- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Holy Name.

This place is different.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

PNC, Grow Up Great.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Berkeley College.

Celebrating more than 90 years of preparing students for lifelong careers.

PSE&G, committed to providing safe, reliable energy now and in the future.

NJ Best, New Jersey'’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by NJBIZ, providing business news for New Jersey for more than 30 years, online, in print, and in person.

And by New Jersey Globe.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

It's a very important program that talks about the importance of making a difference, of the importance of making a difference, particularly when it comes to educational inequities.

We bring forward three very special people, all of whom are winners of what is called the Russell Berrie Making a Difference Award.

For 25 years, that event has been going on, a Making a Difference Award Ceremony.

I've been honored to host it for all of those years, and it's been virtual in the past.

And as we move into 2022, we hope we're going to be together this year.

So I want to acknowledge our three Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award Winners.

First, Paul Winslow, who is the President and Co-founder of Students 2 Science.

Sharron Miller is the Founder of Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts.

And Larry Abrams is an English teacher at Lindenwold High School and the Executive Director and Founder of BookSmiles.

I want to thank all of you for joining us.

All of you were, in fact, part of the 25th anniversary Russ Berrie Awards for Making a Difference.

It was virtual this last time.

Again, we hope that moving forward, it will be in person.

You're going to see the Russ Berrie website.

To make a nomination of someone you believe is making a difference, an unsung hero, as Russ used to say, someone who is an extraordinary person doing important things.

Let me jump right into this.

I want to give everyone 30 seconds to describe your organization.

Sharron, if you could, tell everyone, because I know your dance studio here in Montclair, our daughter was a part of it growing up, tell everyone what it is and why it matters.

- Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) arts education organization.

We have dedicated our mission to the developmental, inclusive training of young people, and seniors, and adults in dance and related theater arts.

We recognize the important value this can have in a person's life.

- Absolutely.

And Larry, go ahead, please.

- Hey, my name is Larry Abrams.

I am the Executive Director of BookSmiles.

We are the largest provider of new and gently used children's books in the Philadelphia-New Jersey area.

I started this thing out of my classroom and out of my garage, simply collecting books, diverting them from the big box thrift stores, putting them in the hands of teachers, putting them in the hands of children who live in underserved areas, low income areas.

We believe that every child should own a library of their own, regardless of their zip code.

It's not fair that some kids have hundreds of books and other kids don't have a single book.

We're working to close that equity gap.

Every child needs to, should have, books of their own.

- Well said.

And we're talking to three winners of the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award.

Take a look at the website again, as you listen to Paul describe Students 2 Science, the significance of making a difference in the community.

Nominate someone who you believe is making a difference.

Paul, go ahead, please.

- I'm Paul Winslow, the Founder and Co-founder of Students 2 Science.

Students 2 Science is a New Jersey based not-for-profit organization with a mission to inspire, motivate, and educate elementary, middle, and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

We focus on students in economically disadvantaged areas.

More than 80% of our students come from those communities.

And our hope is to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce.

- Well said.

Sharron, let me ask you something.

STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math you've talked about a lot.

You've talked about the importance of adding an "A" to that, to make it steam, and that "A" stands for the arts.

Talk about the arts and how it's connected to the terrible inequities that children suffer from, largely because of their zip code.

Please, Sharron.

- Unfortunately, arts are the first thing to be cut from any kind of public school and particular curriculum.

The arts stem from, I believe, your own personal passion.

It's either to draw, to dance, to sing, to play an instrument, but it is so important because what I do, which is dance primarily, nothing existed before that body moved through space.

There wasn't a moment of choreography that happened before that body moved itself through space and took control.

Control of the thinking, control of the body, control of the environment, becoming aware of where your body is in space, personal space, general space.

This creates self-esteem, it creates self-discipline, and it stimulates the mind to create.

And it's creating something that wasn't there before.

I just believe this is a valuable part of a child's education.

That's my-- - Please-- I'm sorry, Sharron, for interrupting.

And let me just ask this-- - I was gonna say, that's my opinion.

(laughs) - Well, no, it's your opinion, but it's also my experience with my wife, Jennifer, to see our daughter, what dance has done for her, her self-esteem.

And it's not about our daughter.

It's about any boy or girl who's involved in the arts.

And I just see it in our daughter, the level of self-confidence, self-esteem, it's off the charts, and it should not be based on zip code, geography, economic ability.

It's just wrong on every level.

And so let me ask you, when it comes to books, Larry, you were a teacher in a high school.

You moved from that to create BookSmiles.

The importance of books to impacting a child's mind, sense of self, and what the opportunities are in the world.

Talk about it, please, Larry.

- Well, I am still teaching.

I teach by day and do BookSmiles on weekends and in the evening.

- I apologize for that.

- Oh, no-- (crosstalk) Sometimes I think to myself, what am I doing?

But this is my, I have two deep passions and things that I love to do, but here's where this really comes from.

I once had a student, a mom who had a baby girl of her own at home.

And I asked her once, what are you reading to your child?

Just small talk.

And when she responded that she wasn't reading to her child, I asked her why.

"Well, the baby is too young to understand," she replied.

"No, no, no, no, she's not too young."

And then she looked at me and said, "Mr. Abrams, that's nice that you do it with your kids.

We don't do that in my culture."

And my heart dropped.

And it was that student who activated me to do something.

Now, look, I teach in an underserved area.

I go home to Cherry Hill.

I have friends who have books.

I put a call out on social media.

"Hey, I'm collecting books."

And what do you know?

1000 books poured in, but what was really beautiful are those baby board books.

Because in too many districts, kids come to kindergarten having never touched a book, and the teachers then have to explain to them the geography of a book.

And we at BookSmiles are putting an end to that.

700,000 books in, we have a long way to go, but this is a fixable problem.

- And by the way, I want to be clear that when we talk about the Making a Difference Award, each one of our guests today are winners of the award.

There's a cash award.

I want to be very upfront about that as we put the website up.

There's a cash award to help that not-for-profit organization continue to make a difference.

Paul, let me ask you something.

When we talk about science, Students 2 Science.

Real quickly, who are your partners, and how are those partners helping Students 2 Science make a difference with the underserved, the children in underserved communities you work with, please?

- Now, when we talk about Students 2 Science, a lot of times we refer to it as a convener, okay?

We're convening the union, or act as a liaison between the private and the public sector.

When you talk about science and you talk about the careers in science, the careers we're going to talk about today are not the careers that a kid that starts with us in the fifth grade will even pursue probably eight, 10 years from now, because the science is changing so quickly.

Okay?

So it's very important for us to partner with the corporations, the end person, and the hiring organization, because they're the ones that are going to keep us abreast of what their needs are.

Okay?

And then we have to talk to the schools.

I mean, you're talking about... To teachers that, in elementary school, have very little science experience, never mind knowing what the future is gonna hold for their students.

So how could they possibly inspire them, coach them, educate them on potential careers 10 years down the road?

And then the third party that we need is we need the administrators.

We need the school boards.

We need the local municipalities to support.

So by bringing all of these parties together... Oh, and I should mention also higher ed partners, because we can work really hard to get our kids from the fifth grade to the 12th grade is where we focus, but we need to matriculate those kids in a very meaningful, successful way so when they get to post-secondary schools and opportunities, whether it be certificate programs, they can be successful there.

So we actually convene all of those parties to make this a successful venture.

- Sharron, let me come back to you.

I'm curious about something.

Particularly in light of the pandemic, the impact on not-for-profits, the impact of raising money, conducting a business, paying your bills, paying your people, paying their health insurance, paying your rent, paying... Go ahead, go ahead.

- I've got to say that the private sector, in terms of foundations, really stepped up to the plate.

The government stepped up to the plate with the PPP loans.

Other than that...

I don't even know what we would have done.

I mean, we probably would have closed.

There were several things that were going on.

The fact that we were in a pandemic and it was very fear provoking for parents particularly.

Who wants to send their child into a situation that could be damaging to them, to their health?

It was mandated by the government that we close down for a certain amount of time.

But even then, we weren't making any money, because we weren't teaching any classes.

Public schools, which is where we had many residencies, were closed in terms of in person training.

And it was heart wrenching to see that there were so many children.

We're in Paterson and Newark.

So many children were being forced to study on a phone, trying to find a hotspot at a McDonald's.

And of course, somehow there were dance teachers that were trying to teach dance, we were among them.

And how we got through it is by the grace of God.

That's all I can say.

- Let me ask this, because I'm curious about this.

There's a cash grant, as I said before, and again, corporate and foundation support allows us to do what we do in public broadcasting and for not-for-profit, independent production companies like ours.

But Larry, for you, the Russ Berrie Grant, winning that grant, that award, what does it mean?

- Well, the pandemic was actually very, very good for us, because books started pouring in, and because libraries weren't taking them, and we were.

And we established a relationship with the Food Bank of South Jersey.

And we currently give six to 10,000 books per month to the Food Bank of South Jersey.

And when they came by, I saw how they had these trucks with liftgates.

And I said to myself, "I want one of those."

Board members supported me, and what do you know?

We needed $35,000 to purchase a box truck to take books all over the state, and to also collect books when they come in, when people do these enormous drives.

And so the Russ Berrie Grant enabled us to purchase, helped really defray the cost of this box truck.

And it's so cool.

And we're getting it wrapped this week, and it's going to be amazing when it's out.

- By the way, do you know nom-- I'm curious about this.

Do you know, Larry, who nominated you?

- I think one of our board members did, I'm pretty sure.

- Sharron, do you know?

- I think it was Sam (indistinct) I think.

I'm not sure.

- Paul, do you know?

- I do.

It was our Chairman of the Board, Stan Nelson, that nominated me.

But I didn't know until after I got the award.

- Wait, hold on.

Wait, you did-- (laughs) And it's so interesting.

People often don't know exactly until later, and it's very interesting, the committee, that they look through a whole range, hundreds of these nominations, and the bar, the standard is very high.

So you didn't find out until you won the award, Paul?

- Meredith was the first person to tell me that I was even nominated.

I got an email from Meredith congratulating me on being a finalist.

That's how I found out.

- That's great.

And by the way, are you still continuing to work with the foundation?

- We are.

We've been very fortunate to have a separate grant that was sponsored by the foundation to work with the not-for-profit Center with La Salle University.

So they've come in and they're valued.

So quite extensive, it's about a nine-month engagement where they're evaluating our organization in an effort to help us strengthen it and improve upon it.

They've done a board boot camp, which has been instrumental in helping us diversify our board.

We're now a gender neutral board.

We are fully representative of the population we serve, redone our governments, documents, bylaws, and things like that.

And then they're gonna follow up with actual helping us to execute some of their findings and recommendations, as well as work with our staff and do peer group support.

- Yeah, you know what is so interesting?

We got about a minute left.

It's so interesting to me that, given our relationship with the Russ Berrie Foundation over two decades plus, we've gotten to meet a whole range of other not-for-profit leaders who do all different kinds of things.

And one of the things that I sense, Larry, is it brings people together and makes connections.

Am I overstating that?

- Oh, without question.

BookSmiles is all about having hundreds of teachers, not all at once, but we've had nearly a thousand teachers from all over the state converge on the BookSmiles Book Bank in Cherry Hill.

And it's a beautiful thing.

We provide books for brand new teachers.

We believe that the teachers right out of the chute shouldn't be paying a fortune.

We teachers do not get paid a lot, as everybody knows.

- Right.

- So we're able to connect a lot of teachers with books, and then teachers give these books to their precious children.

- And by the way, as people go on the website, the Russ Berrie website, you're going to see the past winners as well for this Making a Difference Award.

And it'll be very interesting for you to identify those different not-for-profits in a whole range of different areas that are working everyday to make a difference.

There's a specific deadline, and it'll tell you there on the website, but the reason we wanted to air this program early in 2022 is to allow people to recognize, nominate...

Leaders, people, professionals, caring individuals who make a difference every day, either as individuals or as part of a not-for-profit.

So Paul, Sharron, Larry, congratulations on winning the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award the last time around, the 25th annual.

And we look forward to seeing you in the future in person to recognize the new group of people that are recognized.

Thank you all so much for making a difference.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are honored to be joined by Kim Gaddy, founder and director of the South Ward.

that's in Newark, South Ward Environmental Alliance, and a Russ Berrie Making A Difference awardee.

So good to have you Kim.

- Thank you for having me Steve.

- For those who don't know, tell everyone exactly what the environmental Alliance is and what you're fighting for and against.

- Sure.

The South Ward Environmental Alliance is an organization consisting of residents and community based organizations whose mission is to ensure that the voices of residents are heard and they are active participants in the decision-making within their neighborhood and their communities.

So for example, the South Ward is the backyard of the port and the airport.

Thousands of trucks come in our port each and every day and the health impacts impact our community.

And so we wanna make sure that our residents have a seat at the table and they are part of the narrative in what they want their community to look like.

- Let's be more clear, We're talking about the South Ward of Newark, we're talking about Newark International airport, if you will, the port, if you will.

And so you've got air pollution problems, which you've got asthma problems, which you know better than most because your family has been personally hurt by this.

What is the asthma problem and why is it part of this discussion, Kim?

- Yeah, you know, raising my three children in the city of Newark we would frequently visit Weequahic Park, which is right on the corner of Frelinghuysen Avenue.

And when you think about it, you're taking a children to a place where you want them to recreate and run around.

And while they are in the activities of soccer, baseball, track, tennis, the emissions from the trucks are spewing in the air and while they're playing their lungs are open as their widest, right?

And so what happens is when we think our kids are not being harmed, they are by the toxics.

And so we wanna make sure that we have kids clean air zones around our parks.

We wanna make sure that when our children are recreating, the backyard is not the pollution of trucks driving in and out of our neighborhood.

We truly- - How you doing that Kim?

I'm so sorry for interrupting you.

How are you doing it?

Give us an example.

- So what we would definitely wanna do is make sure that the cleanest trucks are on those roads.

So there's electric trucks that exist today, the technology is here, but in our communities the dirtiest trucks are still on the road, the dirtiest buses are still on the road.

And when you think about the cumulative impacts from the trucks and the buses, then that increases the asthma rates of our children by the pollution.

- And by the way, to be clear, the South Ward of Newark is disproportionately an African-American community.

If people wanna understand an operationalized example, a real example of institutional racism, just listen to what Kim just said.

In that spirit, you, the organization, you and the organization, won the Russ Berrie Making A Difference Award.

A, what does that award mean, and B, how has it helped the organization?

- Well what that award means is that people are recognizing that our community is a community that needs help and that our story is a story that needs to be told.

And so it was very important for the South Ward Environmental Alliance for individuals to recognize that there are communities, what we call frontline communities, that each and every day suffer from environmental degradation just because of the zip code we live in and the color of our skin.

And by receiving the Russ Berrie award individuals have been reaching out and they've been saying, "oh my God, "I didn't even know "that that was a problem in your community.

"We thought it was only over here or over there."

And we say, "no, "it's everywhere within our South Ward community."

And so our story has been elevated, our members have been rejuvenated and they really feel that their voices have been heard and that we can change the situation that we suffer from now because we have other individuals willing to engage and help us change around our community.

- Before I let you go, Kim, I've known of your work for a long time.

Our paths have crossed, we're both Brick City, if you will, natives.

Newark is, for those who don't appreciate or understand the Newark thing, I often say to other people, it's in your veins, it's in your blood.

It's something about growing up and being a part of Newark.

That being said, your passion, your deep abiding passion for this cause, one minute or less, comes from where?

- My children, being a mother who had to raise three asthmatic children.

When you see one child gasping for air, you know that you are helpless.

And so when I had to experience that, not once, twice, but three times, I knew that I had to begin to fight to change this so that not only will it make a difference for my children, but for all the children in the South Ward, the city, and the country.

- That is Kim Gaddy.

She's a leader, she's making a difference, and, by the way, I know in post-production we'll put the website of the South Ward Environmental Alliance up so people can find out more about the work of the organization, and if they wanna be helpful, how they can be helpful.

Kim Gaddy's also a Russ Berrie Making A Difference Award honoree.

Kim, you honor us by joining us on public broadcasting to share your story and the story of the people and the community of the South Ward of Newark.

Thank you so much, Kim.

- And thank you for having me.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato, that's Kim Gaddy.

We thank you so much for watching us and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Holy Name.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

PNC, Grow Up Great.

The New Jersey Education Association.

Berkeley College.

PSE&G, NJ Best, New Jersey'’s five-two-nine college savings plan.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

And by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by NJBIZ, And by New Jersey Globe.

Do you know someone who's done something extraordinary for others, whether a community service or an act of heroism.

That person may be a candidate for the Russ Berrie Award for Making a Difference.

Help us pay it forward by honoring New Jersey's unsung heroes in their efforts to make a difference in the lives of others.