- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "Expanding for Healing and Learning".

We'll learn about a nonprofit expanding outside of Memphis to keep children near the care they need with the family they love.

An organization that has expanded to Memphis to help address issues surrounding youth and young adult incarceration and victim trauma by using restorative practices, and a nonprofit supporting the Memphis Public Libraries to expand opportunities for knowledge and experiences.

We'll also share a special moment from our SPARK Awards, 2023.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm Jeremy Park and this is The SPARK.

They're expanding outside of Memphis to keep children near the care they need with the family they love.

We're talking with Jill Crocker, Executive Director of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis.

And let's start with your efforts here in Memphis tied to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

So give us a little bit of background.

- Okay, we have been serving with our hospital partner for over 33 years, and basically we are a home away from home for families that are going through treatment with their children.

And we serve the whole family.

We are on 7.1 acres of land in the heart of Memphis, just across the street from the hospital.

And we really do provide a safe, secure home-like atmosphere in a community of people that are going through the same thing that you are going through.

And you know, it's really an extraordinary blessing, I think, for our community to have such wonderful healthcare and to be able to bring in families from all over the world to take advantage of that.

- Why is it so important to keep the family together when the child is going through the process of treatments and healing?

- You know, the experts, the medical professionals tell us, children heal quicker.

Families need the strength of being together.

You know, if you think about it, even growing up, when you're not feeling well, you want to be surrounded by those who love you the most, and that's your family.

And it just makes all the difference.

It's scary being far away from home, but when you have your family to support you, it really does aid in just feeling better mentally, physically, spiritually, and healing quicker.

- Give us a little bit of a tour, because it is a home away from home, and so the kitchen, the outdoor playground, walk us through some of the cool pieces of the home.

- Well, when you come through the doors, I think anyone could tell you it does feel like home, but on a much expanded level.

We have 53 rooms, which include two apartment style living spaces.

We have a huge area that it's really the hub of the house.

It has seating, Ali's Grill which is our dine-in place to eat and have breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And then it has a large media room where the kids can come and watch a movie.

And we've had several movie nights with the kids and the families.

And then outdoors, we have walking trails.

We have a beautiful new playground that is inclusive for all children and all families.

We have an outdoor pavilion area and basketball courts.

We have two game rooms.

We have a craft room, you know, anything you can think of.

We have a baby grand piano, and we have a pianist that comes once a month to entertain the families.

And we have some families that play the piano.

So it really is like home.

It's just a lot bigger.

- Touch on the aspect that the families who are going through this process, they don't pay.

And so it's a gift, a blessing for them.

Talk about that piece of the equation.

- Sure, well, we are very fortunate to be supported by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

They provide for about a third of our annual donated amount.

We have to raise the rest of it though, but some of those resources are your local McDonald's through Giving Back and Roundup and through buying Happy Meals, they help to support the house in their geographic area.

So we have many McDonald's that contribute to that, but really we're relying on our community.

We have so many donors in our community and even outside of our community that they see how important it is to give to this cause, because families are never charged.

We do not ask families for donations, but we are relying on our community and our largest fundraiser is Radiothon.

It happens the first Friday in November, and last year we set another record of over $650,000 in 1 day.

So that's a large chunk of our budget.

- Well, I mentioned at the onset, exciting news with an expansion, so talk about the expansion to Jackson, Tennessee.

- Well, we are thrilled to be opening the doors in a Hyatt Hotel.

We'll be on the first floor, actually the second floor, and that's really to help the families that are being served by the Jackson County Madison Hospital.

There are children there, especially NICU, which is a different area of service for us, but we're looking so forward to it, after 33 years to be able to expand and help more families, especially in West Tennessee.

I'm a native West Tennesseean, and I'm so happy that we can really make a difference at that regional hospital.

But we will be serving West Tennessee Healthcare there and also Le Bonheur Children's.

- Talk about volunteer opportunities, opportunities to physically serve with Ronald McDonald House Charities in Memphis.

- In Memphis, we are having our volunteers after a long pause because of COVID, volunteers can come back into the house now, help serve meals with our culinary coordinators.

They can also do things like bingo nights or ice cream nights or we really listen to whatever people would like to do and how they'd like to serve, but we are ready for folks to come back.

That is for sure.

We had people here at Christmas ho lidays wrapping presents, and we also have our Red Shoe Brew event that's coming up that we could use volunteers for.

And there's always an opportunity to serve here at the Ronald McDonald House.

- We'll wrap up with where we can go to learn more and get involved with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis.

- You can go to our website at rmhc-memphis.org.

There are volunteer opportunities, ways to give, and just know more about our mission there, and we're so excited to be a part of the Memphis community and soon coming to the Jackson community.

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

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you so much.

[upbeat music] - They're bringing the restorative practices to Memphis, Tennessee.

We're here with the Founder and CEO of Raphah Institute, Travis Claybrooks, and let's start out with a little background on Raphah Institute and coming to Memphis.

- Yeah, hey Jeremy, thanks so much for having me, having us.

A little background on Raphah Institute, we've been around for about seven years.

Started really out of a vision that emerged from my work as a law enforcement officer here in Nashville, seeing really the woeful lack of resources that people have that drive them into this kind of survival mode that then leads them into the criminal legal system.

And then the response from the criminal legal system rarely helps the situation.

And so Raphah Institute is really this idea of how do we provide different responses to when people engage the criminal legal system, and in a larger aspect, how do we help them get the resources that they need to never enter the criminal legal system in the first place.

- You take a very personal approach with what you do.

And so go ahead and start diving into how it works, the process.

- Yeah, so the restorative justice work, we interface primarily with the criminal legal system.

That is a case.

We have a relationship and understanding with our system partners, a judge, the DA, public defender, police department, and from the court, a person gets arrested, so there's a victim, there's a person who's been accused.

That case, instead of the DA prosecuting that case or that case being adjudicated in the court system, it gets sent to us.

We then work with the person who's been harmed and offer them trauma services for life, victim services for life.

What do they need?

Exploring what they need in the aftermath of the harm.

We work with the person who has caused the harm.

What do you need to transform?

How do we make this right?

What does making it right look like?

And in many cases, what both parties want and need is to come together and to talk about it.

We do that after a lengthy, lengthy individual, one-on-one engagement with them.

And when they're ready to come and talk, and they talk about the harm, you talk about the impact of the harm, there might be beef going on between them.

How do we, and what does repair look like?

What does transformation look like?

It's a very lengthy process, but we find that it's very beneficial for people who participate and complete it.

- When you look at the timing of a trial versus the timing of going through your process and the end result, talk about kind of those two pieces of what you're doing versus the trial and going through the judicial process.

- Yeah, if you're just thinking about timing, you know, on serious cases where there is going to be a, you know, where there is in, where the intensity of the harm is great, like a homicide case, and not a vehicular homicide, but let's say a, but even a vehicular homicide.

But let's say a murder case or capital murder case, or an especially aggravated robbery or assault, you know, a carjacking or something like that.

You know, you could be, you could be anywhere from 12 to 36 months before you ever go to trial, even get close to having your case resolved, whether you're the person who's caused the harm or the person who had the harm happens to them.

So this time is going by anyway.

And so part of our thinking is, why don't we do something good with it?

Instead of the having this person just sit in jail and this family over here sitting and waiting, you know, with court continuance after court continuance, let's do something with that time, why not engage those parties?

And our process in these more intense cases is more like 12 to 15 months.

You know, people come into the process and we've begun to shift just a little bit of what we do, but there is a rites of passage that a young person would have to complete that's like a 3-week, 15-day intensive, you know, "Are you serious?

Do you really wanna engage this process?"

And then we prepare them to have the conference with their person, if that's going to happen.

And then from there it is another 12 months of really stabilization and accountability education.

You know, what does all of that stuff look like?

What does your housing situation look like?

What does your job and economic situation look like?

What does your education process look like?

What kind of social supports do you have?

Who are your people?

Who are you hanging around?

And then also thinking about healthcare.

What healthcare do you need?

- How can the community help Raphah Institute?

- We always need funding support and that, maybe it goes without saying, but I need to say it.

The other thing is, I think, let's start re-imagining what's possible.

You know, we may look and say, "What, wait a minute, somebody's not going to jail "and they did something, "you know, as heinous as that, "they're not going to jail?

What, we're gonna do something else?"

As our good friend Danielle Sered says, "If incarceration made us safer, we'd be the safest nation in human history."

And we know that that's not true.

Our current system doesn't work the way that we would hope that it does.

And so let's reimagine, come along and reimagine something new.

Reimagine people who in the aftermath of harm, actually getting justice on their terms, defining what that looks like and pursuing it.

- Well, where do we go to get involved with Raphah Institute?

- Well, there's Raphah.org, there's our website, R-A-P-H-A-H .org.

You can follow us on socials at Raphah Institute, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X. Yeah, and sign up for our mailing list.

Go to our website, go to our Join Us page, or Contact Us page and sign up for our mailing list.

We've got content that's coming out.

Again, check out the "Justice, USA" documentary on Max.

It's airing right now.

Those are ways you can stay in touch.

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

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Jeremy, thanks so much for having us, and looking forward to coming to Shelby County and Memphis!

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

The 2023 Individual Collegiate Award went to Brandon Washington.

[soothing music] - My name is Brandon Washington.

I'm a sophomore over at Rhodes College, majoring in Russian and International studies with a minor in politics and law.

So I was in foster care from 15 to 18, and around when I turned 18, that's when Youth Villages really noticed that I really loved advocating for myself, even though I wasn't able to, you know, do much as a young person.

But once I turned 18, they started inviting me to donor events and fundraising just to raise awareness of what foster care really is.

And that kind of translated into me doing advocacy work with them.

I went to DC on behalf of them to speak to the US Senate Caucus on foster care.

And while I was there, I spoke to senators and the Senate Caucus about resources that aging out foster youth really do need, such as SNAP benefits, you know, our allowance that we get that need to be raised.

And that actually resulted in the Physical Responsibility Act of 2023.

SNAP benefits were expanded to include transitioning out foster youth.

So that was really important for us.

So I worked with Youth Villages and their developmental team, and I really helped them with volunteer events on their residential campuses.

And since I was always in foster care, I never experienced the other three levels of state custody.

So there was a good opportunity for me to interact with those youth and just give them a look at what their life could be if they, stay on the right path and really keep that mindset of like, okay, this is what I want to do.

So with my advocacy work and work with nonprofits, I really try to bring the focus to helping our youth and actually talking to them and making sure we are giving them the resources they actually need instead of what we think they need.

The Posse Program was built on the quote from a college dropout that said that he wouldn't have dropped out if he had his posse.

So it's really important for us to come into college with that community already established.

I'm a part of the Virtual Program, which was born out of COVID.

It brings students from all over the US to one college.

So it's 10 of us in each cohort, and my cohort is the second one to go to Rhodes.

And it's only three of us that are even from Tennessee.

Everyone else is from like Virginia Beach, Arizona, different parts of the US.

So it really helps us is coming to college with a community.

Right now, my goal for the future is getting elected to Memphis City Council, but going beyond that, I want that to go and eventually work my way up to Secretary of State, which is where my Russian studies and international studies major comes in.

But if we actually learn about these people and learn their language, then we can really break the barrier of these stereotypes and actually get to know the individual people and their culture.

[uplifting music] - They're are a nonprofit supporting Memphis Public Libraries to expand opportunities for knowledge and experiences.

We're here with the Executive Director of the Memphis Library Foundation, Christine Weinreich.

And let's start out, it's 30 years, so 30th anniversary.

Give us some history for the Memphis Library Foundation.

- Sure, thanks Jeremy.

I appreciate you having me on.

The Memphis Library Foundation was actually founded in the mid '90s with the recognition of the need for a new central library.

So the initial board of directors was really focused on raising $20 million to match public funding and build the Central Library.

So that central library, the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library on Poplar was the first big initiative for the Library Foundation.

And since then we've just been working to support all of the different programming, facilities enhancements, and collection enhancements throughout the entire Memphis Library system.

- So how have libraries changed over the years?

Because this plays an integral role in your efforts now.

- Yes, indeed.

Yeah, so I was a library lover when I was a kid.

These libraries, the libraries in the Memphis Public Library system, they are not your parents' library.

And I can say that absolutely, they are not big buildings with books, although that is part of what they are and will always be, of course part of what they are.

But these days, libraries look more at what resources and information a community needs beyond just what can be found in a book.

So there are a lot of other non-traditional resources, either available for checkout or available in the library, like computers, of course, but also 3D printers, things like virtual reality goggles and the kinds of programs that can teach you an art, a skill like that, a craft, a vocation, along with mentoring.

Mentoring is a big part of what library staff do as well.

So the books are there to supplement what you are learning.

One of my favorite examples really is Cloud901, which is a teen learning space in the central library.

That space is two floors.

It's enormous.

It has a full film and video studio.

It has a recording studio for music and podcasting.

It has a visual arts space.

We operate a high school level robotics team that travels and competes out of that space.

That's not what I had in my library.

And then there are books to supplement what the kids are learning in those spaces.

- You're also building community, because when you look at the libraries as gathering places, there's open spaces for performances and all sorts of group discussions.

And then also too, bringing in the experts to work with the students on podcasting and videography.

And so talk about that sense of nurturing community.

- Absolutely, libraries are uniquely egalitarian public spaces.

Anybody can go in, from, it doesn't matter who you are, what your background is, from folks who are unhoused to wealthy people.

Everybody can gather in one place.

And so that's really powerful, especially in a time of divisiveness in our country.

If you just put people in the same room around some kind of shared experience, sometimes that goes a long way toward understanding.

So we have a lot of gatherings for arts and culture events, both at the Central Library and at the branch libraries.

The Cossitt Library, which you mentioned in the introduction, has its own performance space.

It has a podcasting studio and a photo lab, and we have experts in those spaces to help teach you how to do those arts and crafts.

Even our restaurant in the Cossitt Library, Dos Hermanos, you would think they're just a vendor to the city of Memphis.

But in fact, Chef Eli also does programming and mentoring in that space, so that if somebody who's interested in learning more about cooking, whether they want a food truck or they wanna work in a restaurant, he has programming around that as well.

So everybody in the library is there to share.

- Talk about your role in terms of helping the libraries have what they need, expand those opportunities for knowledge and experiences and learning.

At the same time though, you're stepping in to make sure that the resources are there, the support is there, so talk about your specific role.

- Right, so I get that question a lot actually, because in Memphis, the libraries are a division of city government, and so "don't my tax dollars pay for the library?"

The answer is yes, and it's not enough, if you want library programs that actually meet community needs.

So for example, if we pulled all of the private funding that comes through the Library Foundation and the friends of the library away, you would lose probably 90% of the programming.

You'd still have those big buildings with books and you'd have librarians who are fantastic, by the way.

I want librarians to have all good things.

Those are city employees, but they wouldn't be able to do the things that they're actually doing right now.

So the Library Foundation has over time contributed millions and millions of additional do llars through private funders to support the amazing programs yo u see at the library.

None of that is able to be funded through the city's operating budget.

So we do those fundraisers, we manage foundation grants, corporate sponsorships, all of those things that make the Memphis Public Libraries not only award-winning nationally, by the way.

We've won multiple national awards, more than most public library systems for sure.

But that's not even the point.

The point is meeting community needs.

- So how can the community help your efforts?

- Sure, well, you can visit our Facebook page, Instagram, all of that.

We have all of the social media.

But then also go to MemphisLibraryFoundation.org, which is our website.

You can see what's going on, what kinds of events we are having coming up.

You can also make a gift on the website there.

And then also go to MemphisLibrary.org, which is the library's website, and check out their events calendar, because there is, I guarantee you there is something for every single person here at the library.

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

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks so much for having me, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - In this month's episode, we had a chance to learn more about organizations expanding from, to, and within Memphis.

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis has a long legacy in Memphis offering children with pediatric cancer and other catastrophic illnesses undergoing treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and their families, a nurturing family-centered residential community.

It's exciting to see the organization expanding to Jackson, Tennessee to serve families of children receiving medical care at Le Bonheur Children's to keep families together near the care they need, always free of charge.

Then to have Raphah Institute expanding to Memphis and bringing the restorative practices to help address issues surrounding youth and young adult incarceration and victim trauma is a powerful opportunity for our city to focus on healing and restoration.

And the Memphis Library Foundation, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, is helping to transform Memphis through knowledge and experiences by supporting and enhancing the Memphis Public Libraries to expand their opportunities for learning.

These investments in expanding for healing and learning are investments in our future and the success of our community.

So where can you invest and become a spark?

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

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

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

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

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

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]