- [Cherri] Funding for this program has been provided by Peco.

From feeding the hungry to providing foods from foreign lands.

- I appreciate you coming to buy, thank you.

- You're welcome.

- It's a blessing.

- [Cherri] To taking it all out on the mat.

- That was perfect!

- [Cherri] And choosing weapons of love and healing as tools of warfare.

- [Shane] We chop guns up and turn 'em into garden tools and art.

- These are this year's good souls.

(uplifting playful music) Welcome to "Good Souls."

I'm Cherri Gregg, here at Philadelphia Youth Basketball's newly built Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center in Nicetown.

Later we'll show you how the work done here exemplifies the compassion, generosity, and service of a good soul.

Tonight you're gonna meet some good souls who are making a difference in their communities.

You'll see how Angela Graves is changing lives one meal at a time.

You'll meet farmer Morris Gbolo, whose world crops give immigrants living in our area a taste of home.

Plus, we learn how Pastor Shane Claiborne's unconventional approach is helping victims of gun violence find healing.

But first, let's head to the mat.

That's where Dr. Mark McLaughlin is using sports as a bridge to equip Trenton youth with educational and life skills.

(mysterious music) (students chattering) - Good!

When he turns you, you have to fall down and let him do the move.

We're not wrestling now, he's learning a move.

Drive, drive, drive.

That is perfect.

That was perfect.

People say, "You're a brain surgeon and you coach wrestling?

That doesn't go together."

And my answer is, "Goes together beautifully."

Go this way, go this way.

I work on people's brains and I perform brain surgery.

Are you having fun?

Day in and day out.

But when I'm in the wrestling room, I'm working on kids' brains.

I'm passing on those same lessons.

You know, who holds you down?

Nobody.

- [Students] Nobody!

- What are we on our feet?

Relentless.

- [Students] Relentless!

- Who owns the third period?

We do.

- [Students] We do!

- Those are lessons, and those nerves that fire together, wire together.

So kids learn that.

And that's brain surgery.

I'm doing brain surgery on the wrestling mats and planting ideas, words of empowerment, and teaching responsibility.

It's the same on the wrestling mat as it is in the OR.

I lean like this, okay?

'Cause I wanna pin him, right?

- I say up, you count.

Ready?

- Up.

- One.

- Up.

- Two.

- We met Dr. McLaughlin at Princeton's Youth Wrestling Program when I was about eight years old.

And I know him most as Coach Mark.

I wrestled in Princeton all the way from about third grade through eighth grade.

And then after Princeton's youth program, I wrestled at Trenton High for four years and then went on to wrestle in college at the University of Pennsylvania.

I wrestled one year in grad school at the University of Virginia.

- I began coaching in Princeton and coached the Youth Wrestling Program for about 15, 20 years.

And I was blessed to have a family, the Bethea family, come to our practice room in Princeton, because there weren't opportunities for them to wrestle in Trenton.

And so they went through our Princeton program, and I saw them go on in life and lead these amazing lives, going to Ivy League schools, getting graduate degrees, being scholar athletes at the highest level.

And so I partnered with them, because I knew we wanted to bring this product that we had in Princeton to Trenton.

- Jog.

- We formed a nonprofit called Trenton Youth Wrestling and Learning Center, and we decided we would bring wrestling to the elementary schools, to the middle schools.

We now have six programs, three middle schools, and three elementary schools.

And our goal is to get in all the schools so that every kid has a wrestling and learning opportunity when they're in school.

(uplifting music) - Trenton's home.

This place is really, really special to me.

It's where I grew up.

And then just seeing the adversity that youth face in our city, just having a love for the sport, knowing what it has done for me in my life and the places that it has taken me, I wanted to come home and share that with other kids.

And there's just no better place for me to do that than right at home with Trent Youth Wrestling and Learning Center.

- I began wrestling in sixth grade.

Outside my parents and my grandparents, my youth wrestling coach really was a major influence in my life.

I knew I always wanted to go into medicine, and wrestling really kept me focused.

It allowed me to get exercise.

It allowed me to really prioritize my studies as well.

And I always found that my grades were better during wrestling season than when I was in the off season.

You guys know what I do when I'm not on the wrestling mat?

I'm a doctor.

I take care of people, and I happen to be a surgeon.

I operate on people.

I operate on their brains and I operate on their spines.

It's tough, just like wrestling.

We leave it all on the mat.

I leave it all in the operating room.

It's the same.

We really focus on our team values of character, commitment and community, and we emphasize that to the kids over and over again.

Character is what you do when nobody's looking.

Community is what happens to me, happens to you.

- We wanna bring kids in, get them into wrestling, get them excited about wrestling, and get them to get the skills and the benefit of participating in wrestling, but also to transfer that over to the classroom.

You have a wrestling coach who really cares about how you perform in wrestling, but they also care about how you perform in the classroom.

They also care about how you're doing as a person.

They care about your wellbeing.

The child can come after school and get wrestling, but also get a mentor, get a tutor, get a healthy meal, and really have a safe place to come and really grow and develop as as a person.

Good work.

I absolutely see Coach Mark as a good soul.

He really cares about the people that he coaches.

- Both of you guys.

Good first time.

- You see him have compassion on people that he serves, and then you see that in everything that he does.

- [Mark] On three, Trenton Youth Wrestling.

One, two, three.

- [Students] Trenton Youth Wrestling!

- Hey, good job.

- Good practice, good job.

- The Trenton Youth Wrestling Program was recently awarded a state grant that will help McLaughlin and his team reach even more young people.

As you can see, sports can be a catalyst to create opportunities beyond going professional.

And here at Philadelphia Youth Basketball's Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center, the mission is to equip young people, support families, and uplift communities.

(upbeat music) - My most memorable memory at PYB is playing basketball, going Saturdays with my middle school basketball team.

(whistle chirping) (upbeat hip hop music) PYB allowed me to go outside of basketball activities, like doing interviews, writing papers, and you know, off court things like being able to talk about, you know, how I can relate to the real world outside of basketball.

Doing interviews, I was very shy and stuff, I wouldn't talk to a lot of people, but you know, every time I come to PYB, it allows me to meet a new person.

And every time I meet a new person, we become really close.

A lot of programs is all basketball-oriented, but PYB is outside of basketball, so it allowed me to learn new things, have different experiences from the time that I was seven until now.

The people here are just great.

They treat you well.

They help you set high expectations for yourself.

PYB allow me to think about my goals, and sometimes they change, because I think about different stuff as I go.

- When I was like, eight, I decided that I really was interested in basketball.

They like, show me around a little bit.

We do before basketball, like about teamwork, leadership.

And then they were like, "Okay, we're going on court."

And we practice dribbling, shooting, passing.

- PYB has impacted my life a lot.

It's changed my way of thinking towards other people.

It taught me how to treat people well and changed how I think about myself, how I, you know, treat my body.

Something that I learned from here could be passed on to the next person, and who knows how that could affect them.

(upbeat dance music) It could change their lives in multiple ways.

Being at this program could change my life.

It could also change someone else's life too.

It made me a better person.

- Joining me now is co-founder and CEO of PYB, Kenny Holdsman.

Kenny, welcome to "Good Souls."

- Thank you Cherri.

It's great to be here with you.

- So we just saw an inside look at all of the impact that PYB is having on young people.

Take us back to 2015, to the founding of this organization.

What problem were you and your co-founder seeking to solve?

- So the primary problem was the lack of access and opportunity for young people to self-actualize and to self-determine in their lives.

And by that we mean the ability to identify a passion and a purpose and a dream with the tools and exposures and supports to then go after it and achieve that dream.

And we felt like basketball, single greatest door opener or context to attract young people in our city.

The question then becomes, what are all the program elements to build around the athletics that young people really need?

- Yeah.

- And that's everything that we've located under this one roof in the Sixth Man Center.

- So let's talk about that.

A young person comes to PYB in the Sixth Man Center, what skills could they accumulate and leave with to go out in the world?

- Well, for starters, we do think that there's a lot of goodness that can happen in between the lines of basketball, and it's teamwork and resilience and sportsmanship, and how to build positive relationships with peers and with adult coach mentors.

But then it's mental health and wellness.

We've got a wellness oasis with yoga, meditation, counseling and therapy with the Children's Crisis Treatment Center, food and nutrition with the Triple B food service, and PCOM's Food is Medicine program.

Youth multimedia, young people learning podcasting, broadcasting.

- Trying to take my job.

- Photography, videography, yep.

And with a bunch of really good partners down the hall from us right now, from Beyond the Bars and Immortal Vision, and Temple University.

We've got youth entrepreneurship, physical therapy and injury rehab with NovaCare.

And the list goes on and on, from civic dialogue, youth leadership, so many things.

And we really want young people to find a home here and to acquire, like, authentic voice, value, and visibility.

- I love that.

And let's talk about the Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center.

- Yeah.

- 100,000 square feet.

It is gorgeous.

Tell us how this center came to be.

- So my co-founder, Eric Worley and I, wanted to build a program and organization and a center where young people could literally change the trajectory of their own lives.

And we wanted to build those programs and the organization and the center of, by, for, and with the community.

We finally found this space, geographically proximate, big, beautiful, and we repurposed it into what we think is the single greatest and most comprehensive youth center in the whole country.

- Let's talk about the future.

What's next for PYB?

- It's how do we make this center truly great?

Now we've been living in here for five months, amazing staff, a full complement of programs.

But we're beginning to add.

We just began an early development program, a program for young people with unique learning styles.

We're soon gonna have a wheelchair basketball program.

So our promise to the community is any child, regardless of ability to pay or ability and interest to play, this will be a second home and a place of real value and nourishment for young people.

So the magic for us, the secret sauce is the programs and the people.

That we've got from top frontline coach mentors to back office staff, deeply caring, well-trained adults, highly relatable to the young people whom we serve.

We then have a second project in motion to complete this campus, a workforce development and economic opportunity generator that will be online in about 18 months, and that's right off of our back door.

So this is about youth development with a lot of early career exposure.

And then next door, much more about workforce development, business development, and economic development.

- Well, Kenny Holdsman, I can see that the future is bright here at PYB and at the Sixth Man Center.

Congratulations.

- Thank you so much.

- Now to Philly Pastor Shane Claiborne, whose repurposed tools, along with efforts to forge peace, are helping to cultivate change for victims of gun violence.

(mysterious music) - I hit this, Mama.

I hit this for you.

- Sharon Risher, the daughter of Ethel Lance, who was killed by Dylann Roof in the middle of their Wednesday evening prayer service at Emanuel AME church.

- And all the others that died in that church.

I hit for gun violence, gun violence, I hit it, and- - When I first met Reverend Sharon, she was beating on the gun and then kind of collapsed to my arms.

And she said, "Everything I've thought of doing to Dylann Roof, I just took it out on the barrel of that gun."

(metal clanging) I grew up with guns.

I grew up really comfortable with guns in East Tennessee, hunting with my grandfather.

Coming outta college, I spent the summer in India working with the Missionaries of Charity.

And Mother Teresa, one of the things that she said is, "Calcuttas are everywhere if we'll only have eyes to see."

So you don't have to go across the world to love your neighbor.

Figure out what it means where you are.

So we came back here to Kensington and started saying, "What does it look like to love our neighbor right here?"

(uplifting music) we've just seen way too many lives cut short by gun violence.

Welcome to RAWtools Philly.

We get our name from flipping the word war around, and we chop guns up and turn 'em into garden tools and art.

This is our little workshop here.

So we never have guns that are operable, only guns that are chopped up.

These are some of our most freshly cut firearms.

And there's about 70 guns in this pile, from pistols to AR-15s, assault rifles, that were all in custody of law enforcement.

So this was a partnership with law enforcement.

They wanted to see these guns destroyed, not just put back on the market.

All of this will be melted down and repurposed.

Even the plastics are what we're using in some of the signs.

(upbeat music) After 10 years or so of chopping up guns, we start to know what we can make out of different types of firearms and different pieces of them.

And now things get sorted.

So we've got like a six inch barrel of a rifle, and that's what we can make hearts out of.

And then we've got another bin that's all for the shovels that we make.

We get a lot of young people, a lot of them have been impacted by gun violence, and they find a lot of meaning and purpose in being here.

So they've made angels, they've made all kinds of art.

(mysterious music) This room is sort of a holy space, and we made it in the middle of the shop, so we're passing through it all the time.

And it is a memorial to the lost.

It's a prayerful space, a place to remember all the lost lives.

The people that come here write names on the walls, and we can remember the toll that gun violence is playing on our community.

So there's a lot of stories on this wall.

I grew up in the Bible Belt in East Tennessee in the Evangelical church, and that's where I fell in love with Jesus, but I also began to see a lot of contradictions in the church.

And Mother Theresa was someone that I admired, because she was so consistent in her advocacy for life.

And so I got to go work with her.

And there's so many things that I learned that have shaped me, but certainly one of those is that our prayers need feet.

You know, mother Teresa said, "Our best sermon is our life, and faith without works is dead."

It's like how do we get up off our knees and actually put prayer into action?

It's easy to see some of the struggles and pain.

It's pretty in your face under Kensington Avenue and in this neighborhood, but the backdrops really important.

This neighborhood has been divested from, had resources pulled out of it for 100 years, has had racist and discriminatory practices on housing and disparities in the healthcare.

All of that contributes to the layers of grief and trauma that are here.

There's a lot of good souls out there.

I think of it as a celebration of the big family here.

We see the good stuff all the time.

But I think it takes living here or being here a little longer than just driving down Kensington Avenue to experience some of that.

What does it look like to love my neighbor in the same way that I would want them to love me?

(soft meditative music) - Partnering with peace takes courage and creativity.

From the basketball courts to this community engagement space, our next good soul is all about community.

Angela Graves and her army of volunteers make sure basic necessities like food reach those in need.

- [Susan] Angela is, there's no one else like her.

She is one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met.

- Would you like some goulash as well?

- [Recipient] No, no thank you.

- She does everything with great passion.

- You know what?

- Thank you so much.

- You're welcome, sweetheart.

I'll see you next week.

- [Susan] There's no stopping her.

And the way that people respond to her is amazing.

- My name is Angela Graves, and I'm the founder and CEO of Together We Can Change.

Together We Can Change is an organization whose mission is to care for the homeless in Philadelphia, Coatesville, and now Wilmington.

And all we want to do is ensure that those less fortunate or food insecurities are fed, are guaranteed a meal, you know, that we can provide to them.

So it's just planning out the meal, doing the shopping, preparing it.

And I now live in Delaware, but I come to Philly every Saturday, so I prepare some things that I could prepare at home and then I finish out, 'cause I like for the food to be hot.

So I, you know, barbecue in my backyard and get those burgers and hot dogs together.

So that's my typical day on a Saturday when I'm getting ready, or the week leading up to Saturday.

I love it when I pull up to a park and they just go, "There she is."

And they come over and then you know, they're like, "Hey, how you doing?"

And I'm like, "Hey, Hollywood up to no good.

It was so-and-so."

And the little nicknames that I give them.

Smiley!

There he is, Smiley, how are you?

It is so much joy, and they always thank me.

They always say, you know, "Thank you for coming out.

Will you be out next week?"

And you know, it's just awesome.

These are the Bad Boy Burgers.

I like that name.

(laughs) I love it.

That's a good one.

Bad Boy Burger.

- I have been with her from the start, from the start of this organization.

We had conversations about this when we were together, just driving along one day we were together, and we talked about this, and there was a need.

Nobody should ever be hungry in this country.

Nobody should be hungry.

So the balls started to get rolling.

- I get enjoyment from people.

People bring me joy, and then the joy that I get serving people, that is to me, hands down, is the number one thing that is just like, is the most joyful thing in the entire world.

So I always tell people, we're all one step away from homelessness.

One step.

And what you would want is somebody to come out there and serve you.

What we can start doing, Karen, is breaking apart the hamburgers for me to put on the grill.

- Okay.

- Don't rush.

We got plenty of time.

We got plenty of time.

- Spiritually, that's what we're here to do, to service each other.

You know, we keep looking for people to give us.

Now what about you giving, helping people?

And that's the greatest thing about this.

- And I think after she took that first step, pulling the wagon around helping others, this is what makes her her tick.

This is what makes her heart happy.

- (laughs) She's the best.

- All right.

- Gonna hold that thought.

- Everything, everything?

- The everything tray, you guys.

Three everythings.

This is my purpose on earth.

This is what God wants me to be doing, and I know it's what I need to do.

And it's the personal satisfaction that I get when I, you know, meet and talk with these guys and I actually start to build a relationship with them.

I wouldn't have probably never done that or get to know these people if I didn't do this work, so it means a lot to me.

If anybody ever wants to understand the joy of doing this, I say come and join me.

Because it is absolutely the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

And that right there is just, that's my perfect weekend.

That's my perfect weekend.

So that's all I got.

Some people do parties, and I go take care of the homeless, 'cause that's all I wanna do.

- From prepared foods to global produce, Morris Gbolo's New Jersey farm is helping fellow West Africans experience foods from home.

(soft uplifting music) (soft uplifting music) (soft meditative music) - Nothing like the taste of home.

Thanks so much for watching "Good Souls," and thanks to all the good souls featured, and the Philadelphia Youth Basketball for hosting us here at the Alan Horwitz Sixth Man Center.

We're looking forward to sharing even more good souls with you.

So look out for our call for nominations.

For WHYY, I'm Cherri Gregg.

Have a good night.

(upbeat playful music) - When I'm here, I look down, I look, I look, I look.

He's gonna fall.

- Good time, man, good to see you.

(laughs) - I like that.

(laughs) Love it.

- [Dwede] See you next time.

- Thank you, thank you.

- [Cherri] Funding for this program has been provided by Peco.