- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "Finding Harmony".

We'll learn more about a conservancy fostering a beautiful and safe park for a diverse community to enjoy and explore, a renowned local music school with Tennessee's only doctoral degree-granting program in music, and a health and fitness studio using breathing and other therapies to help us reduce stress.

We'll also share a special moment from our Spark Awards, 2020.

- Lipscomb and Pitts   Insurance is honored to serve   the Memphis community   for over 60 years.

We've always focused on   supporting our community   and believe in   promoting the positives,   encouraging engagement,   and leading by example.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is proud to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

- (male announcer)   Additional funding   for The SPARK   is provided by   Meritan, United Way   of the Mid-South.

My Town Movers, My Town   Roofing, My Town Miracles,   and by SRVS.

- 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.

[upbeat music] - They're fostering a beautiful and safe park for all of us to explore and enjoy.

We're here with the executive director of Overton Park Conservancy, Tina Sullivan, and Tina, let's start.

Give us a little bit of the background, the history for Overton Park and Overton Park Conservancy.

- Thank you, Jeremy, and good to see you again.

So Overton Park has been around Memphis for a long time.

It was started in 1901.

It's a beautiful park.

It was designed   by George Kessler.

It's like having a Frank Lloyd   Wright house on your block,   and it is really in   the heart of Memphis.

It's in the center   of everything,   and it's been managed   for the last 10 years,   almost 10 years, by   Overton Park Conservancy.

We're a nonprofit that takes contracts with the City of Memphis and leverages that to enhance the care of the park and bring everything up to a kind of level that makes you really wanna come spend some time there.

- And give us an idea of some of the iconic landmarks and pieces that you help to manage because it's a large footprint, but there's a lot of diversity in terms of what you do and what you manage.

- There's a little bit of something for everyone in Overton Park.

So we manage 184 of the park's 342 acres.

You can also go to the zoo, the Brooks Museum, take in a show at the Levitt Shell, and play a round of golf before you even get to the areas that we manage,   and then we take   care of the 126-acre   Old Forest State Natural   Area which is just is   a marvelous gem in   the heart of Memphis,   one of only three urban   old-growth forests   in the entire country.

And then, if you're   wanting to take a jog   or play in a playground or   bring your dog to the dog park   or have a family reunion   in one of the pavilions, you would be experiencing the area that we manage.

- And give us an idea.

Fifty years, there's a special moment that's going on right now in terms of what you're celebrating.

- Yes, this is a milestone year for us.

Fifty years since the Supreme Court of the United States intervened to save Overton Park from the freeway expansion   thanks to a group of activists   who got together and said,   "We cannot let this   park be destroyed,"   and we are celebrating   that all year long,   and we're gonna be   telling stories about it.

We're gonna have an event   in the fall to really raise a glass to everyone who has ever participated in the long-term care and protection of Overton Park.

- And I know that the public can submit in, so talk about how the public can help share the story and be a part of the story.

- Sure, we love collecting stories from members of the public because everyone is so different and uses the park so differently.

So we're asking people to submit their stories to us.

You can go to our website.

It's overtonpark.org/stories, or if you prefer social media, you can just hashtag #overtonparkstories, and we will collect those and add them to our archive and share them back out.

- When you look at finding harmony and peace,   you were really, to   me, just really awesome   in terms of letting   us go through   and do a tour   and experience it,   but when you talk about   nature and being a part of it, describe some of those pieces that everyone in our community, the diversity of our community, has a chance to enjoy.

- Well, so just starting on the edge of the park, on the east side of the park, we have this huge,   beautiful, shady picnic area.

In essence, you are   picnicking in a forest there.

It's just a little   bit more cleared.

You can walk just   a few feet farther,   and you can be in a   wild, natural setting   where you might see   all kinds of wildlife:   foxes, pileated woodpeckers,   skinks, snakes, you name it,   and then just some majestic   200-year-old trees,   and then if you keep walking,   you'll pop out onto a   golf course that is now   being redesigned, is just   gonna be exquisitely beautiful   and will really marry to the   natural area quite seamlessly.

And then, you can just   continue on and take in   some fine art and culture.

So, like I said, a little   bit something for everyone.

We know that people   love to come to the park   for rest and recreation.

They also love to come   to the park to celebrate   and have some of those   cultural experiences.

- Talk about the master plan and that process that's going on as well.

- Right, so we're in the middle of planning a comprehensive plan for the entire park, so that'll also include all of our partners, the zoo, the Brooks Museum, Levitt Shell, everyone coming together to talk about how we might create one park experience.

We also are looking at the   southeast corner of the park,   a 13-acre parcel, that's going   to be returned to the public   as really reclaimed   park land which is just   unheard of in the urban area.

So we have done some initial public engagement around that, and we have some more coming up.

So if your viewers are not already on our mailing list, you should sign up.

Go to overtonpark.org.

We won't gum up your inboxes, my grandmother would say.

We only send emails usually a couple of times a month, but it's with updates on how you might get involved on the master planning process or anything else.

- And before we talk about support, talk about why it's so important.

I think when you look at outdoor spaces, parks, the recreation, all the amenities that provides, that is a huge piece for talent attraction for our city, growth, retainment.

There's so many things that Overton Park and Overton Park Conservancy plays a vital role in in the economic vibrancy of our community.

Talk about that in terms of the larger scope of why it's so important to support the Conservancy.

- Well, Jeremy great parks have great cities.

If you name another city outside of Memphis that you love, chances are it has some beautiful outdoor spaces where people gather, and the pandemic year taught us   more than ever that   people need that.

And they want that   in their community.

So, our goal, we consider   ourselves the flagship park   of the city park system.

There are 165 Memphis City   parks, and we're just one.

Our goal here is   to create a case   for investment in   parks generally,   so by investing   in Overton Park,   you're investing   in a flagship park,   but you're also helping to   elevate the conversation   about parks city-wide   and hopefully fostering more investment in just a cultural shift into being a more outdoorsy city that's really highlighting, enhancing, and maximizing our outdoor assets.

- Wrap up with website, social media, where do we go to learn more about everything that's going on?

- We're pretty easy to find, overtonpark.org.

You're gonna find all kinds of information there not just about the park public areas that we manage, but about our park partners as well, and then of course on all the social media.

It's usually just /overtonpark on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Our Instagram feed is particularly interesting because the park is so beautiful, and we like to share out photos that are submitted by park visitors.

- Absolutely.

Well, you make it easy.

It is beautiful to follow you on social media, and greatly appreciate all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you, Tina, for coming on the show.

- Thank you, Jeremy.

Always great to talk to you.

[upbeat music] - They're training musicians and creating music for our ears.

We're here with the director of the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis, Dr. Kevin Sanders, and Dr. Sanders, let's start.

Give us some scope because there was a lot of degree programs.

There's a lot of history for the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music.

- Well, thanks Jeremy.

I'm glad to be here.

So the School of Music, we offer almost everything under the sun.

We start out, we are the only doctoral degree-granting institution in the state of Tennessee, and we offer up to 29 different concentrations of music.

So that's 29 different degrees,   everything from   music performance   and music composition   and conducting to   music engineering   and music business   and popular music.

So if you have any sort of passion in music, there is going to be a place for you in the School of Music.

- Well, talk about that diversity to go from orchestra and things like tuba and the trombone, and then to guitar and voice.

That's a lot of diversity there.

- No, it is, and that's part of what makes this such an incredible program and such a special place to grow if you're looking to become an artist of the next generation because all of these different students are able to mingle together and learn from each other in addition to the world-class faculty that we employ.

So it's a really wonderful opportunity for our students to be able to come in, say as performers, and work with our music business and our audio engineering program to just understand what those sorts of collaborations look like in the real world, and then in addition to that, we have some really incredible community partners that allow our students to have some real-world opportunities that they can go out and learn from.

- Give us an idea of scale.

How many students, roughly, how many faculty?

What do the numbers look like on your end?

- So, we have a little over 70 full and part-time faculty and staff, and then we have almost 500 music majors.

We absolutely expect   those numbers to go up   over the next couple   of years as we include   even more degree   programs, and of course,   with the Scheidt Family   Music Center and us really   kind of cementing our   position as a hub for music   in the amazing   city of Memphis.

We just rolled out a new   program called popular music   and this popular music,   essentially, it rolls together   our audio engineering   department,   our music business department,   and then our commercial   music department, and so if you're wanting to study to be a singer-songwriter or anything like that, that would be where you'd go.

So in addition to that, we've got some new programs on the horizon.

The School of Music is very interested and very focused on the next year or two finding a place for a music therapy degree which we are very excited about given the incredible medical community in Memphis.

And so, there's just, like I said, a lot of different places for students to fit in.

- Give us some success stories.

You don't necessarily have to name names, but I know that many of the graduates have won awards, including the Grammys, and so there's a lot of amazing accolades that are coming out of the School of Music.

- No, there are.

I mean, just this past year, we had two different students win Grammys which were very proud alum of one of our graduate programs and one of our undergraduate programs.

Just within the last two or three years, we have had students on ABC's Making the Band.

We have had students on NBC's The Voice.

We have students singing with the Metropolitan Opera working on Broadway, working in the music industry for Disney World or Universal Music, and then, in addition to that, you can't go anywhere in Memphis and not see one of our alum working at the Levitt Shell or the Orpheum or Beale Street or STAX Academy, and it's really, really great to see our students everywhere sharing what they've learned on our campus with the Memphis community and with the greater world.

- You've got a beautiful new facility that's coming about soon and opening soon.

You have all sorts of performance opportunities in terms of the public being able to enjoy what you do.

So talk about engagement opportunities.

- Well, the School of Music, we just hired a new community engagement coordinator because we want to make sure that we're putting a real focus on making sure that our students and faculty are out there making a difference, and we also wanna make sure that we're collaborating and interacting with our community music partners, and all of this, of course, is going to feed into this amazing new facility, the Scheidt Family Music Center.

So this music center, if you've   driven down Central Avenue,   you can't miss it.

It is an incredible   45,000-square-foot facility.

It houses three state-of-the-art rehearsal spaces for our choir, our popular music program, then also our bands and orchestras.

It has got two incredible, just technology jam-packed recording studios, and then the crown jewel of the facility   is a 900-seat concert hall   that has got   incredible acoustics.

- And so, talk about website, social media.

Where do we go to learn more and also be up to date on all the performance opportunities?

- You can go to www.memphis.edu/music, and you can find everything you would want to know.

Our social media channels are tied to there on Facebook and Instagram.

If you're a School of Music alum, we have a LinkedIn page.

We would love for you to connect to us through there, and we are, in the next coming weeks, we are gonna be revealing our '21-'22 season, and we have so many exciting performances planned, not only with our students and faculty, but with our community partners because I think I can speak for everybody.

We are ready to get back together and start making music again and sharing that with everyone.

- Well, Dr. Kevin Sanders, thank you for all you and your team do.

Greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks so much, Jeremy.

It's been a pleasure.

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

The 2020 recipient of   the Nonprofit Award   for organizations   with a budget between   1 million and $5 million   is Slingshot Memphis.

- Slingshot Memphis is working to create a demonstrable reduction in poverty by way of promoting a results-driven, poverty-fighting ecosystem,   and for us to be   successful at this mission,   Slingshot performs three   critical functions.

First, Slingshot is uniquely   equipped to identify   which organizations have the   evidence or the potential   to create the most impact.

Second, Slingshot   helps those nonprofits   who are fighting   poverty maximize their   poverty-fighting impact,   and last but not least,   Slingshot attracts   and directs capital,   high-impact interventions,   and solutions.

We started in 2017, and we have very purposely expanded based on our bandwidth, and so we started with 4 organizations in '17.

We added 6 organizations in '18.

Fast forward to right now,   we're working with 23   nonprofit organizations,   all in Memphis all doing   really important things   in the fight against poverty,   whether it's related to   food security or education,   shelter, and so on,   and our goal is to   work with an additional   thirty to fifty organizations   in the next three years.

The one thing we care deeply   about is opportunity costs,   and so there is a   tremendous amount of power   in charitable giving that is   not being allocated right now, and so what we do is we quantify, really, the impact of putting money to work well faster.

Our first year, we have a unique funding model, so let me say that we have two funds.

Our first fund is our Measurement Fund.

It covers all of our costs.

So all the work it takes,   all the costs it takes   to do this work is completely   subsidized by a few   measurement funders in   our board of directors.

Separately, we raise   money in the community.

We're trying to build   the next generation   of bold and smart donors   in Memphis which is   really important in the   fight against poverty.

So the first year,   we wanted to raise   a half a million   dollars, and we did it,   and every penny   went directly to   our organizations at that time.

The next year, our   portfolio expanded,   and we wanted to raise   $1 million, and we did it.

About 350-some odd   people got together.

We aggregated those funds and   directly invested every penny   by the end of the year.

Last year, we were fortunate   to raise 1.4, $1.5 million   and invested every penny.

Poverty is super complex, but there is evidence-based solutions that are being done and have been done for a long time, and it's really important to love our neighbors as ourselves.

We have to be excellent stewards and we have to invest in those things with the evidence of the potential to create the most impact, and if we do that, if faith communities and businesses and individuals and families and foundations began to earmark their dollars in a more meaningful way and do it faster, it would help a lot of individuals and families.

And so that's why   we do what we do.

[triumphant music] - They're helping us change our relationship with stress.

We're here with the founder of Symmetry, Taylor Somerville, and Taylor, let's start out with a little bit of your backstory that got you into this world of breathing and stress reduction and hot and cold therapy.

Give us a little bit of your storyline.

- Thanks for having me Jeremy.

Well, I spent 15 years in the investment world, a high-stress environment.

Went through a lot of personal stress as well, and I found these techniques to really help me.

Went from a highly reactionary person to someone who is much better able to handle and respond to the stresses of my everyday life.

What I found with these techniques on my own is that it just made everything just a little bit easier to deal with, and it's not that I was necessarily   always a calm person by   using these techniques,   but that you're able to kind   of grow and move forward   through the stresses instead   of letting them weigh you down.

- Talk about some of the certifications because you are classified as a master coach when it comes to some of the breathing exercises and the techniques and the things that you do.

So give us a little bit of your certifications.

- So I'm an XPT Master Coach, XPT started by Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece, big wave surfer, pro volleyball player.

They've been using these techniques for decades with their group of other athletes and people they've been dealing with, and then they went in and got all the research and science.

It's very principles-based.

So it's the physiology science about how breathwork works, how our nervous system works, how these different techniques can not only use to calm you down, but use to ramp you up and overall improve your health because breathing is the first thing we do and the last thing we do, and it is our body's number one goal is respiration.

And there's, I would say, majority of people these days are breathing very poorly, and that's affecting every system in your body from your cardiovascular system to your digestive system to your immune system.

- You're putting out a ton of great content on blogs and different posts.

You're doing stuff for growth curve with us, the e-learning platform, and a lot around education, and I've learned a tremendous amount in terms of breathing through my nose and not my mouth necessarily.

Share some of the little secrets to success when it comes to breathing.

- That is one of the main ones.

That'll get you very far.

We don't realize it, but our nose was made for breathing.

That's how we filter,   clean out our air.

There's also nitric   oxide in there which is   antiviral, antibacterial.

Also helps open   up our airways   and dilate our blood   vessels as well.

Allows more oxygen to   get into our tissues.

It also gets our   diaphragm activated,   and that helps keep us in a   calmer, more parasympathetic   rest relaxation state   of the nervous system, and breathing through your nose is really the number one tip.

I tell people when they're first starting out, just begin to do that, and see how that changes your response because what happens when we get stressed out, we shift to that mouth breathing, that typically up here in the upper chest, and that causes that cortisol stress hormones to get released constantly throughout our body, and while that's okay on certain occasions, we shouldn't be in that position most of the time.

So breathe through nose.

Also, think about just breathing low, breathing down to the lower part of your belly, ribs really expanding, or of a horizontal fashion, and then slowing your breath down.

Just like you can overeat, you can over breathe, and so you try to slow down your number of breaths per minute.

One thing I tell clients is trying to three times a day, go to six breaths a minute for five minutes and just call it 365 breathing.

It's a great one.

You can do it once in the morning, some time during the day, and before you go to bed.

- Give us a little teaser on that in terms of maybe just one of the exercises because I know you have tons of 'em, and there's one where you can kind of hold it for seconds, and then release, and then hold it for a second.

So walk us through one exercise.

Give us a little bit of a demo.

- OK, so that one what you're talking about is box breathing.

So I'll just go through that box breathing is we are inhaling, holding, exhaling and holding all for equal ratios.

So starting very simply, you can go in for three seconds, hold for three, out for three, hold for three, and just repeat.

Just tell people to visualize a box and just going through each side and breathing and holding, and what that allows you to do is creates a little mindfulness.

It's something that I like to do first thing in the morning,   especially with clients.

Instead of jumping on your   phone, jumping into the news,   whatever's going on, allowing   yourself to kind of get ahead   of the day instead of having   the whole day come at you.

So just spending three to   five minutes doing that.

You can even do it standing in the shower just focusing on your breath.

- And I think that's a good one right there when it comes to if you're in a stressful situation, what do you do?

Give us a tip for all of us who obviously have a lot of stress and we're in a heated moment, what's something we can do to calm down?

- First thing you wanna do is if you're staring at a screen or anything like that, think about getting your gaze out and going into more of a panoramic vision as opposed to that focused vision.

That focused vision really up-regulates the nervous system, gets us into that fight or flight.

Then I like to tell people just take a kind of like a reset breath in through the nose, out of the mouth, and the focus on slowing your breath down.

As you slow your exhale down and your nervous system calms down, as our breath is under control, we have safety in our nervous system in our body, so it begins to calm down and down-regulate and going from that snowballing thoughts.

A lot of people try to stop the mind with a mind when they get stressed out and anxious, and those thoughts begin to snowball out of control.

You can't do that.

You've gotta stop the mind with the body, and that's one of the things the breath can do is it can be a break on those snowballing thoughts.

So, just getting the breath under control, and then focus on slowing it down, extending the exhale over the inhale, and in through the nose, out of the mouth in those scenarios is a good way to do it.

- So, how do we learn more about Symmetry?

- You can find me on my website, www.symmetry.live.

On Instagram as well at @symmetry.live.

Those are the two easiest ways to find me.

I put out newsletters, blogs, and you can find all that through there.

A lot of free content, YouTube stuff as well.

- Yeah, it's tons of great education and opportunities.

So Taylor, thank you for all you do.

Greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - Finding harmony is something I feel like we've all been searching for during the pandemic, and it's something we strive to find in our personal and professional lives each day.

It's almost impossible to find balance in life between family, work, friends, our responsibilities, social media, and the challenges and opportunities that come our way each day, but finding harmony with the ebbs and flows gives us greater flexibility to be present and enjoy the moment, knowing that the highs and lows are part of our personal song.

As a community, it's important that we have places where we all can enjoy the outdoors and find harmony in the beauty of nature like with Overton Park Conservancy.

It's important for us to have the arts like with the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis where we can immerse ourselves in the wonder of creativity and find harmony in both the music and the way it makes us feel and come together, and it's also important for us to have the mental and physical wellness support so we realize we're not alone and have access to tools that can calm our nerves and reduce our stress like we saw with Symmetry which allows us to take more control of our lives and circumstances and find harmony.

As we find harmony, we find happiness, and that becomes the fuel to help us power the good.

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, nd we hope that you'll continue joining with us to create a spark for the Mid-South.

- Lipscomb and Pitts   Insurance is honored to serve   the Memphis community   for over 60 years.

We've always focused on   supporting our community   and believe in   promoting the positives,   encouraging engagement,   and leading by example.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is proud to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]