- This month on The Spark our theme is "Building Stronger Communities through Art, Running and Neighborly Bonds".

We'll learn more about a nonprofit working to improve the quality of life and economic wellbeing of the Mid-South through the preservation, celebration, and advancement of African-American arts, an organization advocating for community and capacity building in the 38109 area, and a group of women who are transforming their health, hearts and minds through running.

We'll also share a special moment from our Spark Awards 2022.

- From our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance 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.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is honored to be a 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 My Town Movers, My Town Roofing, My Town Properties, and by Meritan.

- 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.

There are a nonprofit focused on the advancement, the celebration and preservation of African-American Arts here in the Mid-South.

We're honored to be joined by Lar'Juanette Williams, Executive Director of Memphis Black Arts Alliance.

And let's start out, you have a cool personal storyline tied to the organization helping you launch a project.

So give us a little bit of your personal storyline with Memphis Black Arts Alliance.

- Oh, thank you so much, Jeremy.

I am a product of Memphis.

I tell people all the time I'm Memphis Bread, cornbread fed.

However, with that being said, I was a young artist, a writer, singer, and all of the above.

And lo and behold, one of the days that, I had written projects and had them on a shelf and met up with a choreographer that was affiliated with the Memphis Black Arts Alliance, we just kinda gravitated towards each other.

And he just said, he said, "I wanna see some of your work.

I hear that you're a writer."

I said, "Yes."

And he saw this one particular production and he said, "You need to put this on."

And I was 22.

So I was like, I don't know how to find the funding to do this.

And what he did was he said, "You trust me, let me try something."

And I said, "Okay."

And so he took it over to the Memphis Black Arts Alliance and connected with them and their alliance, and they submitted it to the Memphis Arts Commission at that time, which is now Arts Memphis.

And they award, I was awarded a $10,000 grant given that he was going to be choreographing and directing that particular show.

And so that's where I began to do what it is that I do.

- Go ahead and describe overall the work you do with Memphis Black Arts Alliance.

- Absolutely, well, we preserve, celebrate and advance African-American arts, literature and culture.

We celebrate all forms of arts, and the organization, as of last week, has celebrated 41 years.

That was started by an African-American woman currently still being operated by an African-American woman.

And so the many, many thousands an d thousands of lives that we've actually touched throughout the years of this organization is just insurmountable to try to figure it all out.

But I like to always say, Jeremy, that this organization is actually kinda like the grandmother to majority of the arts organizations that exist now.

There are very, very few of them that do not have ties that go back to the original 19 organizations that came together to start the Alliance.

And that's what's so cool about it.

- Give us an idea when you talk about the programs, give us a little bit of a teaser on some of the high profile programs.

- Oh, absolutely.

Well, the biggest program in my opinion, is our ArtsReach, our ArtsReach ASAP, which is our after-school performing arts program.

Now, ArtsReach actually takes performing artists.

It's one thing to have arts instructors, it's another thing to have artists that are performing artists to go back and do the instructing.

So a lot of the living legends here in the city, the ones that have done great things throughout the world, we go and get them and we take them and we go into those underserved communities and there they work with these children, sharing them their stories, which gives them hope.

These kids are being able to be exposed to people that came from the same community they're in, that have become successful and known throughout the world.

So it helps them to shift their environments and shift their dreams to recognize that they too can do something and fulfill their dreams.

So those are the things that we, that's the biggest program that we do.

Another thing that we do, like we talked about the children performance, we're intergenerational.

We are intergenerational.

So all persons of all ages that ar e interested in performing have opportunities through us.

We are collaboratives with the Overton Park Shell, of course, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Playhouse on the Square.

We collaborate and partner with all of these people to provide opportunities for African-American artists that may have never had the opportunity to perform in these larger venues with these amazing artists.

Memphis Black Arts Alliance, shockingly, even though we're so severely understaffed, we do so much to help these artists to go to their next level.

And the blessing part about it is when one of them comes back and says, "I'm so glad that you exist and you helped me."

I just had that call last night.

It just almost makes me cry.

They said, "Thank you so much for what you're doing, "because I can truthfully say, because of this organization, "I have met people, "I have been steered in directions that I never thought I'd be steered in to help me to reach my goals."

And that is what it's all about, helping them to go to the next level of their dreams.

- You have the events, you have the productions.

Obviously those are invitations for the public to come out and support your efforts.

How else can we help Memphis Black Arts Alliance?

- Right now, we're doing a lot of things in a lot of places, collaborating with a lot of people, doing things on our own as well.

A new collaborator we're working with Creative Aging, like I said, we're intergenerational.

And so just keep your ears and eyes open.

And please, by all means, go onto our website if you want to support this organization, we need your support so we can keep doing this very important work.

Go to www.MemphisBlackArts.org, MemphisBlackArts.org.

And please definitely come out to some of the works that we're doing and support the work we're doing.

This fall, we currently are getting ready for our summer camp, which interestingly enough is called SPARK.

[laughing] It's the summer performing arts readiness camp, and we're gonna be working with a lot of amazing artists.

We have choreographers and writers and actors, Karon Samuels, I mean, all of these amazing actors that are going to be teaching, teaching artists, as well as we're gonna be doing a performance.

So keep your ears and eyes open for that.

And so that the artists, the children themselves will be able to utilize the gifts and things that they've learned this summer and put them on display for their family and friends and loved ones.

Also, another thing that we do that's really, really important, we take kids that are underserved and we take them to places like the Orpheum so that they can see shows, especially shows that are filled with persons of color on stage, that they can also have an opportunity to see what is possible.

It's amazing the work that we do.

It is very, very fulfilling.

But also just to see those kids dream again and wanting to do something different than what they, what statistics say that they'll get into, wanting to just see them doing something different.

That's the blessing and that's why we need the support to keep this working.

- Absolutely.

Well, Lar'Juanette thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate you, absolutely.

Thank you for what you do.

[upbeat music] - They're an organization advocating for community and capacity building in the 38109 area.

We're here with Dedra Macklin, CEO and founder of WIND Memphis and WIND is an acronym.

So let's start out, tell us what WIND Memphis means.

- WIND stands for Westwood-IndianHills and Neighboring Developments.

We are a CDC located here in 38109.

- And so go ahead and talk about what a CDC, a Community Development Corporation talk about what a CDC means and does.

- Basically what our CDC does, we provide services within the 38109 zip code.

Our mission is redevelopment for sustainability within the 38109 communities.

There are multiple communities here in 38109, and we provide services to all.

- When you look at advocating for community, community investment, go ahead and paint the picture because there's a lot of programmatic pieces, obviously the investment side, events.

So, go ahead and dive into the magic of what you do.

- Basically, we are here to not only develop relationships with the residents here in 38109, we want to be able to find the gems that are already here and build upon that.

So for an example, we have a youth component such as the 4-H Club, which is called the Eyota Tribe 4-H Club.

And that is teaching our youth agriculture, agribusiness as well as teaching them how to fly drones over farmland and over gardens.

We also have components of where we have a senior component, where we have Second WIND Seniors, where we have programs that are available to get our seniors moving again within their community and doing some of the things that they love and also introduce them to something new.

We have another program called Wise Ties Co Gardens, where we teach families how to grow their own food.

And this is something that came out of the pandemic.

And we just see how much of a need, because we are within considered a food desert where there's not enough accessibility to healthy food as well as supplies for food through grocery stores here in 38109.

- What excites you about the efforts and impact around WIND Memphis?

- What is exciting about what we do in the community is that we're always open to partnerships with other organizations.

We also accept volunteers when they come along.

We don't have to have 55 hours a week, we could just have five hours a month, and it makes a big difference.

And we utilize those resources in, for instance, where we have a program also where we go into the seniors homes and we do small repairs in their homes because a lot of our seniors, our aging seniors, they have a lot of issues of not only not trusting contractors that come into their homes.

And so what we've done, we've decided, hey, let's just take that small piece of safety and we put it to the forefront.

And so we go into the homes ourselves as licensed contractors, as people who have been trained as a master home environmentalists and go into their homes and help them in their homes so they can age gracefully in place.

And because of that, this helps build not only relationships with seniors, it build relationships with their children who are adults that are caring for them and with their grandchildren also because we have programs for the youth.

So it is a ripple effect that we have.

And it all starts with partnerships.

It all starts with a strong vision.

And it also starts with knowing who we serve, why we serve, and we are here to be of good service.

- Share how this plays an important role in building civic pride, neighborhood pride, curbing crime, creating opportunities.

So talk about the larger ripple effect that WIND Memphis is having for our community.

- Well, the larger ripple effect is such as job development.

In the past, I would say 16 months, we have now five people who have gotten jobs through a different type of training to become master home environmentalists.

And they are, they have a background check, they're trained, they go into the homes and do small repairs in the seniors homes.

Also, at the same time, we have youth that went through a job development program that have graduated.

We had two to graduate last year that have gone on in the University of Memphis, one is in the program for agriculture.

The other, he decided to go to a master welding program and he is in that now.

So, what we're trying to do in the community, we're being kind of vast with it and we are bringing all the resources in.

We bring these resources in and we let our residents know that, hey, take advantage of these resources that you may not know about, but because we know about 'em, we brought 'em in, just trust the process in knowing that if you use these resources, then sometimes life can be a little bit better just by knowing and utilizing what we are bringing you.

- So how can the community help your efforts?

- The community could help our efforts by becoming a part of it.

Don't think that we like doing this alone.

This is a community effort.

We need at all hands on deck.

We really do.

We really want the Westwood, the Indian Hills, Boxtown, West Junction, as well as Walker Homes to come together and to put aside any thoughts or any ideas from the past and just know that we need to continue to build our future.

And the only way that we can do that is work as a team.

- So where do we go to learn more and get involved?

- To learn more information or get involved windmemphis.org as well as our phone number is 901-249-9941.

- Well, Dedra thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having WIND.

Have a good one.

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

The 2022 corporate award for companies with a hundred employees or fewer went to ServiceMaster by Cornerstone.

[light piano music] - ServiceMaster by Cornerstone is a family operated business here in Memphis, Tennessee.

We're focused on fire and water restoration along with mold on a commercial property, or also in a residential setting.

We provide those services to insurance agents, brokers, any adjusters, and also we work with the fire department, police department on different properties around town as well.

Our motto or our purpose at ServiceMaster by Cornerstone is to impact others at every opportunity to lift people up.

And so if we are constantly talking to our staff and our employees about, you know, how did you impact someone today, as a business, we want to go out and do that as a company and do that holistically in our community.

So by serving on first responders and the people that respond in our community, we feel like that's a great way to give back.

We have that partnership and we love that opportunity.

So almost 10 years ago, fire department and our business started talking and chatting about what it looks like to disinfect turnout gear.

Turnout gear is any clothing that the fire department provides to the firefighter for safety when fighting off fires.

We take those and we wash them in our esporta technology and we third party test it to make sure and verify that we do have decontaminates taken out.

That provides their firefighters wi th a peace of mind and also the unions and Shelby County Fire Department with a peace of mind that their firefighters are safe and that they have us to rely on.

So during COVID we engaged the Shelby County Sheriff's Department along with extending our partnership with the fire department.

We were able to go in and disinfect vehicles and we would go and do that weekly to just make sure that anybody that gets into the vehicle that may have been exposed to COVID that we are protecting the first responders.

Again, just a peace of mind an d impact the first responders in every way we can.

So during the holidays, we have a Christmas butt cookoff, our staff for the last seven years, this will be our eighth year, we provide Boston butts to the fire stations on Christmas day.

Our members of our team will go out with their families, kids and all and provide Boston butts to meals to the fire stations, so the firefighters that can't go home and can't be with their families, get to eat.

There's been times where the fire station was empty because they're fighting a fire.

And then there's been times where everyone was sitting around in their PJs and just waiting on the meal to show up.

So kids love it.

We get to sit in the firetrucks and shoot water out the firetruck, so it's a great experience.

We are always looking for different ways to serve on boards.

We partnered with a CBRE recently on a shoot that all of that goes to the Boys and Girls Club.

So just different events that we use through all of our associations, all those opportunities that are out there, we get involved in and just again, live out our purpose as ServiceMaster by Cornerstone.

I just think it's important th at you show your face and you show up and you allow the actions that you are talking to your employees about, the actions that you interact with with your customers.

You also give back and you impact the community.

There's a lot of darkness in our community.

And so by being able to show a little bit of light, it'll, with all of us doing it together, it'll shine pretty bright.

[light music] - They're a group of women transforming their hearts, health and minds through running.

We're here with Dr. Cheryl Kelley-Henderson.

She's the founder and CEO of Run 4our Life.

And Cheryl, you have an amazing story of finding running.

And so talk about your story, your personal story tied to learning all about the power of running.

- Yes, well first of all, it was a beautiful journey and now I really enjoy it more and more as I'm seeing other people have jumped on.

But because of my own health challenges and desire to lose weight and get healthy, I knew I had to get moving.

And my friends were all runners.

And so, instead of me sitting around, they were like, "Let's just start running."

And so one of my great friends, her name is Elizabeth said, "I can get you started."

And I was never a runner, didn't run in high school or anything.

And so we started running with the Galloway method, which were intervals.

So I got out there, I first started running 30 seconds and walking four minutes, and eventually my walk interval got shorter and then the run interval got longer.

And so when I moved back home to Memphis to go to graduate school, I found my high school best friend again, and she's like, "Hey, we're running.

You wanna come and run with us?"

And so we both ventured on a journey to do a half marathon every month for eight months.

And during that time we shared our story on social media and some other ladies saw it and said, "Hey, you should start a running group."

And we were like, "This was about us and our health", but we saw the transformation that was happening with us and we wanted to share it.

So from sharing on social media to someone saying, "Hey, you should start a run group", that's kind of where Run 4our Life came.

- And also running marathons and opening up the floodgates and getting more and more women in.

So, talk about the program for Run 4our Life.

Talk about how it works.

- Awesome, well, we believe first of all that running has the power to transform.

And my background is education.

So I'm like, "Okay, we can get to the finish line, "but what are the steps we need to take to get before we get there?"

And so one of the things that we do is we offer goal setting, which is a workshop at the very beginning of our season.

Our seasons are about 12 weeks long.

So we have one in the spring and one in the fall.

And basically what we do is we meet at Shelby Farms and we run, we have some walkers as well, 'cause you gotta walk before you run.

And we meet on Saturdays at Shelby Farms here in the city.

And so throughout the 12-week season, we have goal setting, our runners or walkers get a training plan.

We also have people that wanna be a part of Run 4our Life, but if they don't wanna run we're like, "No worries, we can help you."

We have a mixed fitness class that we offer each season, and then we believe in volunteerism.

So we get to volunteer at local races, which we volunteered at the Memphis in May triathlon, which was an amazing opportunity.

And then we have another subset of people that we discovered that we've invited to come with us.

And those are our moms of small and school-aged kids.

And so we have our outreach initiative dedicated to those moms that's called MOSAIK.

So we have quite a few things that we offer, but the core of it is we want folks to come to the group run because we know when you run in a group, you have accountability, you build community.

And an African proverb that I love says, "If you wanna go fast, go alone.

If you wanna go far, go together."

And that's what we believe.

So when you come on Saturdays, you get to run with the group.

And that's kind of where we build in the accountability and the community of runners and walkers that we have.

- What's been the feedback from some of the women?

- Oh my goodness.

Most recently the ladies are like, "I never liked running, now I love it."

I can't imagine that we've heard husbands saying, "You never get up early, but you're out of the door at 5:30 on Saturdays."

And then the biggest feedback from the ladies themselves are just looking in the mirror and seeing their bodies transform and their minds transform and them utilizing the strategies of perseverance and discipline and consistency spilling over into other areas of their lives.

Not just to finish their weekend runs or their weekday solo runs, but they're seeing this transformation happen in the way they even approach their daily lives.

So it's working and they've bought into it and they're doing the work to transform their lives.

- What would your words of encouragement be for other women who aren't runners and wanna get involved?

- First things first is you don't have to be a runner.

You can start walking and then first of all, just start walking.

I encourage people to start with 10 minutes.

If you have 10 minutes in your day, take a walk, 10 minutes before lunch, take a walk 10 minutes after.

So that's step one.

Step two is we have tons of walkers with us.

And it's amazing that ladies that never run have finished half marathons.

And we have another one that's like on the cusp of doing her first full marathon this year, and she's been with us for one year.

So get started is probably the first thing.

And secondly, come to Shelby Farms, you can walk, we have some walkers, and I promise you once you get in that atmosphere, you're gonna wanna do more, but just keep coming back.

- How does the community help your efforts?

- Okay, well, our big initiative, we actually have MOSAIK, and it's Moms of Small and Interactive Kids.

And what we need most importantly number one is we want two things.

One, we want moms to get nominated for our cohort.

We just finished our first cohort of 30 women that got their kits that had a starter kit and a 30 day workout plan that we designed as a team.

And the other part of it is we need funds so that we can continue to buy equipment to resource these moms.

And so, the primary way of communicating with us, there are a couple of ways.

One is our email, which is running4ourlife@gmail.com.

That's a surefire way to be able to get in contact with us.

Another way you can find us on social media, we are on Instagram @running4our _life, running, the number four, our underscore life.

And that way you can get in contact with us, you can email us, and we just need funds.

We are raising money so that we can purchase equipment and resource our moms and also our workshops we offer, they're open to the public so anyone can come, but we need facilities that allow us to utilize the space.

And so those are the three ways, resources, contacting us, connecting us with moms.

And also if you have a facility that you would love for us to host a workshop in, we would more than welcome, be welcome and excited to come to your facility.

- Well Cheryl, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you for having me.

[upbeat music] - Building healthy and connected communities helps to create better quality of life for all.

As we saw in this month's episode, we're fortunate to have individuals and organizations like Memphis Black Arts Alliance, WIND Memphis, and Run 4our Life that are empowering and equipping residents to take an active role in shaping their lives and neighborhoods.

They're helping to foster a sense of social connectedness and a sense of pride and appreciation for our community.

They're creating new economic opportunities and promoting healthy lifestyles and encouraging physical activity, which helps our citizens prevent chronic disease and promote overall wellbeing.

Building stronger communities through art, running and neighborly bonds is the spark that leads to a more productive and engaged community.

So thank you for watching The 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 our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance 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.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is honored to be a presenting sponsor of The Spark.

[upbeat music]