- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "A Platform to Change Lives".

We'll learn about a youth development organization introducing the game of golf and its inherent values to young people, a nonprofit using the power of sports to impact childhood reading, and a woman-owned coffee roaster with coffee shops, bringing people together to gather for a greater good.

We'll also share a special moment from our SPARK Awards 2024.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

- (male announcer) Additional funding for The SPARK is provided by United Way of the Mid-South, EcOp, the Memphis Zoo, and by My Town Movers, My Town Roofing.

- Have you ever been excited by a new idea, inspired by watching someone lead by example?

When we talk about creating change, we start by sharing the stories of everyday heroes who are making a difference in their own way, so we can learn and do the same.

I'm Jeremy Park, and this is The SPARK.

They're a youth development organization introducing the game of golf and its inherent values to young people.

We're here with Andy Mears, he's the regional director for West Tennessee with the Tennessee Golf Foundation, which oversees First Tee Tennessee - Memphis.

And let's start out, Andy, give us some background on First Tee Tennessee here in Memphis.

- Absolutely, well, thanks again for having me on the show and appreciate this opportunity.

For those folks who don't know about First Tee, we are a youth development organization utilizing the game of golf to help kids in their developmental years.

We like to say we're helping them navigate those growing years.

So we provide golf instruction, but also life skills.

So we're working with financial literacy, STEM, college prep, peer pressure, everything we can think of to help kids get through those growing years.

- You, yourself know the power of golf in terms of building a career and transforming your life in terms of confidence and skills and discipline.

Talk about those inherent skills and the foundational, those core pieces that golf really provides youth.

- Yeah, golf is inherently a life sport.

So as we teach the kids a game of a lifetime, we're also trying to help them understand, you know, our key core values of such things as perseverance and honesty, integrity, sportsmanship, you know, and integrate these things which are all part of the game of golf, integral parts of the game of golf.

So, you know, when you're on a golf course, you are your own rules official.

And so it's very important in life that you're your own rules official.

So, you know, what you're doing when nobody else is watching is a very big thing in life, and we want you to be doing the right things.

So we're helping kids with that and understanding that and the importance of how that will carry on through their college years and young adult years and then family years, and right on through their, you know, retirement years.

It's all intertwined.

So this is the time to set those foundations, and that's what we work on.

- I know that you've brought some new programming to First Tee Tennessee in Memphis, and so talk about what a typical calendar looks like for the year.

- Yeah, so right now we are in our winter program series.

So obviously with the short days and school, we get to the kids on Saturdays, which is very important because in the past we've missed the winter months.

So me coming in, the one thing I wanted to change was that we wouldn't be absent from those kids' lives during the winter.

So every Saturday we do a program, and it's not always about golf.

We're gonna be taking them to the Civil Rights Museum.

We're gonna take 'em to the Pink Palace Science Museum.

So we're gonna do some fun things with them outside of golf, which is very important.

Mid-March, we begin our spring season, and our seasons, our program seasons always last seven weeks.

So kids will pick a day that they want to come out.

Normally they're after school, except in the summer when we switch to more morning programming.

But we're doing seven-week programs throughout the spring, summer, and fall.

Plus we have girls golf, we have advanced player golf, we have teen instruction.

So we have really grown our programming in Memphis to give many more kids the opportunity to work with us.

- When you talk about other exciting news outside of the growth and the expansion of the programs, you also have some exciting things in terms of a clubhouse and golf course and partnerships.

So talk about those good news and opportunities for the future.

- Yeah, the future is very bright for First Tee Memphis.

Partnering with the City of Memphis, and their renovation of Audubon Park Golf Course, we have now the opportunity to team with them when they build the new clubhouse, and actually have the home of The First Tee of Memphis at Audubon, and it'll be a kids' clubhouse.

It will be set up, sure, there'll be offices there, but there'll be classrooms and study areas and relaxing areas, and we'll have golf simulators in there.

So it'll all be about the kids, and really being centrally located to the city as Audubon is, and everything that's happening around that golf course, which is quite amazing if folks know it.

You know, we're gonna be the center of attraction there.

And with their huge driving range and wonderful practice facility, and the six-hole short course, I mean, it's the ideal location to help kids learn this great game of golf.

- How can the community get involved?

How can the community support First Tee Tennessee here in Memphis?

- Yeah, so to learn more about us, just go to firstteetennessee.org.

On that webpage, you can click on the Donation button to help us out financially.

You can click to become a volunteer coach.

You can also then click on Memphis and look at all the things that we're doing here in Memphis.

So everything you need to know about First Tee Memphis is on the firstteetennessee.org website.

- When you look at exciting news, we've talked about a lot for 2025, what's one more thing that really puts a smile on your face when you look at the future, but more importantly, what it will do for Memphis youth?

- Growth.

Number one is growth.

Memphis was once upon a time, a really, really strong junior golf area, and it slipped a little bit around COVID period.

And so we're working hard to get that back.

So my major goal is to substantially grow our youth participation.

And as we get more coaches involved with us, and they're all certified through The First Tee, so they're all caring mentors, but as we get more of them, we can then reach out and help more kids get involved in the game of golf and learn all the great values it has to offer.

- You never can say it enough in the world of media.

So mention again, website, where do we go to get involved with First Tee Tennessee - Memphis?

- So it's firstteetennessee.org, and you can learn all about The First Tee in general, or specifically about Memphis.

- Well, Andy, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks, Jeremy.

Appreciate it very much.

[upbeat music] - They're a nonprofit using the power of sports to impact childhood literacy.

We're talking with Jason Baker, executive director of Champions for Literacy, and let's start out, give us some history and some background for Champions for Literacy.

- Yeah, thanks Jeremy.

Thanks for having me.

Really excited to be here.

So Champions for Literacy, formerly Coaching for Literacy, went through a rebrand about a year ago.

So we're headquartered in the Memphis, Tennessee area, but we're working in about 40 communities across the country to do exactly what you said, provide opportunities for sports teams and athletes to impact kids' reading.

So, you know, being that we started in Memphis, we have Memphis Tiger basketball connections, very deep connections.

If you know Tiger Hoops, you know the name John Wilfong.

And so John's son actually started our organization as a high school senior, which is a really incredible story.

And so 12 years later, you know, we've grown tremendously as an organization, and have impacted just under a hundred thousand kids through our platform.

And so, you know, kind of the core of our work is Jonathan Wilfong started our org and came up with the model as a high school senior.

We wanna make sure that every kid has the ability to read so they too can dream as a high school senior and beyond.

- When you look at the different programs, you have some that are for athletes, you have some for teams, and so you also have companies that can plug in.

So talk about the different programs.

- Yeah, so on the team side of our work, Fight for Literacy Games is our primary program.

And that really ends up being a corporate sponsorship opportunity.

And so what we do is, as sports always do, we give literacy a huge platform and a spotlight through collegiate sporting events.

And so for example, we do a game with the Memphis Tigers every year, International Paper sponsors that game.

They route some grant money to reading programs in Memphis.

Kids from the reading program get to go to the game.

IP employees get to go to the game.

And they have a great celebratory reading moment on the court together.

So this year we'll work with about a hundred Division 1 teams around the country, and several of those games, thanks to IP, are sponsored, and we're looking to grow sponsorships.

And so corporate folks, that's a great activation.

And then on the individual athlete side, we're really excited about this program and the growth, but we have a newer program for younger athletes, grades 6 through 12, called Impact Players.

And we do work with athletes all the way up, you know, on an individual basis through college and the pros.

But our bread and butter and what you'll see us scale to various cities is this 6th through 12th grade program.

And that's a leadership opportunity, you know, at a younger age for athletes, for them to get ingrained in a key cause.

And we set them up to fundraise and to volunteer with kids and inspire them to become lifelong readers.

And so we'll work with seven kids in Memphis.

We launched Dallas today, which is really exciting, with a former, or a future Alabama quarterback.

We'll have 14 to 15 athletes in the program in Memphis next year.

So this program's growing like crazy.

So on the corporate side, you know, you can plug in on the collegiate athletics piece, you could sponsor a young athletes program and give them some matching grant dollars.

And then we do an annual fundraiser every year with Memphis Grizzly star, Desmond Bane.

And so if you wanna come hang out with Desmond and some of your employees, then you can buy a table at that event.

- Give us some of the feedback from the athletes, because you're helping them build a platform with a higher purpose, and obviously give back and support youth literacy.

But what's been the feedback from them so far?

- Sure, they, you know, the feedback to us is, hey, if I'm gonna be, well, we know we think about collegiate athletics, things are changing really rapidly.

So if they're on a path to play, you know, especially Division 1, what they're saying to us is, I'm ready for that in terms of NIL and building a brand and those kind of things.

If you have a kid who's not headed that direction in terms of being a D1 athlete, then they feel like they're ready for life, right?

And they feel like they're ready to be a generous community leader, whether they end up in business, philanthropy, or otherwise.

And so, you know, we hear from, I mean, I'll give you a direct quote from one of the families we work with is, "My kid has received more exposure "and positive exposure from this program than from their athletic teams."

And so, you know, Jeremy, what we're trying to do is just really develop the next generation of generous leaders, and hope we can play a really small role in that for kids.

- Hopefully everyone knows the power of literacy, but touch on why focusing on literacy is so important.

- Absolutely.

Yeah, great, great question.

So if a kid is reading on grade level by the end of third grade, in a lower income community, they're 89% likely to graduate high school and start a career.

If you move into a middle or upper income community, it's 90%.

So you're talking about a statistical difference of one.

So when you think about key causes, there's really nothing that transcends economics like reading does.

And so another quick stat, if a kid views somebody they look up to as a reader, if they have a reading role model, they're 15 times more likely to become a lifelong reader and then to excel academically.

So this is exactly why we put athletes in this space.

But it's an incredibly transformative cause.

The reality is, less than 30% of kids nationally are reading on grade level.

And so we step in and try to play this creative role in this space.

- Give us one or two of your goals for 2025 to make it a big success.

- Absolutely, so we want to, you know, being headquartered in Memphis, we want to double the Impact Players program, one, and then we want to triple the number of athletes we worked with in Dallas in 2025.

And those are our kind of two big goals for '25, and we're well on our way to make that happen.

- How can the community support Champions for Literacy?

- Yeah, if you're a parent of a young athlete, love to talk to you about joining that program.

If you're on the corporate side, you know, would love to connect with you to think about Fight for Literacy game sponsorship or Desmond Bane fundraiser event.

And if you're just a sports fan or somebody who cares about literacy, we're looking for people like you to fuel the work and help us build this movement.

You hear and you see that it's growing, and we have a big vision.

We wanna work with dozens of athletes in multiple key cities, and so we need committed sports fans and literacy advocates to join our support team and make this thing go.

- Wrap up with contact information.

So where do we go, website, social media to get involved and obviously support Champions for Literacy?

- Yeah, website is championsforlit, that's F-O-R-L-I T dot O-R-G.

So I'm there, my contact info is there.

And then we're @ChampionsForLit on social.

So love to connect with you.

- Well, Jason Baker, executive director of Champions for Literacy, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Yep, thanks, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - The SPARK Awards annually recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the community.

The 2024 Nonprofit Award for Organizations with a Budget Greater than $5 million went to Memphis Goodwill, Inc. [bright music] - I'm Tony Martini, I'm the president and CEO of Memphis Goodwill, Incorporated, and the Excel Center school for adult learners.

We've been in business for a hundred years.

Last year was our 100th anniversary.

We have 17 counties in Mississippi.

We have seven counties in Tennessee surrounding Shelby.

We have 30 attended donation centers.

We have 2 bookstores, 11 retail thrift stores, and our employee count is about 700.

Our employee pool is folks with disabilities and other significant barriers to employment.

That's the target audience for Goodwill, and it always has been.

So we try to provide jobs for folks who have trouble getting jobs elsewhere, may have never had a job, may be retired, may have some sort of a difficulty, barrier to employment.

So the Excel Center is an adult high school for people 18 and over.

It's free if someone dropped out of high school when they were a teenager, and you can't go back.

Once you're 18, those big doors close behind you, and you'll never get your high school diploma.

You can always go and get another certification.

So the Excel Center is actually a school of the Memphis-Shelby County School system.

It's a great way for an adult who really didn't see much in their future to go back and get their diploma.

So we also offer certification programs whereby if someone gets their diploma and walks across the stage, we also try to get them on a track to a living wage job.

And so we do offer certifications and training, and we also have other partners in the community with whom we link, and we have great relationships with two-year colleges and trade schools and that kind of thing.

Well, it's just really inspiring.

We have two graduations a year.

We've graduated 1,500 students with diplomas.

And it is a life-changing experience.

For me personally, I always get choked up at the graduation ceremonies, because to see the smiles on these people's faces and the feeling of achievement and success, and we have very few students who only want to get a high school diploma.

They truly want to change their lives.

They truly want to get on the path to a better way of life and a living wage.

[upbeat music] - They're a woman-owned coffee roaster with coffee shops bringing people together to gatHER for a greater good.

We're here with Tina Tatum, she's the owner of Coffee Central and Ethnos Coffee Roasters.

And let's start out, give us some background on Ethnos Coffee Roasters and Coffee Central.

- Yeah, thank you so much, Jeremy, for having me.

Well, we've been in the coffee industry for going on six years now, so we are just, we love specialty coffee.

Coffee Central was birthed out of a desire to reach this community with the gospel.

So I was involved with National Day of Prayer across DeSoto County in the greater Mid-South area for about 10 years.

And so bringing people together is just a natural part of who I am.

I love that.

And so coffee's just a unique way to do that.

I mean, who doesn't have great memories of sitting around the table with a cup of coffee, sharing memories, catching up, business meetings, ministry, whatever it may be.

But we've been in coffee for five years down in DeSoto County.

We acquired Ethnos Coffee Roasters in October of 2023.

So just a little over a year we've actually been importing, roasting, and creating this supply chain of female farms, female roaster, and then supplying local cafes, coffee shops, to the Memphis Zoo and abroad.

So we went from being a place of coffee and community, local, to really a global impact in our importing process.

So our Ethnos mission is to reach people across cultures and around tables.

- You kind of alluded to supporting women in jobs, economic opportunities, and sustainability, but there's also a giveback element.

- So the three major giveback programs we have now, only three.

[laughs] So we have a complete female-farmed line and initiative.

I should've brought a little bag to show you that.

It's our white, we call it our white label bag.

It's white and purple.

And we source, those are all direct trade.

So we're putting as much money back into the hands of the farmers as possible.

There's no middleman, we're paying Q1 quality grade, you know, for specialty coffee.

So this is not commodity grade, you know, it's not what you're used to in Community Coffee, Folgers, whatever the big boxes are, which have great product, they're just not specialty grade.

So we source from female farms.

I'm 100% female-owned business.

We have female roasters.

And then we give back to a local nonprofit here in the Memphis area called Sister 2 Sister.

Sista2Sista, actually.

[laughs] Trisha Henderson is doing a really great job in Binghampton, she's reaching women off the street, bringing 'em out of addiction, prostitution.

She has a drop-in center and a safe house.

So that's one of our giveback programs.

Another one is with Palmer Home for Children.

We have a coffee that's going out to the indefinite future that gives back 20% back to the work of Palmer Home for Children.

And then our third giveback bag currently is with the Wildlife Association of West Tennessee, helping support a habitat.

[laughs] And then they're giving back actually to several different cultures for conservation efforts.

So those are the actual giveback bags you can find on our website.

But working with the Memphis Zoo is one of the greatest joys we've had as a 901 roaster.

And a lot of the coffees that we do for them, we import from Brazil, and their Rainforest Roast that we do for them actually gives back to the work of conservations for the leopards in Brazil.

So there's a lot of ways that our coffee gives back in the supply chain, but then also locally.

- Well, we've been using the term gatHER, but there is a GatHER Women's Conference that you helped establish, and so tie that in, because you're also an ordained minister.

And so touch on the GatHER Women's Conference.

- Right, I mentioned earlier I coordinate a National Day of Prayer around DeSoto County for 10 years.

So my husband and I are ordained ministers, and we were on church staff for about eight years.

And then we were called out.

We actually had a nonprofit organization called R3 The Movement.

We worked a lot of inner city Memphis.

That's how I got connected with Sista2Sista, understanding their vision and mission.

So with that, we've always had a mission-minded in our businesses.

We've always believed, you know, it's better to give than to receive.

And if we can be a contributing factor to our community, show up for our community, they show up for us in business.

So with GatHER, have you ever experienced, maybe you haven't, but maybe some of the women viewing your program have experienced, like the Women of Faith, the large conferences that come to town.

You go to an event, you go to a large conference, and you're really touched, you're really encouraged, or equipped, but then they leave town, right?

You've spent $75 for a ticket, had a great time, but really not any local impact per se.

And I felt like I wanted to bring something like that local.

Bring local voices.

And a matter of fact, our first speaker was Donna Gaines, Pastor Gaines's wife out of Bellevue.

She was our very first speaker eight years ago.

And the concept behind that is bringing women together who are passionate about their relationship with Jesus Christ and with one another, and then giving back to women-organized events, or excuse me, nonprofits.

So we have a conference, we have workshops throughout the year, but our main conference is in August.

Last year we gatHERed over 700 women at the Landers Center, and we give back, once the operating budget is complete and everything's paid for, we basically leave a little bit of operating capital to start up the next year.

But then the entire amount of money that was raised goes back to a local nonprofit.

So this year was Trinity Healthcare, which is housed within the DeSoto Dream Center, which is insurance, or medical coverage if you will, care for the working uninsured.

So we have a missional aspect of preaching the gospel, bringing women together outside of the four walls of the church to do something really great and empower different ministries throughout DeSoto County and Memphis.

We've, you know, given away I think over $50,000 in the last few years.

And that's just a simple grassroots movement that, you know, the Lord put it on our heart and then, you know, coupled us together with other organizations that have the same vision.

- So where do we go to learn more about Coffee Central, Ethnos Coffee Roasting, and the GatHER Women's Conference?

- Right, thank you so much.

So Coffee Central is coffeecentralsouth.com.

You can follow along anywhere from the social media from there.

Ethnos.coffee, or GatHER.women.com.

- Well, Tina, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you so much, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - Hard to believe this episode kicks off season and year number 13 for The SPARK.

That makes us lucky to have you and blessed to be able to share so many stories of the organizations and individuals working to power the good and make a difference here in our community.

As we saw in this month's episode, when you focus on building a platform focused externally on helping others, you create a platform to change lives.

We're fortunate to have organizations like First Tee Tennessee Memphis using their platform to teach youth not only how to play the lifelong sport of golf, but the inherent values like sportsmanship, character, discipline, and confidence that become the foundations for lifelong success as well.

Champions for Literacy is empowering athletes, sports teams, and companies to build and leverage their platforms to inspire social change and increase youth literacy.

And entrepreneurs like Tina Tatum are using their companies like Coffee Central and Ethnos Coffee Roasters to bring people together, to minister to them, to provide economic opportunities and jobs, and to give back.

We all have the ability to create a platform, and when we use it to help others, it truly becomes a platform to change lives.

So where can you help power the good and become a SPARK?

To learn more about each of the guests, to watch past episodes, and to share your stories of others leading by example, visit wkno.org and click on the link for The SPARK.

We look forward to seeing you next month, and we hope that you'll continue joining with us to create a SPARK for the Mid-South.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [bright music]