for your reaction to listening to a woman's testimony.

The mission of the Wow Center is empowering real women with real stories to thrive, dream, believe, and pursue the impossible through love and community.

The Wow Center was built on a dream and it still is, and that we are here to serve women at large.

They are people with a story and their stories matter.

When you step foot into this center, whether it's for a service, a program, or an event or activity that we love you, we're here for you.

And we may not have that resource here, but we'll make sure that we provide you with a resource and that we're not going anywhere.

We are a faith-based organization.

So, everything that we do here comes from that place.

We're here to just walk alongside you.

Here we serve women through different programs, events and services.

We do craft events for our seniors.

We have Project Healthy Bones for them too, which is for seniors who are struggling or at risk of struggling with osteoporosis.

- For me, being a part of the Wow Center now, like it's really like a safe place where you can build your community and there's so much love.

I only give an intro at the beginning and then everyone goes off and they're all seated at tables in groups.

So, really they spend the whole time like just talking with each other, working through the craft.

Everyone's able to build community and relate to people and tell their stories, which is great.

(upbeat music) - It's just been a really, really nice place to meet up with people and I love doing crafts.

I find it very relaxing.

They're very, very welcoming here and just very hospitable.

- It's nice, because everybody have something to say different then we learn from each other.

- We also do cooking classes with the Food Bank of South Jersey.

We also have an entrepreneurship cohort, so that cohort goes for about 16 weeks and where we empower entrepreneurs to just kind of test their ideas out and see if they're valid and they work and can turn into a business or just to progress their businesses along the way.

We also have fitness classes here for women.

We also do reentry services.

So, we are grant funded through the Department of Corrections.

We have a food pantry, so we're a partner agency with the Food Bank of South Jersey.

We also have a clothing boutique where we serve women that are looking to go back to work.

So, for interviews for different types of employment or just women that wholeheartedly like are leaving situations that they have nothing with them and so they need clothing.

We also do job development for a lot of our survivors or just our reentry community, helping them get back into the workforce, revising their resume, looking for work, how to dress for an interview, how to prepare for an interview, things of that nature.

- Every woman that walk in here, they will find whatever they need when they go back to work or they applying for a job.

The main purpose is for every woman that works in here, feel love, feel empowered, feel that they are going to be able to go back to the society just presentable.

They are feel beautiful and love.

They will find here love, peace, and everything that they need.

- Everything that we do is free to the public.

I will say I'm a dreamer.

I dream big.

This is just the beginning.

This will be one of many buildings.

I wholeheartedly believe that the Wow Center, if not across the state of New Jersey, also across the state, many states so and internationally one day.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) - Much like the Wow Center, this next story is also uplifting.

Camden homeowners are learning home improvement skills that are helping to rebuild communities.

(upbeat music) - St. Joe's Carpenter Society was started in 1985 by Father Bob McDermott.

We are really dedicated to revitalizing the city of Camden and making it a better community for our residents.

We offer housing, while also offering education, and we work to do repairs on people's homes, while also making sure that their long-term investment in that house is kept safe for their futures.

East Camden is made up of a really culturally diverse group of people and what's been really interesting is to pull that cultural diversity and bring it out so that everyone can celebrate it and live it.

So, we started working on that disparity of why are there so many vacant houses and yet, why do we have so many families asking for help, finding a safe, affordable place to live.

But we now have a resident-driven planning process and let us know what's the next project we should be working on.

So, if you invest in yourself, you can also invest in Camden at the same time.

(upbeat music) - This is a story of persistence and transformation here.

This used to be the alley back in the day.

It was an open air drug set.

It was a very dangerous area, but with partners, the Camden County Police Department, the Prosecutor's Office, the city of Camden, we were able to acquire these properties, knock down the vacant ones, and then we were able to slowly rebuild the neighborhood.

We've done it in different phases and now we're working on the third phase of the project, which is in filling the area that you see behind us right now.

- As we acquired the properties, we've done rehabs on this block, rehabs on Moore Street.

We've built seven units here, 14 units on Moore Street, and this is a third phase that we're doing five units of housing here.

It's really made a transition for the neighborhood.

If you ask any of the neighbors, they love the houses, people who bought them love the houses, the people who live here before, they love to see how the neighborhood has changed.

- We work on credit, income and savings.

Let's make sure that you are prepared to purchase this home.

We wanna be able to go out, find in the neighborhood, buy it as a vacant and abandoned house, completely rehab it 100% new.

This is really something that you can be proud of as being your home.

And so, it brings that education and housing counseling side.

At the same time as sort of the neighborhood investment and bringing them together.

- We register them for the classes, which is a home buyer's education where we teach them about finances, how to handle their money, how to handle their credit.

At that time, I will review the application, review family size, income, credit, savings, and based on the information I find, we set up an action plan.

Sometimes it's a lot of work and some of the times it's much faster.

The goal is to get a house.

My goal is to help you get there, and that's how it goes.

- Living in my own home feels great.

It has been a great opportunity.

I've learned a whole lot.

It's a big responsibility and I just have to thank St. Joseph for giving me this opportunity to be a homeowner.

It's an amazing feeling.

- Our work at the Carpenter Society is incredibly rewarding, not only for me, but for everyone that we work with, 'cause we are actually seeing a real change in East Camden.

Repurposing all of these buildings so that they are safe and affordable for all of our families.

- One of the most popular events in Wilmington, Delaware takes place this month.

Here's a sneak peek of what to expect at this year's Clifford Brown Jazz Festival held at Rodney Square.

- This festival has put Wilmington on the map worldwide.

It gives citizens of Wilmington a sense of pride.

Clifford Brown was born and raised in Wilmington.

The street that he was born on has been renamed Clifford Brown Walk and the lot where his childhood home was, is still there.

Clifford Brown passed away very tragically at a very young age.

He was traveling on the turnpike from a gig to another gig on a rainy night when he was in a car accident.

He had only been on the scene for a very few short years, but the impact that he made has remained many, many years later.

(upbeat jazz music) (indistinct chatting) The Listening Garden is a wonderful place where folks can come and find respite.

In the center of the Clifford Brown Listening Garden is a commissioned piece of public art that was designed by and sculpted by a local artist Rick Rothrock called Twin Obelisks for Clifford Brown.

(upbeat jazz music) Surrounding the Twin Obelisks in a circular motion are benches.

And at the end of each benches, Rick carved the names of Clifford Brown's family and associates.

It's a beautiful spot on one of our city's very historic neighborhoods, the historic East side of Wilmington.

(upbeat jazz music continues) Gerald Chavis he's a very talented musician who both composes and, of course, plays the trumpet, which was Clifford Brown's instrument.

And he also studied with Boysie Lowery, and Boysie was one of Clifford Brown's teachers.

(upbeat trumpet music) - It was at Florida NM and the president of the Delaware Chapter Alumni Association for FAMU gifted me an album entitled "The Beginning and the End of Clifford Brown".

(upbeat trumpet music) I was an R&B guy, faithful R&B until I heard that album.

And I couldn't believe a trumpeter could be that fluid, that articulate, and lyrical just tone, and it was, it corrupted me.

I was done after that.

I was definitely a Clifford Brown fan.

"Joy Spring" is a brilliant composition.

(upbeat jazz music) I have the honor of directing the Clifford Brown Festival Orchestra.

The orchestra will be accompanying Wycliffe Gordon, the great trombonist extraordinaire.

So, we are completely stoked and looking forward to it.

- Well, first of all, I wanted to mention that this is a free festival.

People can expect, first of all, high quality music.

And we feature artists such as Joshua Redmond, Chief Adjuah, who are internationally known, as well as alumni from a residency program we have called the Boysie Lowery Living Residency Program.

The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival is an open lawn festival.

So, encourage all folks to bring lawn chairs or blankets.

You are allowed to bring your own picnic baskets, if you like.

But there are food vendors with offerings just across the board.

And we are surrounded by beautiful restaurants, hotels, and we have many hotel partners.

Also at the end of the festival, which every night will end about 10 o'clock, 10:15, there will be late night jams at several locations around downtown Wilmington, the Wilmington Library, the La Cav restaurant at the first floor of the Hotel DuPont, the Queen Theater, and Nomad Bar and Grill.

So, it's gonna be a wonderful, wonderful four-day event.

- It preserves our culture and our history as a city.

In a few short years, he became recognized as the greatest jazz trumpeter that ever lived.

And to this day, I have heard none better.

(upbeat jazz music) - The 37th annual Clifford Brown Jazz Fest takes place from June 19th through the 22nd.

Now, to the creator of La Diva Noir Designs where you can find handmade, soft sculpture dolls with melanated skin and textured hair.

(whimsical music) - I'm Tiffany Dean, and I consider myself a multi-disciplined creotte.

Hello, I tell stories.

I tell stories, whatever way they need to be told, whether it's a poem, a play, a book, a painting, or a doll.

(whimsical music continues) This one was made for a military friend of mine.

She even had camouflage boots.

(Tiffani chuckling) I want them to see their beauty in my dolls.

I want them to look at my dolls and say, "My hair looks like that and is good and it's amazing."

I want them to look and say, "My nose is just as wide as that doll's nose," And say, "But this doll is beautiful."

That is amazing.

I want to bring that to the world.

- My oldest, she struggled with learning what dolls she wanted to play with.

And one day she said, "Mom, none of them looked like me."

So, for my youngest, that was always my goal, to make sure I always had dolls that reminded me of her.

Hence, I end up finding the style.

I remember when she first started her journey of making the dolls, it was just, "Hey, you know, Tiffani's making dolls."

And I'm like, "Okay."

- I was a young mother, was married, I had three children and we were struggling.

I have got to help my family some kind of way.

And literally, I woke up the next morning and somehow I knew I knew how to make dolls.

My sister used to be a seamstress.

I cleared out everything out of her sewing cabinet and it just so happened that she had absolutely everything I needed to make a doll.

I pulled out a black and white composition book and I drew my first pattern, cut it out, made my first doll.

It took me about a week, and within a week I sold it and bought groceries.

I'd start off with, and this was the complexion of brown.

I had to use cotton, like the same fabric that pretty much they use for quilting is what I like to use.

(bright music) (paper rustling) - My youngest daughter for her birthday, I wanted something that was a keepsake, something that will be almost a collectible for herself.

She asked the questions about personality, what about her hair?

What's special about this particular outfit?

What are you trying to convey for her?

And it really got me to thinking back on who was Tyler as a young lady and who do I see her becoming as a woman?

So, I wanted a doll that kind of froze in time versus something that was gonna look like a baby.

So, the two of us worked hand in hand.

My hope was for her to embrace everything about her.

To know that you're not supposed to be perfect, but you're imperfectly perfect.

And I feel like that's what the doll does.

I wanted her to forever remember that, you know, she was thought of and it was intricate.

It was, you know, it was purposeful.

So, while you may not be on the shelves, you're in your own personal shelf at home.

- If as an adult walk up and see a doll that touches your heart and then you think, but I don't have a child.

Yes, you do, your inner child, because if you fell in love with that doll, you fell in love with it for a reason and you are absolutely worthy of having that doll in your life no matter how old you are.

- Culinary creations that are nothing short of extraordinary is how one Yelp user described Korea Taqueria, and co-owner and chef Rene Lopez agrees.

- Welcome.

- Are you ready for this?

- My name is Rene Lopez, I'm the head chef from Korea Taqueria coming in.

All right, well, this is our kitchen.

This is where all the good stuff happening.

Most of the flavors, it is from Korea.

Like to put the flavors on the meat, on the proteins.

And you know, the way we doing it's like the Mexican style that decorates the fusion.

Korean fried chicken, the birria tacos, kimchi fries.

The best in Philly.

Definitely you should try, Shirley - Here now to tell us how Korea Taqueria came to be is co-owner Alexander Sherack.

Alex, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- I am super excited to have you here for a couple of reasons.

Not just 'cause you brought this incredible spread, but in the last segment we saw, we saw Rene in the kitchen and he was describing the flavors of Korea Taqueria as the flavors of Korea cooked in a Mexican style.

Is that accurate?

- Absolutely.

Rene and I came up with this menu a couple of years ago after just kind of going meeting in the kitchen.

And we were both food truckers and we were like, I'm a Korean Australian, Rene is a native Mexican, and we just had all of these food ideas that we could match up.

A lot of the flavors that you see with Korea Taqueria were draw on a lot of the ingredients that you'll find in each cuisine.

So, we definitely pay homage of the Mexican side with the chili peppers.

Here we have some guajillo and ancho peppers.

And on the Korean side, we make our own house kimchi.

We use red pepper flakes, toasted sesame seeds.

And you'll find it all throughout the menu here.

So with the cooking technique, the flavors, the ingredients, it's just like a perfect mashup of Earth.

That's what we think.

- Yeah, I love the bold flavors of both cuisines and they do pair beautifully.

I tried the house-made kimchi, it is legit.

So, and I feel like - That means a lot.

- I'm an expert, 'cause I'm Korean.

So, I definitely approve.

- Okay.

- Talk to me about some of the food you have here.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, these are definitely some of our best sellers at Korea Taqueria and the fan favorites.

Have to start off with the birria tacos.

Here we have our birria tacos, which are with a sweet soy, slow cooked beef.

Our consummate, which is a beef broth, using some of that beef juice.

We stew down our house kimchi, and cook it for a few hours.

You dip the tacos in there, put some salsa verde on there.

Delicious.

We also have Korean-fried chicken.

Our Korean-fried chicken is absolutely delicious.

We really did bump heads on exactly how we wanted the crust to be, but we really did get that.

It's nice and crunchy, sweet garlic soy wings, our spicy gochujang wings.

A bit of garnish on there.

Chipotle gochujang sauce pairs perfectly with it.

- Can't go wrong.

These fries are ridiculous.

- Yes.

- And I'm just munching on here - Our kimchi cheese fries, also very popular.

And that kimchi is just our house kimchi cooked down.

So, you'll have a bit of kimchi kind of on everything really.

- And then there's the cheese steak, which looks great.

- Yes.

- And you brought drinks.

Tell me about these drinks.

- Oh, perfect for a summer.

Our drinks are, you'll find at the Taqueria.

Our first drink on the left is the Watermelon Agua Fresca.

That's probably our most popular drink.

Just blended watermelon, lime juice, simple syrup, ice, you can't go wrong.

The one that is a probably my favorite is our house horchata,- - Love horchata.

- which a rice milk, actually.

Not whole cream milk.

Our cinnamon, you know, simple syrup.

Delicious.

- Yeah.

- And lastly, the green one is our Cucumber Lime Agua Fresca.

- Now, you said that you and Rene met, you both had food trucks, and then did you guys join together and create a third food truck?

- Yes.

So, we both had food trucks we were running, you know, up and through the pandemic.

And coming out of the pandemic, that's when we kind of met in the kitchen.

We decided to actually buy a old halal cart and turn it into a Korea Taqueria cart.

Started going out into the street fairs, selling these tacos.

And it was just really, really received well by Philly, you know, Philly's a great food city.

And fast forward a year, the opportunity came up to open a restaurant at an old Chinese takeout in Grace Ferry.

And it was a bit of a moment where we had never really opened our own restaurant like that before.

And we just went for it and it just kicked off.

- And social media helps.

- Oh, my God.

- But Philly really took to you guys.

- Absolutely.

I really do feel that.

Like with social media especially, or without social media, I mean, Philly is just a great food city.

It's a great place for places like myself and Rene to open a restaurant.

It's a great place for people to, that just get excited about food, that get excited about underdogs like us, you know, really getting in there and starting something from a food cart to a restaurant.

And I think that's why it really has kicked off.

- And Philadelphians support local.

They love local.

So, all the best to you.

Thank you so much for bringing this, Alexander Sherack, co-owner of Korea Taqueria.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

- Thank you.

- And feeding us and the crew.

Thank you all for tuning in.

That is our show.

You are now in the know.

I'm gonna eat and say goodnight.

Bye.

Gonna try this now.

So, I dip?

- Yep.

- Oh, my God.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)