Hello, everyone.

I'm Donna Terrell for Arkansas Week.

The launch of a new weather platform is providing statewide coverage.

24 over seven, from severe weather alerts to your local forecast.

We will tell you more about that a little bit later in the program.

But first, Goodwill Industries of Arkansas.

They recently added a new location with plans to add more across the state.

But they are more than just a thrift store as their mission states.

They are changing lives through education, training, and employment.

Joining us to tell us more about the programs and services is president and CEO, O Brien Marsh.

Thank you so much for being here.

Donna, so happy to be here.

Happy to have the opportunity to, to speak with you again, but, really to to share more of what we're doing.

Well, you know, I want to talk about the new store in just a minute.

But first, I really want to focus on how Goodwill Industries is changing lives through education and training programs.

What can you tell me about that?

Oh, Don, a great question.

We, in 2015, we worked with legislature to change the law in the state to allow adults to earn a high school diploma.

Prior to that, adults over the age of 19, did not have that opportunity.

So we changed the law in the state to allow that to happen a way just back up just a little bit.

Yeah.

So you're trying to tell me that if you were over the age of 19, you could not get a high school diploma?

No.

The only thing available to you at that time was a GED, which is.

Which is a test.

Okay.

So we we changed the law in 20, 2015.

In 2017, we opened the first Excel center in little Rock, which is, an adult high school where we're a licensed charter school licensed by the Department of Ed, State of Arkansas.

And so we opened the first school there and, in 2020, three.

No, I'm sorry, 2024.

We opened a school in Springdale.

So now we have two campuses, one in little Rock, one in spring.

We've had, as of this week, we had graduation Friday and a grade, in little Rock and a graduation in Springdale, on Tuesday of this week.

We have had 350 graduates now in the state.

Wow.

Yes.

So as a charter, we're capable.

We're charter right now.

We're we're registered for 350 students at each campus.

So that's what our capacity is.

Okay.

So how do you identify the the students?

Can it be anyone?

Does it have to be, you know, like certain people who would qualify versus someone else who doesn't have a high school diploma?

No.

The only requirement is they not have a high school diploma.

Okay.

What what happens when they come to us?

They, they we we test them.

We also look at their transcripts so that we marry up their, their knowledge level with the transcripts.

So it's really it's mastery of the subject.

So we don't have a, a cohort.

We don't have a freshman class and a sophomore class.

We we determine what their needs are and develop an individual learning plan for each student.

So many of our students come in and they're reading in the the fifth, the seventh grade level and doing math at the same level.

So there's remediation to get them to high school, level math and reading, and then they move into high school curriculum.

Okay.

And I'm seeing from business and administration health care, IT and skilled trades are offers.

So we also have a trade school which is paired with that.

So so that's the academy.

That's the academy.

So they can as they go through what we try and do is determine what their interest is.

What do they want to go after high school.

Because we are kind of a launching pad.

So we look at that and if your interest is, in a career, we offer connection to our trade school so you could get a, opportunities to earn certifications in welding or become a certified clinical medical assistant or pharmacy technician.

Or go into construction.

Now, that is changing lives.

Yes.

Because otherwise, I mean, you know, you get a GED, it looks a little different on a resume than it does when you say you have a high school diploma and you don't necessarily have to tell someone that, well, I just got my high school diploma.

You just.

Whenever you get it is when you have it right?

Yes.

And that opens doors for a lot of people.

It opens a lot of doors.

We actually, we just had a a reunion breakfast with some of our graduates, here in little Rock.

And it was, it was a great success.

We had a student from our first graduating class.

We graduated seven individuals in our first class.

He came back.

He is now an airplane mechanic making six figures.

Oh my word.

Yes.

What is so.

And now that's a testimony.

How do people apply?

Folks are going to hear that and they're going to say, oh, I will sign me up.

Yeah.

How do you apply?

You can go to our website.

Goodwill ah.org and there's a link on our website you can call, our goodwill headquarters in little Rock.

And, they will put you through to the Excel center.

You can walk in and, talk to somebody.

The campus in little Rock is at our headquarters on Scott Hamilton.

In Springdale.

It's, on old Missouri, just south of Springdale Airport.

But walking in, we've actually had people that were driving by there were stopped at the stoplight in front of the Springdale campus and saw the sign that said, Free childcare, earn your diploma.

Oh, wow.

And so, mother of of of multiple children came in, and and we, we remove the barriers.

So we offer free childcare, we offer transportation, bus passes.

We offer, every student gets a life coach.

You know, algebra was hard when you were, 14, 15.

It's really hard at 35.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you know, retaining information the older you get is, discovering, you know, I, I don't remember things as well as I did when I was young.

It was to have all of the.

Certainly it's got to be funded.

How are you funded?

Well, 96%.

Great question.

96% of our, operating funding, our operating revenue comes from the sale of donated goods.

So when people donate to goodwill, donate their gently used items.

When we sell those, that funding goes to fund our mission.

And so as you, as you mentioned, our mission is changing lives through education, training and employment.

Education is the Excel center.

Training is our trade school where people can earn certifications in welding, medical.

It, construction.

And then we have reentry.

And that is another big part of our, of our reentry, because now we're talking about people with a criminal background, correct?

Yes, yes.

Reentering society after, being justice involved.

So recidivism in the state, as you know, is nearly 50%.

Our program is a 16 week paid program where they work side by side with our employees, and they, they get, training where they go through that on durable skills.

Some people call them soft skills.

It it is, how to be employable and remain employable.

And then, they, they work while they're doing it, so they earn a living.

But, recidivism for our graduates is less than 5%.

Oh, so it has a true impact, and it's re reuniting families.

So someone who, has been involved in the criminal justice system and they're looking for a job.

How do they become involved?

Because sometimes people don't want to hire them for various reasons.

How how do they get involved?

Don, a great quote.

We are a lot of times we're the first.

Yes, goodwill is the first.

Yes.

That people here do.

You get to a point where you have to turn people away because you don't have room?

Yes we do, or we put them on a waiting list.

We, so if if they're interested in the reentry program, they can reach out and at any one of our stores, and, connect through our, our stores on where we have those.

So before Covid, we had seven locations and 27 or 27 seats.

So we had 27 opportunities at any given time for someone to be in the program.

Since 2020, we've expanded 20 to 2020.

We've expanded that.

We now have over 100 positions.

And I can see why you would need to expand.

Yes.

I mean, and I'm sure you'll just keep growing at this point because you can never have, enough, resources to help all of the people who need it on so many different levels.

I see here.

You you also have a books for kids program.

So you have you don't exclude the little ones.

No we don't.

So, Johnny Key, when he was, head of education for the state of Arkansas, he, it was a conversation with Johnny Key that set us to develop the books for kids program, where we take books that are donated, and we, we categorize them by grade, by reading level, and then we make them available to schools or organizations that serve, the underserved.

So children of of of parents who have bigger challenges don't have books.

So we provide the books to the home and it's a, it's a it, it goes to the child.

That is the child's book.

We we, we, we work with a number of elementary schools and, their books for kids coordinator will tell us how many books they need and what grades, and we supply those books to the school.

You know what you talk about goodwill.

This truly is goodwill.

I mean, you couldn't have a better name than goodwill because you're doing so much goodwill for people who really need that kind of help.

And now you've embarked on something pretty major.

You have a new facility on Shanell Parkway in Little Rock.

Yes.

Tell me about that.

Well it again as little Rock has grown it's growing west out tional we've looked for for many years, over five years we've been looking for an opportunity to be in that that area generally we're, we're hermit crab.

We, we grow into other people's shells.

So we've, we've, we've gone into buildings that were available.

There is not been a building available in, this in all valley.

So we through the the guidance of our board and, the opportunity that was put in front of us, we have built a new store and it is, just off of Kirk Road, kind of across from that, that large shopping area, Costco and Kroger and, that's that's a that's a powerful area to be in in terms of retail.

I mean, people are all over that area.

There are sometimes when Channel Parkway is very, very busy.

Yes.

So that's that's quite interesting.

You're in a great location for number one.

People like to drop off things because, you know, I mean, I do it I do it all the time.

I do it all of the time because it's a great way to purge.

But that said, some people, when they think of goodwill, they think of, oh, that's a place where I can drop off, you know, my old dishes or some of my old clothes or I got furniture or that sort of thing.

But how do you get folks out of the mindset of only viewing you?

You've shared a lot of information in a short amount of time, but how do you get people out of the mindset that this is a place where I just take my my stuff and you're going to recycle it and and sell it down?

A great question.

Many people have the perception that goodwill is a for profit.

We are a nonprofit organization.

Our, our organization, if you look at goodwill, goodwill was founded in 1902 by a methodist minister in Boston.

He looked around his, his church and saw that there were a number of people that were hurting and, or were doing without.

So he went and collected goods and he, they trained people to fix, to darn, garments, to fix furniture.

So it gave them a skill.

So it's the power of work.

So in that he put people to work and they sold the items to pay the wages.

So that's kind of what goodwill does.

Our mission again is that training, that education piece.

So how do we, marry the two.

So it's more than a store.

There are there are 140 goodwill organizations in the US, and we are one of 15 that are all of a state.

So donations in Arkansas stay in Arkansas to serve Arkansans.

Okay, obviously, this new facility, folks can go there to donate, but let's just talk about some of the highlights and we are running out of time.

I could talk to you forever about this because there are some highlights at this new facility on General Parkway that I don't want to not talk about in this interview.

Yes, we have, we're actually delivering mission in that space.

So what we're doing is there are career navigators there that will help not only our employees navigate their career path.

The ABCs of work, a job, a better job, and a career.

But also help people who are coming in off the street to navigate their careers.

And it may not be with goodwill, it may be with someone else, but they can provide them training in those skills that will help them get a job and keep a job.

The other thing that is happening there is that reentry program we talked about.

That program will be operating that in that space.

We do a lot of things.

We we have a bike, a last mile to work program for our employees and for our students and clients, where we give them a bicycle so that they can get to the bus stop to get to work or get from the bus stop to work.

We also have a good Smiles program where employees we provide up to $5,000 in dental, work for our employees.

And so it is, you know, without a smile, it changes the way people are viewed, but also the confidence in getting a job.

Exactly.

I mean, there are so many things, you know, just talking to you makes me feel good inside.

So goodwill is definitely doing everything that its name is, indicates.

So I want to thank you so much for being here and talking about this.

Of course, we could have talked much longer.

Well, Donna, thank you so much for having me.

And it's always a joy to see you and, appreciate the opportunity just to share more of who goodwill is.

I wish you the best of luck in the New year.

Thank you.

You, too.

All right.

And stay with us.

We'll be right back.

Welcome back everyone.

The Arkansas Weather Network is now serving every corner of the state around the clock through their digital platform, and it's accessible to everyone.

Keeping you informed of the weather in your community.

Here to tell us more about it is Arkansas storm tracker, Zachary Hall.

Zachary, thank you so much for being here.

Tell me about Arkansas Weather Network.

How did this come about?

Well, I have been in the digital sphere with weather for quite some time since 2019.

Really full time.

And, you know, as we have came through time through the last year or so, it seems like there's an even more emphasis on digital media.

When it came to weather.

And I am really good friends with meteorologist James Bryant, who, just left the TV news scene.

And we came together over the summer and wanted to create a digital outfit for weather.

Just a focus full time on weather.

Only for the state of Arkansas.

It took a lot of planning and a lot of work, but we have arrived.

We launched we fully launched last week.

We announced several days before that, but our mobile app, our 24/7 streaming channel, the Roku app, has all released.

And, it's going really well.

So thank you guys for having me.

And just to be clear, this is statewide.

Oh, yeah.

So anywhere in the state you have access and you're going to be tracking the weather all over the state.

Yeah, all 75 counties.

You know, we use the tagline your town matters and obviously if you live in Pulaski County, if you live in Sebastian County or Benton or Washington counties, where a lot of people live in Arkansas, you probably get plenty of weather coverage.

Our goal is to make sure that people who may be in certain corners of the state feel left out, get the proper weather coverage that they need.

We want to be able to be there for everyone.

It doesn't really matter where you live.

So yes, all 75 counties.

It's a full time job, that's for sure.

I was going to say that's going to keep you busy very.

Let's talk about your personal experience as a storm tracker.

I always find that fascinating.

I don't know that I would have the courage to follow a tornado or, you know, and I mean everything I know about it, I see on shows where they're like, oh, here it comes.

So what's that like?

Well, it was fun.

I mean, I love whether I'm a weather nerd.

I've been a weather nerd since I was a little kid, and that was always my dream job to be a storm chaser, storm tracker, or whatever you want to call it.

And I was able to live that dream.

I did it professionally for four years.

As in, I just I did it for a profession.

That's how I made a living.

And I took a lot of travel, a lot of time away from family.

So it wasn't easy.

But I saw a lot of tornadoes.

I intercepted three major hurricanes, I intercepted hurricane a dollar and Hurricane Ian on the coast in Florida.

Major hurricanes.

So I did winter storms.

I lived the dream, and, I learned a lot about weather while doing so, and I think it's helped me in my forecasting ability.

Here in Arkansas.

Arkansas is very hard to, you know, going out and storm chasing a western Kansas.

There's not a lot of trees.

It's really flat.

It's easy to see.

Was a whole different experience than trying to look for tornadoes here in Arkansas.

There's a lot of hills.

There's a lot of trees.

A lot of times we have storms in the middle of the night.

It's a different animal here.

And only for the bravest is what I always said.

People who go out and do it, I respect them.

I totally I totally agree with that.

Only for for the bravest.

How do you stay safe when you're out there tracking a tornado?

And and you know, I when I think about that, like in the middle of the night when it's dark, I mean, obviously you have tools that will tell you where it is, but sometimes these things develop unexpectedly.

Definitely.

I mean, it's there's always a risk.

Tornadoes are scary.

Severe weather is scary.

It's dangerous.

One thing that I always tried to have readily available was an escape route away from where I expected the storm to be, and that's not always real easy in Arkansas.

There's not always that south option getting away from the storm or southwest option or whatever it might be.

But yeah, we have plenty of tools in the car.

I had a vehicle that was outfitted with computers and all sorts of stuff to help me navigate, not only from a map standpoint, but where the storms are headed.

That would tell me more about the storms themselves.

And, constant communication with the National Weather Service officers trying to relay information to them.

So and I typically not always I would be alone sometimes, but a lot of times I would have people in the vehicle to help me, help me spot.

And I feel like that helped keep me safe as well.

So I was about to ask if you had someone else in the vehicle with you, and you really do need that.

I can't help but wonder though, because and you kind of touched on this, but, you know, all of the local stations, all over Arkansas have weather coverage.

They have digital platforms.

They're they're doing all this.

What makes you and your digital platform unique in comparison?

Well, first and foremost, none of the anything we're doing is no dog on any local stations.

I have some great friends that work for local news outfits who cover weather, some incredible meteorologist here in Arkansas.

But one thing that I do like about our network is that it's owned by Arkansans.

For Arkansans myself, meteorologist James Bryant, media muralist Blaze Thomas.

We're all from Arkansas.

If you send a support note about our mobile app to the email, it comes to us.

It doesn't go to some faraway land thousands of miles away.

And we care about people.

And that's not to say that local news outlets don't care about people.

That's not what I'm getting at.

But, you know, we built this with the intentions of being the best possible weather outfit for people here in Arkansas, whether you're a farmer in eastern Arkansas or if you're a pilot working on aviation stuff, we have all that outfit for people on our mobile app and on our website.

Or if you're just an everyday person looking at rain chances for a Tuesday morning like, we want to be there when you need us most.

And obviously sometimes the weather slow, but also sometimes it's not slow.

You know how you know you can be really active here.

Oh yeah.

So it can it can almost change just like that.

You kind of touched on this because, forecasting is more than just telling people what the temperature is going to be and whether it's going to rain today and, you know, or be sunny tomorrow, and that sort of thing, snow or ice, I mean, all of those things obviously very, very important.

But you do forecasts for agriculture and and aviation.

Does it differ in in terms of what you're doing when we're talking about agriculture, for example?

I mean, just with the agricultural stuff we have, a section designed that with soil mustard, soil moisture data, you know, rainfall departures from average, trying to help people plan when and not to plant.

Obviously, a lot of these farmers are very smart.

They do this all the time.

We just want to kind of be that resource if you ever need it.

Obviously rainfall data for the future.

What's the Climate Prediction Center?

You know, we moving into a below average or an above average time fall or time for rainfall and then when it comes to the aviation side, obviously we have a lot of data there.

But one of the big things too is for the everyday person is we have airport closure data, flight delays.

So obviously that's not something somebody might not need to look at every single day.

But if you ever needed it, it's there, it's there.

But yeah, we just tried to think outside the box a little bit.

Yeah, you would have to because the competition is stiff.

Yeah it is.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean we, we know that here in Arkansas, the weather coverage for the most part across the board is very good.

So we have to be at our game, the top of our game to make sure people are getting what they need.

So I feel like we've done a good job of that.

To start, we just launched so you got a when you say you just launch.

So just this, did you launch in December, November?

When did you launch?

So we announced in December, we announced our intentions to, you know, have this fully operating Arkansas Weather Network.

We, we let it simmer for about ten days.

And then we launched the mobile app to the public for free.

And that was really big for us.

The website was live, of course, all of our social media platforms, anything you can imagine as far as social media goes, was already live.

But the mobile app was our our big one and we launched that this last weekend.

Okay, so for the everyday person out there, that would be me and our viewers who are watching.

What can we expect this winter?

You know, I mean, our our weather has already been, different.

To to some degree, I'm not a meteorologist, so I'm not going to try to delve into that.

But what can we expect in terms of precip this winter?

Well, we are expected to be in La Nina, which sometimes can lead us to a warmer, more dry winter season.

But at the same time, we've had La Nina's in the past, where we've had plenty of snowfall, plenty of rainfall.

It really just depends on how the overall pattern evolves.

And I know that's like the biggest weather man answer possible.

But you know, we all we go through fluctuations.

We started off December very cold colder, much colder than normal.

And then obviously we're going to finish December.

It appears to be much warmer than average.

So January and February are coldest months.

They are the most prone to cold and snow.

And I would be surprised if we made it through January and February without additional bouts of cold and snow.

And I know that that seems like a very obvious answer, but it's the truth.

I've had a lot of people ask me seeing the data coming up for Christmas.

It looks like we're going to be well into the 70s on Christmas for most of us.

And I've already had people ask me, you know, is this is this winter going to be a dud?

Is winter over?

And I'm like, man, we haven't even started January for even March.

I feel like people don't talk about March enough.

March can be very cold.

We can have big snow in March.

So, I think that we will have plenty of bouts of cold coming up.

I'm not going to sit here and say we're going to have above average snow amounts for the whole state, but we will encounter more rain, more snow, hopefully no ice, but I can't rule that out either.

Ice, ice in Arkansas, that's something that we expect.

Yeah.

How can people access the platform?

Great question.

So if for the everyday person that's looking to access the Arkansas Weather Network, we're on all major social media platforms Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, now known as X. You can access all of our information there.

If you don't use social media, that's fine.

We have the Arkansas Weather Network mobile app.

It's completely free on the Google Play Store in the Apple App Store, we have a website, we have a Roku Channel, we have a 24/7 streaming channel on YouTube.

It's going to be pretty hard to not find us.

And that was our goal when we launched.

As you know, no matter.

So my grandmother doesn't use Facebook.

Well no problem.

She has our mobile app downloaded on her iPhone.

She uses it all the time.

So, anywhere you can find most things as far as social media, digital streaming will be there.

And one final question.

We sure we've pretty much run out of time, but is this something that we see in other states?

I mean, are you a carbon copy of something that's been done before?

Yes.

So we actually modeled most of this off of the Alabama Weather Network.

Got it.

James Spann and Alabama and numerous other meteorologists contribute to that platform.

There's outfits such as this in Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Mississippi.

Got it.

So Arkansas was next.

Okay.

All right.

It was just a matter of time.

Zachary Hall, I want to thank you and good luck.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining me for Arkansas Week.

I'm Donna Terrell.

We'll see you next time.