(upbeat music) - Here's what's coming up next on "You Oughta Know."

Find out how to get the freshest, in-season seafood and tips on how to prepare it.

Empowering African American children with books that reflect diversity and representation.

Plus, a New Jersey high school football coach turns disappointment into inspiration for his athletes.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "You Oughta Know," I'm Shirley Min.

The Eagles are on fire.

No, I am not talking about the Philadelphia Eagles, sadly.

I am referring to the Winslow Township High School football team.

A big part of that team's success is their coach who found his calling, not in the NFL, but back home where he grew up.

(upbeat music) - It's a place that means a lot to me.

It ultimately shaped me into the man that I am today.

Playing here and going to school here led me to greater things in my life.

It means a lot to actually come back here and give back to a place that gave so much to me.

You guys will clear up the weight room, get your stuff, and then we'll head down for practice.

Every kid growing up wants to be an NFL star, right?

I was a three year starter here at Winslow.

My freshman year, I got a chance to play a little bit.

My sophomore year, I came in and played wide receiver.

I caught for roughly 40 catches and about 750 yards.

And then my following year, I moved my position to quarterback where I threw for 2,000 and ran for 1,000, and had over 20 touchdowns that year.

And then the senior year, I did the same thing again, the first player in New Jersey history to actually do that in consecutive years.

That's something I'm very proud of and something that I'm gonna share with my son one day.

I started bringing in scholarship offers.

I had a home visit with Penn State.

From that day forward, I was sold.

I committed to Penn State, and it led me to my athletic career there.

The most memorable moment is the four overtime game versus Michigan.

- [Announcer] First and goal.

- I ended up scoring the game winning touchdown.

- [Announcer] Belton to the Edge.

Penn State has done it!

- It's something that people stop me and talk to me about.

They'll show it on ESPN.

- [Announcer] A classic comeback, a thriller in four overtime.

- Something I'm very proud of.

And then that spring, I remember seeing a bunch of NFL scouts, and I'm like, "All right, this is real.

Like this can happen for me."

I get a shot, I go to rookie mini camp with the Jets.

It was a tryout, in a sense, and things didn't work out for me.

And once I realized that football was done, I would say I hit a low.

I hit a very low low.

But when you have moments like that in your life where you could take away from it and take your failures and have someone else learn from it, I think that's where I find the peace in it.

- Not only is he my coach, but he has done something similar to what I wanna do.

- He knows what he wants, so I feel like he's real focused, and I feel like that influences the team too.

- He's just like us, he likes to have fun too, but when it's time to lock in, he locks in.

- Go.

Drive, drive, drive.

Drive, this the group I like, drive, drive.

Put it down, put it down, good, good.

(drums rolling) Bring it down, give me G on three, one, two, three.

(team chants) (drums rolling) You already know what time is today.

(drums rolling) (people cheering) - [Announcer] It's the Eagles!

(people cheering) - Oh, my God.

(laughing) Oh, yeah!

I love all y'all, great win tonight.

(coach and team chattering) Visualize yourself making plays, visualize us winning, visualize us holding that trophy at the end of the game.

(upbeat music) (people cheering) We going to the regional now.

We gotta come back and get another one.

And then we're on to state.

Job is not done.

(team hollers enthusiastically) Obviously every coach's dream is to win championships, which is great, but my goal is to have all 20 kids signed scholarships to schools.

I think I was definitely called to coach, and you know, ultimately God called me back here.

(upbeat music) - Coach Belton is more than a coach.

He undoubtedly is a role model.

Well, books also serve as inspiration to young people.

At Philadelphia's African American Children's Book Fair, young readers can find books that'll inspire them.

- Every person should have a home library.

Create a space.

Books can just change your whole entire life.

That's why we have to make sure that our libraries, our schools, our homes, are all nourished with reading.

Reading is a part of any wellness program.

The book fair is a part of that whole nurturing.

I'm Vanesse Lloyd-Sgambati, founder of the African American Children's Book Project, which is now celebrating its 32nd anniversary.

The book project was designed to promote and preserve books written and about Black Americans.

Our motto is, "A book opens up a world of opportunities."

Book fair is only a small part of what we do.

We do multicultural events, a lot of advocacy work, trying to educate people on what books are in the marketplace.

We do our, "I Read To See Me" program.

We get about 4,000 people who attend the annual African American Children's Book Fair.

When you walk in the door, we have a drummer that are pounding the drums because in African culture, the drums was a way of telling people something exciting was going to happen.

The drums was a way to say the community should gather.

African American children need to see themselves, their images in books, especially boys.

They need to be the hero of the story.

One of the books that I know has evolved in the discussion of slavery is a book called "Dave the Potter."

Dave was an enslaved man who was an artist, and he was a poet.

Dave wanted to express himself, so what he did was he wrote his poetry inside these pots.

Some of his pots are even at the Philadelphia Art Museum.

This is important to tell the story of the indignities of slavery, but how somebody who was enslaved overcame those obstacles.

Another book that I wanted to highlight is, "I Love My Hair" and it celebrates a young girl and expressing herself through her hair, from the way her mother combs her hair to the bright beads that she puts on her hair.

But the wide variety of books that are out in the marketplace right now are incredible.

And they cover everything from the wonderful queen of rock and roll.

It is said that Sister Rosetta Thorpe created rock and roll.

And there's a book called, "The Walk," and it's shows a grandmother with her granddaughter, walking to the polls and the grandmother's saying, you know, "There was a time I could not vote."

I hope that we will begin to understand the power of literacy.

I don't think people understand, books can just change your whole entire life.

I live, breathe, eat children's books every day of my life.

We are at a pivotal moment in history.

The chorus is talking about banning book, but the choir is so strong, and they're just resonating.

And so I'm the choir master.

I let people know, hey, you know, with my hands, arms, mouth, feet, I let people know there's some great books out there in the marketplace.

(gentle music) - The African American Children's Book Fair takes place on Saturday, February 3rd at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Now I wish this service was around when my kids were younger.

It's called Babyquip, and it allows parents traveling with littles, to rent the baby equipment they need when they're on the road.

- [Emily] Hi, I'm Emily Marks and I am a quality provider for Babyquip in Philadelphia.

- [Shirley] Emily, tell me about Baby Quip.

- Baby Quip is a platform company.

You will go to the website, place your destination and travel dates in, and you'll be matched with quality providers in each area.

The website is laid out into categories, and you can go into each section, or even our luxury brands, and find the items that you're looking for when you're traveling.

- Tell me about the types of equipment that you rent.

- [Emily] I rent cribs, car seats, high chairs, sound machines, video monitors, toys, books, ride on toys, anything that you would think you would need when traveling with kids.

(cheerful music) - [Shirley] And you deliver them.

- [Emily] Yes, delivery is an option.

Some people can pick up if they choose, but when you're staying in an Airbnb or hotel, usually delivery is the easiest.

(cheerful music) - [Shirley] The gear that you are renting out is not what I expected.

I don't know why, I guess I just thought it would be not as nice as it is, or as clean as it is.

But this is about what you could expect.

- Yes, so clean, almost like new gear is really what we're striving for in each order.

Obviously strollers and highchairs are gonna get some- - Wear and tear.

- [Emily] Wear and tear on usage, but once we get to a point where it's not looking so new anymore, we will phase those out and replace them.

- [Shirley] How long have you been doing this and what has changed over this time?

- I've been a quality provider for five years and it's really grown over the years.

And it's grown from, when I started, 300 providers in 2019 to over 2000, and growing internationally.

- How did you get started being a quality provider for Babyquip?

- As a stay-at-home mom, I was looking for something to do and I had baby gear and I know it well, and so I was able to match that up with this business.

This works out really well with my family life and I'm able to chauffer my children around and pick my schedule as well as have a business on the side.

(cheerful music) - Also for local parents, you can book Emily to thoroughly clean your car seats or strollers if your child has an accident.

So she'll take it apart, clean it, and put it all back together, which if you're a parent, if you know, you know.

(laughs) The pandemic brought lots of changes to many.

For the owner of Small World Seafood, it gave him a chance to offer the freshest, in-season seafood directly to his consumers, along with tips on how to prepare it.

(gentle music) - We're gonna head down to the fish markets down off of Packer Avenue.

Part of the routine every day, we go down to the markets, wanna see what's happening, what's looking good.

When I'm coming to the market, I'm looking for what's really kind of coming in at the right time, what is abundant, we don't want to compromise quality.

So if we can get really, really high quality at the lowest price, it's a win.

(gentle music) When I'm looking for freshness, I'm looking at a few things.

Immediately, I look at the skin itself, I wanna see how glistening it is, how bright certain colors are on the fish, and right here, this is golden tile, and you can see they've got a nice vibrant, clean sheen to it.

The eyeballs is the other thing you wanna look at, how clear they are, and then the gills is the other telling tale.

See how red and vibrant that is?

That's a really fresh fish.

This is Bobby over here, one of the owners of B&A that's gonna be fileting this, and you can see little bit of what the fish looks like.

Look how beautiful that looks.

And Chilean sea bass, as a lot of you know, is a fish, it's very expensive on menus, and so on, so if you have the luxury of being able to buy this and be able to cook it at home, we're gonna make your life easy.

The fish is gonna be fileted, the bones are gonna be out, we're gonna show you how to cook it, we'll explain to you what you can do at home, and you're gonna make a world class meal at home for a quarter to a third of the price that you'd pay if you were out in a restaurant.

Thanks buddy.

- Here you go.

(cheery strumming music) - Small World Seafood was a wholesaler to restaurants.

(cheery strumming music) And then in March of 2020, when the restaurants were shut down, or everything was shut down, really, everybody was kind of in a panic.

And so, on my block, I sent down an email saying, "Hey listen, fish is still coming in, there's fish there, the restaurants aren't getting it, but if you guys want some, I can bring some, just shoot me an email and I'll be here tomorrow with my truck."

And everybody came up and they got some fish, took it home, cooked it up and said, "This is the best fish I ever had."

- The fish is wonderful, just end of story.

- I can't go to the super market and get that quality.

- And they said, "Are you gonna do this again?"

And I said, "Sure, if you guys want."

And then those people wanted to tell other people, and it just kept growing.

People were asking me questions, "What's the difference between farm and wild, fresh and frozen?

What should I be eating right now?"

So then I started scouring, you know, YouTube and video places where you can get videos for technique on how to prepare things, and that would be included in my emails as well.

It became an education.

This is a fish that's coming from this area, and this is what you can do with it.

- Robert's emails spark joy.

- I kind of feel like I'm, you know, making something a little special, I guess, (laughs) getting it from him because of his encouraging words and suggestions.

- It's gonna cook in its own juice.

- Oh, okay.

- 30 minutes you flip, and then let it go for another like- - That's on the website?

- Yeah.

As we kind of got out of the in-home lockdown mode, as we started realizing that people's time was starting to become very limited, adding components that can make cooking very quick became important to people.

Right, so making miso glaze, making spice blends, making Ponzu sauce, making al pastor marinades.

For people who like to do things with certain dishes that require a broth of some sort, we'd make our own clam juice.

We make our own fish stock, we make our own shrimp stock.

We make our own crab stock.

This year we're playing around with making empanadas.

We're making some curried crab empanadas that are delicious, like a cross between a samosa and an empanada that is dynamite.

It's quick, spray with oil in the oven for 20 minutes.

We work directly with everybody, we see everybody.

They kind of tell us what they want us to do, you know?

And we just listen, we're pretty good at listening.

On Thursdays, we do three pickup locations in Fairmont.

On Friday we do three pickup spots in Center City, Fiddler Square, Rittenhouse Square, and Washington Square.

(door rattles) First up, Fiddler Square.

We get here and then people start coming up and they have their orders already from the day before.

One muscle, one sword, one lump.

- [Fish Monger] Muscle, sword, lump crab.

- [Robert] A chopped and a crab stock.

One lump, no bag.

- [Fish Monger] One lump crab.

- And that's it, and this is a great little point here for us to kind of talk to people and connect with 'em.

When I sell to a restaurant, I sell to the restaurant, and I don't see any of the consumers enjoying it.

But when I sell direct to consumer, I can hear their stories of how they're enjoying it.

- You just grill it for, you know, six minutes.

- So I'll probably make a pasta with the spaghetti that I got this week, and also with the salmon.

- Well, I don't normally get halibut, so it was the special this week.

So we'll see, we'll see what happens.

- The best part about this whole thing for me is the community aspect, the fact that we are touching base with hundreds of people and their families on a weekly basis and just getting into their kitchens.

Have a happy weekend.

- Awesome man.

Thanks very much.

- [Robert] Personally, to feel connected to my community this way, is unbelievably fulfilling, it makes me proud.

We're doing something purposeful, we're doing something good, something that enhances people's lives.

I mean, what's better than that, right?

(men clap hands) (gentle music) - There's a place where cancer patients and their families can turn for comfort.

It's called Nick's House, and it's the vision of a young man whose fight against the disease ended before his dream became a reality.

(dramatic music) - Our founder, who just happens to be my son, my third son, really was an extraordinary human being, long before a cancer diagnosis entered our world.

Nick was the kind of guy that everybody loved.

He was a tremendous athlete, played three sports at Ridley High School.

He was genuine, smart, and selfless.

He was the consummate teammate who was a division one athlete.

He accepted a scholarship at Hofstra University for men's lacrosse.

Then cancer enters the picture.

He withdrew from school and immediately, you know, started treatment at Penn.

Nick was the kind of guy that was very observant.

He just really started to question, you know, why is my mother sleeping on a chair?

You know, why isn't there anything for these patients to do during the day?

He said, "I want to be able to do something.

I wanna make a difference."

From his hospital bed, he outlined and set the blueprints and the roadmap for the foundation.

We were leaving the hospital, on hospice.

He said, "Mom, I want other people to benefit from my life, other people to follow in my footsteps."

And he said, "Promise me, you have the ability to take this to the heights that it needs to go to.

This lacrosse community, this brotherhood of mine.

They're never gonna turn their backs and we're gonna be successful.

And as long as their hearts are beating, I'm still alive."

And I said, "I promise, I promise you this.

I promise you that I will do my best."

And that was 17 years ago.

The Headstrong Foundation is a non-traditional nonprofit.

What does that mean?

It's a lot of $25, (chuckles) right?

It's a lot of donations, like the little engine that could, right?

That has really transformed now into major giving.

Families travel into Philadelphia from far and wide.

People are coming in for advanced treatment.

Once somebody finds out about Nick's House, it's simple.

We wanna be the easy part in the equation of cancer.

You know, they fill out a simple application, we do a background check.

Families get here and then they become part of this community and they're from all over the United States, all walks of life.

Here at Nick's house, we have all the comforts of home.

There is, you know, laundry facilities, there's an office.

Any need that a patient would have or a family member would have, a caregiver would have would be met.

The kitchen is a place where everybody congregates, they're always, you know, together in the kitchen.

That island is used more than anything else in the house.

On each floor there's areas where they can relax, unwind.

The dining room is an area where everybody, they eat together, right, and they talk about their day.

In the lower level, we do have the fitness area.

Caregivers need to stay strong.

It kind of helps with just the emotion.

Our comfort kit started where we were in the hospitals a lot and we would hear like, "I got admitted and I don't have a toothbrush."

The cabinets are stocked, we provide everything.

We are, you know, patient services, a patient advocacy group at the end of the day.

We provide a very personalized approach.

Everybody that's involved in the Headstrong Foundation has been touched by cancer, and we become part of their family.

We are their support system when they come here to Philadelphia.

- I found the Headstrong Foundation about eight years ago, as I was sitting in a hospital bed, going through cancer treatment myself.

I really felt the need to be able to help people from a different perspective because I really benefited from the support of patients.

- It's a labor of love and we want people to feel that they're very welcomed and that this is their home.

We are the bridge to access the best cancer care and the affordability to do so, because this is offered free of charge.

We've touched almost 31,000 patients, and that's not easy, but it's been the greatest privilege of my life.

- Go with us now to explore the stories behind the history of science.

(cheerful music) - The Science History Institute, we're right here in Philadelphia, in Old City, at Third and Chestnut.

We're across from the Museum of the American Revolution, and frankly, just a couple blocks down from Independence Hall.

We tell the stories of science.

So science has a history and while we can talk about the what, we care about, the who, the why, how it happened.

So we have plenty of collections around that help us tell that story.

We have a library, a research center with visiting fellows that come from around the world.

We also tell stories online with our magazine and our podcast.

So if you wanna nerd out about the history of science, we have got you covered.

(cheerful music) Our collection is pretty cool.

It covers a wide span of time.

So we have the first mass spectrometer, which was built by graduate students in Yale, all the way up to the science that is used to make plastics.

And we have a whole section on rare Earth elements that includes something I had near and dear to my heart, a Teddy Ruxpin doll.

And we also, speaking of things kids used to play with, have a whole collection of old chemistry sets, going from like the fifties up to the eighties.

So science is international, it's happening all over the world, but we're right here in Philadelphia.

And so we always wanna make sure, when we're telling people stories, that we've got a way for it to connect back to the city that we live in.

You'll find things like a bleeding bowl and a jar for leaches.

Benjamin Rush, who people in Philadelphia may be familiar with, he was one of the proponents of that.

When Yellow Fever hit the city, that was how he thought the best way we could cure people was.

And so we wanna make sure we're telling those local stories so that when you're walking down these streets, you're hearing and seeing about the things around you.

We also have a changing exhibition in the back, and that covers different topics.

You can come here and you'll see all sorts of cool stuff.

So it might be on the history of color, it might be on your school lunch, it might be on waterways.

So we're always trying to tell different stories that way.

So we do plenty of community outreach, but also we have a number of free events here.

We invite storytellers to come and do story time with kids.

We have tours.

Sometimes we will go out to schools.

We've got a big annual, sort of like block party here, called Curious Histories Fest that we host in the spring, and it is also free.

We invite a bunch of people to come and do all sorts of fun, nerdy science stuff.

(upbeat music) People go through their stuff and decide to give us things.

Individuals donate.

We also, because we cover the sciences, get a lot of donations from companies, from old labs that are closing down and say, "Oh, we have this weird looking equipment, do you want it?"

And we'll go, "Oh my gosh, yes, this is very cool."

So we're really lucky to have a variety of stuff that people bring to us.

(upbeat music) We are always free and we have stuff for all ages.

I think a lot of people will say, we are like a hidden gem in the city of Philadelphia, and we really wanna be just a gem.

We wanna be known and we want you to come and explore science with us.

- All right, that is our show.

I hope you learned something "You Oughta Know" about.

Goodnight everyone.

(upbeat music)