- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "Empowering and Mentoring our Youth".

We'll learn more about a nonprofit providing literacy resources and offering tutoring support in schools across the Mid-South, a psychology-based program, helping youth uncover their potential to succeed through mentoring and apprenticeship.

And a company teaming with Memphis Youth Athletics to provide STEM learning opportunities.

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.

They're a nonprofit providing literacy resources and tutoring support in schools across the Mid-South.

We're here with Sam O'Bryant, he is the executive director with Literacy Mid-South.

And let's start, Literacy Mid-South, give us some history and some context, Sam.

- Sure, and thanks for having me, Jeremy.

We've been around since 1974, so we're getting real close to that 50-year mark.

We started out serving adults, primarily through adult learning programs, and we still do that, but over the years we've added additional programming.

We've come to do out-of-school time partnerships, serving over 6,000 children each summer.

We have an early literacy component working with expecting mothers, serving about 3,000 families through that effort.

And here recently, we've embarked on doing what we call high dosage tutoring, and that's allowed us to serve over 3,000 first through third graders throughout Memphis and Shelby County.

- Hopefully all of us understand the importance of literacy, but talk about why this is so important for the Mid-South.

- Well, you know, we often say that a literate community is an empowered community.

And when we think about those goals that children often have, we often, we ask children what they wanna be when they wanna grow up.

The step toward getting there begins with literacy.

There is no profession that does not have literacy as a requirement.

There is no dream that does not have literacy, I would say, as a requirement.

So if we can do the work that we do on the front end with first, second, and third graders, or even assisting adults to help first, second and third graders, we're on our way to becoming the Memphis that we want to be.

- Talk about why first, second, and third grade is important to focus on.

- Sure, so first, second, and third grade is what you would call your foundational literacy learning experience, between third grade and fourth grade.

What we see is a shift where we go from learning to read, which happens first through third grade, but beginning in the fourth grade, you get more into the comprehension and understanding part of it, and at that point you're reading to learn.

So if we don't capture accurately and efficiently what a child needs first through third grade, they will encounter some difficulty fourth grade going forward.

- Talk about the structure, talk about the tutors, give us a little more detail.

- Oh yeah, that's, that's, that's the good stuff, right?

So this actually puts us into place to be a hiring entity.

So right now we have about 60 tutors that are working across 15 elementary schools throughout Memphis and Shelby County.

Our tutors probably work anywhere from 9 to 18 hours per week.

Of course this is a part-time opportunity, but you know, at this point we're looking for individuals who have the time and the commitment to work during the day.

Again, this is a during the day tutoring effort.

So they're in the classrooms between those hours of eight and three carving out 9 to 18 hours per week.

So what we've seen, we've had college students sign up and they've done a tremendous job.

We've had people who are, you know, in some sort of career transition sign up, and they're doing a tremendous job.

We've had retired teachers show up and you know, they're like, this is my skill, I've done this for so many years, I can contribute again.

And so they've been doing a great job, but we are also seeing individuals who may have say a job working the second or third shift, and this gives them the chance to actually be present in the schools in which their children attend, as well as learn about what the students are learning about, and then being that contributing adult to helping make sure that they capture the information and learn from it.

So it's, I mean, it's a beautiful thing, man.

We have, we did a tutor profile, did a survey a few, a few weeks ago, and we saw so many different types of people that are participating, some who now even have an interest in becoming full-time teachers.

So we're gonna see what we can do to help, you know, build up that educator pipeline as well.

- I love it, so that's obviously one way we can plug in, but what are some other ways that the community can help your efforts?

- Well, so with our adult learning program, again, it is volunteer based.

So if you have time to spend, you know, one to two hours per week working with an adult that has a specific life goal, you know, with our adult program, these are adults that have said, you know, this is the thing I want to do.

I want to be able to read to my grandchildren.

I want to be able to pass the exam that allows me to get a promotion at work.

So if we have, there are volunteers who can assist with those sorts of things, they can go to our website and that's www.literacymidsouth.org.

They can go to our website and sign up to be a volunteer there.

You know, we do the volunteer training and we let them know everything that they need to know to be able to help these adults.

So we're always looking for volunteers in this space.

I would say if there are schools out there who are in need of just, you know, resources and whatnot, we can assist with that.

You know, just last year we distributed over 100,000 books to schools, children, families, community partners, you know, what, you name it, we try to give them a book.

So book distribution is a big part of our efforts.

So if your school or your co mmunity group is looking for, you know, book distribution, we can help out with that.

Another thing that we have, and I'm know, I'm really excited about this, we actually have a book vending machine.

So, you know, and we present this in, you know in pop-up settings, so like community meetings, you know, things of that sort.

So if you have a community meeting and you're looking and you know that you're gonna have a mix of children and adults there, let us know.

We love to bring the book vending machine out.

All the books are free, we do not want them back.

And all the books are brand new.

So these are not used books.

So, you know, we're really proud to be able to present these as options to help children build their personal libraries.

- Where do we go to learn more, mention website, social media?

Where do we go to learn more about Literacy Mid-South?

- Sure.

So our website is www.literacymidsouth.org and we're on all the socials, so we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.

You just do a search for Literacy Mid-South on either one of those platforms and we'll show up and, you know, our, we're located in Midtown.

We're on the fourth floor of Playhouse on the Square.

Just come visit us, you know, we've had parents come up with their children needing books and we have a book giveaway section again with all the books that we have.

And, but you know, these are the places we are, these are the resources we have and we'd love the chance to share them with the community.

- Well Sam, greatly appreciate all you and your amazing team are doing.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you Jeremy, glad to be here.

[upbeat music] - They're a psychology based program, helping youth uncover their potential to succeed.

We're here with the founder and CEO of CLAY Greg Winston, and let's start out, what does CLAY mean?

It's an acronym, so what does it mean?

- Hi, Jeremy CLAY stands for Cultivating the Life of A Youth.

And essentially what we are saying is that we want to help groom kids for their future.

- This starts with your personal backstory.

So give us a little bit of your backstory leading into starting this nonprofit.

- As a kid, I was a juvenile delinquent, spent time in juvenile hall, developed a relationship there and the owner or the chairman of the juvenile center would have me come back and speak to kids.

And I've been doing it since then and I'm bringing that to CLAY.

- Talk about Ascension because this is a psychology-based program, so talk about the program.

- Well, it's based on what causes success.

Jeremy, I've read over 1,039 books.

I've tried to pull from those books what would work in today's market.

I combine that with my major in psychology in college and voila, we have a program that helps kids understand how they can reach their potential.

- A big piece of this is reframing the positive mindset, but it's also too, apprenticeships, internships, job creation, opportunities.

So where does the magic start to happen?

- It starts to happen the moment we get kids to understand what possibility is, and then I bring in elements where I do my part.

Where I will go to a union like the Electrical Union where I just negotiated a deal and they will agree to hire our kids if they go through the program.

Now, part of the magic is the people.

You're gonna meet a young lady by the name of Alma Moore, she is a dyno and she loves these kids as much as I do.

And I think that's the biggest piece, showing that you really care about someone and you're concerned about their future.

- You have a track record of success and Los Angeles is one area.

So share some of the success stories, especially around what happened in Los Angeles.

- Well, using the program, we found that there are several different levels.

We could use internships, we could get jobs, but kids are free thinkers now and they wanted to do their own businesses.

So we started a mentorship program that helps entrepreneurs and we're bringing that to the table.

So whatever it is, we got it covered.

They want a regular gig, they want a service job.

Or if they think, "Hey, I have something I wanna put online, I wanna start my own business," we got 'em covered.

- Talk about partnering here in Memphis, working with nonprofits and how you're structuring these opportunities.

- Well, I feel Jeremy that I have something that a lot of nonprofits have not worked and developed.

That's not their gig.

And because I stumbled across it accidentally, I'm offering it to them for free.

So in the case of Jif for example, I went to them and offered it and we're trying to work out the logistics so we can start training them.

Let's say one of the kids goes through the program, I can automatically move that kid into the electrical business starting at 17.50 an hour and they can go to $33 an hour and that, that's just one example.

But I'm approaching all unions right now.

I'm targeting the group that handles the drivers, UPS drivers and people.

So there'll be a wide range of service jobs, which we need.

There'll be jobs that are more in corporate America and they can start their own business with me.

- How can the community help your efforts?

I think the access on the corporate side with the internships, the apprenticeships, that's one piece.

Working obviously with the nonprofits to open up the floodgates for more youth to get engaged, that's another piece.

But how can we help overall?

- Well, I want more company involvement, so I wanna speak to more companies about what they could do because in the end, I'm gonna help them find great employees.

On the other side of it, we're going to train, we're gonna train America to look at Memphis differently and we can recruit better.

So, any involvement where I can talk to a company I'm open to, I believe I'm gonna do the heavy lifting, I'm gonna go get jobs, I'm gonna go get internships.

But I need support from companies and the government, I just left a meeting today with the city.

So I'm trying to do something that hasn't been done before.

- When you look at the mindset around what's made you successful, the opportunity, obviously the psychology around how do we, you know, open up the opportunities for youth, the positive thinking, those sort of things that we're talking about, what does that mean in a larger context, the ripple effect for the community.

And so there's a a ton of benefits here, but why, you know, why does all this matter so much to our community?

- Well if you look at the last 40 years and our efforts to slow down crime, it hasn't done so.

And there's some things that I've discovered in other markets that help it.

One, you've gotta include the family.

No one is going to come from an environment, learn something and go to that environment every day.

They'll de-rail it, you gotta include the family.

You gotta have those components I talked about with the corporate arena, the schools and the city.

Then the other piece that I think is really important is changing the mindset of that child where the emotional content is different and they can handle setback.

That's what I think is really driving this.

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

So mention your website, where do we go?

- Yeah, clayinc.org is a place to go.

If you don't wanna do that, you just want to email me.

I don't have any problem with, my email's really simple, it's greg@gregwinston.com.

You can also use info@clayinc.com.

We don't hide, we're out there.

You can, you can hit us up anytime.

- Well, I love the difference you're making.

So Greg, thank you for all you and your team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- I loved it, thank you for having me.

[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 more than 500 employees went to Smith+Nephew.

[gentle music] - Smith+Nephew is a medical device company that's been around a really long time.

Started in the UK, came to Memphis when they actually acquired, I think it's Richard's Medical, and they've been here since.

We're about 18, almost 19,000, so about 18,600 employees at Smith+Nephew, about a $5.5 billion business.

We are global, it's an amazing medical device company.

We live on three pillars at Smith+Nephew, which is care, collaboration and courage.

And we start with care.

Care is very important and it's caring for our patient, caring for our employees, and caring for our community.

And we never deviate from that, right?

It's that sort of care.

It's collaborating with companies such as cityCurrent and it's actually having the courage to go after just some phenomenal products and you know, phenomenal giving back to the city that we live in.

I'm fortunate enough to be at Smith+Nephew and be in the role where, not only am I over inclusion, diversity and equity, but I also am the lead for the philanthropic arm for Memphis, which we call Moving Memphis Forward.

And it's an appropriate name because that's what we're always doing is looking how can we improve Memphis?

How can we make it a better place to live?

Whether you're new or you've lived here for a long time, we are constantly looking to give back to the community and at all ranges.

So whether that's working with career schools, whether that's working with cityCurrent, whether that's working, you know, with St. Jude or the American Cancer Society, or Habitat for Humanity.

So 12 years ago, Smith+Nephew participated with Samaritan's Feet and I think we were so moved, right?

Because again, when we think about our pillars of care, collaboration and courage and Life Unlimited, what Manny does with Samaritan's Feet is he changes one's life.

It was very easy for us to partner with Manny and his organization.

We're glad to participate with Samaritan's Feet globally, but we're even more proud to participate with them in Memphis and continue to give back to the schools in Memphis to ensure that every child always have some, have a pair of shoes to wear.

We are fortunate in that actually this is one of our biggest philanthropic hub, is Moving Memphis Forward within Smith+Nephew.

None of our other locations have such active volunteerism within the company as Memphis.

We really have just a tremendous love and support for Memphis and we are always looking to improve the city.

[gentle music] - They're a company teaming with Memphis Youth Athletics to provide STEM learning opportunities to youth.

We're here with Kelley Grusin, he's a senior product manager with Smith+Nephew and a board member with Memphis Youth Athletics.

And Kelley, let's start, give us a little bit of your world with Smith+Nephew.

- Well, hey Jeremy.

So yes, my world with Smith+Nephew, so I'm in Memphis, Tennessee, obviously work at Smith+Nephew.

Smith+Nephew is a global portfolio medical device company.

We have orthopedic products, wound products, sports medicine products, ENT, just a wide variety of things that we do across the globe.

Memphis is the headquarters for that and I'm in product development, de signing trauma products.

- Give us a little bit of your cool world and some of the innovations, the technology, some of the cool things you get to work on.

- Every day we find new ways to improve fracture care and management.

So we're in surgeries, watching how things are done, seeing how we can improve procedures, improve instruments, improve implants, and every day is just to living the dream, to be able to come up with new ways to make those things better.

- Talk about your kind of past with running and what led you and attracted you to Memphis Youth Athletics.

- Sure, yes, I'm very lucky that I had probably one of the best coaches that ever lived in Memphis, Tennessee, Frank Horton and I had been running for a little while, got into high school, met him and just had tremendous influence from him.

One of the biggest mentors in my entire life was Frank Horton.

And the things he taught me ab out dedication and commitment really made me a runner for my entire life.

And just his way of doing it and his manner and approach was just such a huge influence on me.

Unfortunately, along the way with him, he passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease and also watched him experience that and how he approached life with this death sentence essentially.

And so just was really inspiring on me.

So now that I am in a point in my career where I have a little more time, I've started dedicating myself to teaching others some of those same things.

And so I've been involved in coaching once my kids moved into high school and I couldn't really coach at that level anymore, I joined MYA and had a bigger influence now across our entire community.

- Go ahead and talk about Memphis Youth Athletics, MYA.

Give us some background, the mission and the purpose.

- Yeah, so our mission is to create healthy habits with every run, jump and throw.

It's that simple because running is really that simple.

So it's our way of teaching kids something to do that's just plain and simple.

All you need are a pair of running shoes.

Most of the clothing is optional.

You can get out easily and run.

Everybody can do it.

So we've built a program centered around that, that has programs 12 months of the year for kids to be able to do.

Everyone is included.

So it gives us tremendous opportunity to teach kids about the healthy part of running, but also just we've got 'em together.

We have the opportunity to bring different groups and backgrounds together.

We can bring east and west and north and south together without boundaries.

The opportunity for us to show them what Memphis has to offer, expose them to things they haven't seen.

So we're exposing them to a lot of Memphis.

And then as we have recently done, we've actually included some science as well that we teach the kids.

- And that's the perfect segue into, when you talk about providing opportunities and science and STEM and all of these experiential opportunities to learn and to also too, to see new possibilities with careers.

Talk about the STEM Camp and teaming up with Smith+Nephew.

- Yeah, this is the most incredible thing for me.

It's the culmination of all these great things.

I told you the mission for Memphis Youth Athletics.

The culture pillars of Smith+Nephew are care, collaboration and courage.

The STEM Camp was a culmination of being able to apply all of those.

So we put together a STEM program during our summer camp last year and created a really highly in teractive program for the kids where we started out by describing Smith+Nephew, what Smith+Nephew does.

We focused it on trauma.

We showed them some trauma products, plates and nails, rods that go in the bones, external fixators.

Their eyes were really wide open because we're talking about broken bones, and then we told the kids from here on it's kind of your show.

And we gave them different activities and started by saying, okay, you know a little bit about these products we showed you.

I want you to break into teams and go create a skit and you're gonna come in and pretend to do a surgery.

And everyone had an assignment from an anesthesiologist to an orthopedist to the whole thing.

And they came in in their scrubs and their hats and they performed these mock surgeries, really impressed us, showed us that kids, you know, they can surprise you.

They know more than you think.

And we were rolling on the floor with some of the things that they did.

They were appropriate, they were creative and it was really awesome to see.

We've turned that into the next phase, which was having them go design 'cause that's what I do.

My team that was there, that's what we do.

Plates and screws might not have been too fun for them.

So we chose jump ropes, and we made all kinds of jump rope components from different handles to different types of ropes.

We told the kids design a better jump rope and they went into their teams again, designed these great jump ropes that had speakers attached to 'em.

They had counters, they had Bluetooth and wifi, all these wonderful things, they came back again, presented that to us and made it a competition.

Of course, we chose the best jump rope and it did include demonstrating the device that they'd built.

So it was really, really awesome for them to see.

- Give us one other way, when you talk about financial contributions supporting Memphis Youth Athletics, what's one or two other ways that the public can help Memphis Youth Athletics?

- Of course you can make donations to Memphis Youth Athletics.

We are a nonprofit organization, but you can also volunteer with us.

We're, we're starting a capital campaign because we're not a brick and mortar business.

We want to find a strategic partner that has sort of the same goals as us that can match that capital amount we've got and see if we can't put in a world-class cross-country course somewhere that we couldn't build an indoor tr ack and an outdoor track.

Things that just aren't in good quantity in Memphis today.

- When you talk about website, social media, where do we go to plug in to learn more about Smith+Nephew and also Memphis Youth Athletics?

- Smith+Nephew's easy, it's smith-nephew.com, you can find everything there.

And then Memphis Youth Athletics is memphisyouthathletics.org, and you can find all of the information that I've talked about today there.

- Well, Kelley, greatly appreciate all you and your amazing team do both at Smith+Nephew and Memphis Youth Athletics.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Awesome, Jeremy, thank you.

[upbeat music] - We've talked about it in the past, but Memphis has one of the largest under 18 populations in America.

If we can focus on empowering and mentoring our youth for success, if we can guide them on a positive path for their futures, it can lead to powerful outcomes for our city.

These youth are our future leaders, employees, entrepreneurs, creatives, parents and voters.

It's imperative that we give them the foundational love and support they need.

Show them what's possible so they have the motivation to be what they see and give them the opportunities to learn, develop, and mature into the men and women who will then power the good.

That's why the work that Literacy Mid-South, CLAY, Memphis Youth Athletics, and Smith+Nephew are doing here in our community is so important.

Their focus on empowering and mentoring our youth is building a stronger and brighter future for our city.

I hope you'll join them or some of the many other organizations we've had an opportunity to highlight over the past 11 years in getting involved to serve as a spark for our youth.

We need your help.

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 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] [acoustic guitar chords]