- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been provided by Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The North Ward Center.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Lighting the way to a clean energy future.

The Fidelco Group.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

Citizens Philanthropic Foundation.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Working for a more a healthier, more equitable New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

The magazine of the Garden State, available at newsstands.

[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, everyone.

Steve Abubato.

Thank you for joining us.

We kick off the program with Jasmine Cordero-West, Associate Director of the Rutgers Advanced Institute for the Study of Entrepreneurship and Development.

Jasmine, good to see you.

- Good to see you, Steve.

Thank you for having me.

- You got it.

I'm fascinated by this thing.

And I'm a Rutgers grad.

I got the whole history.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I never, when I was there, there wasn't such a thing as the Urban Solutions Lab at Rutgers Newark.

What is this lab?

And why is it having such great impact on students, please?

- Well, the Urban Solutions Lab is relatively new.

We just started right during the pandemic, and it has two facets.

One, it helps our students at Rutgers Newark.

Those that are interested in entrepreneurship.

We have paid internships for them to work on their businesses, and we provide them with a whole host of services, mentorship, support.

We even have a small investment fund to invest in their ventures.

And we also have, as part of the Urban Solutions Lab, the RU-Flourishing Program where we help those that have been- - RU-Flourishing, I got that.

- Yes.

- R, I saw what you did.

And what is that?

- It's a program to help those that have been previously incarcerated to start their own ventures or grow existing ones.

- I'm so curious about this.

As a struggling entrepreneur, like so many others, I often, and I also teach and coach around leadership, and I'm fascinated by this.

How much of being a successful entrepreneur is a product of, I know I'm a broken record of people who hear this, having tremendous grit and never, ever, ever giving a up?

- That is a big part of it, yes.

Those that have grit and are determined are the ones that'll make their business successful.

But there are also other facets as well.

- Please.

- Two of the things that we teach our students and entrepreneurs are one about the finances.

They really need to understand and know their numbers.

Many entrepreneurs work through what I say, the checkbook.

If you're in the black, you're good.

If you're in the red, that's not so great.

But you really need to have a good financial management system in place to really be able to grow your business and understand the health of your finances to make you, help you make better business decisions.

- We'll stay on that one.

How would a student, unless there was such a lab, an Urban Solutions Lab in Newark, you and your colleagues are doing.

How the heck?

Even if they have tremendous passion and drive, "I wanna start, I'm gonna do a startup and I have this great passion."

That's not enough?

- They should find us and come to the Urban Solutions Lab.

And I wanna tell you about one of our students, Miriam Brickman.

She actually wanted to start a brick and mortar for her bakery business.

We partner with our community and we found her an accountant who helped her do projections.

Do you know what she found out, Steve?

That actually in New Jersey, because of all the permits and licenses, a food truck.

She wanted to have a food truck.

The food truck was more expensive to have than a brick and mortar.

- Really?

- And she, really.

And she found a small shop.

She just opened up the Brickery Cafe, I believe last summer.

- What's it called?

I wanna promote it.

What's it called?

- Brickery Cafe in Teaneck, New Jersey.

- Okay.

- Last summer.

And this, now she has opened up a second cafe at a Rutgers New Brunswick campus.

- Wow.

Look, I gotta ask you something.

Jasmine, I'm fascinated by entrepreneurship.

Why are you, more importantly?

- Small businesses contribute tremendously.

Not only by jobs, but also by their giving.

So, one of the things that sets us apart from other entrepreneurship centers at Rutgers is we concentrate on prosocial entrepreneurship.

Most people are familiar with social entrepreneurship, but prosocial entrepreneurship, we use it in the broad sense.

And we tell our students, "Be the good that you want to see in the world."

So when you develop- - Hold on.

Didn't Gandhi say that?

- Yes.

- Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world."

- Well, we say "be the good."

- This is "be the good."

Go ahead.

- Be the good that you wanna see in the world.

So, when you're creating your business, all of our students have to have a prosocial aspect.

So don't just concentrate on the profit, but also have something that gives back to the community or the world.

For example, hire locally, give back by donating your services to low income individuals or nonprofit organizations.

For our returning citizens, their prosocial usually is always, "I want to hire more returning citizens because they cannot get jobs."

- Oh, returning citizens.

Are you talking about folks who come out of incarcerated situations?

- Yes.

Yes.

- Please share that.

- With our RU- - Why is that important?

Why someone says, "You know what?

I can't take the risk."

You're saying, "No, don't go that way."

- We're saying do something good.

Do something good.

- Which means at times, opening that opportunity for someone who was previously incarcerated and served their time.

- Exactly.

And it's not gonna cut into your profit because people think you cannot have a business that does good in the world and make a profit.

And yes, you can.

Because if you're hiring, for example, previously incarcerated individuals, whether you're hiring previously incarcerated or non-previously incarcerated individuals, you're still paying payroll, you're still paying the same salary, and you're still making a difference in the world.

And it's not cutting into your profits.

- Did you grow up in a family where entrepreneurism was the thing?

- I did not, Steve.

I just- - So, go ahead.

- I just have a passion for it, because every day I get different emails from the entrepreneurs, from the students that I'm helping, and the difference that they have made.

And that is what brings joy to me, is that I know that the work we're doing is having a direct impact on people's lives, creating generational wealth, and in our communities.

- That's your passion.

- That's my passion.

- Making a difference.

- Yes.

- It must be great to see these entrepreneurs or people who want to be entrepreneurs.

Nothing wrong with getting a job at a company, and you could be an intrapreneur.

Made it up.

Inside your entrepreneurial spirit, and that's great.

But the idea of starting your own thing and making all the mistakes that those of us who have done that make.

Learning, getting resources, and support, and help and guidance from organizations like, you know, we're talking about the Urban Solutions Lab at Rutgers University-Newark.

I mean, what is greater than that?

It is tremendously rewarding.

And as Jasmine said, giving back at the same time.

I'm off my soapbox.

Hey, Jasmine, you're terrific.

Join us again.

And down the road tell us about the progress of the lab, okay?

- Yes, absolutely.

And again, thank you so much for having me, Steve.

- Well, it's great having you.

That's Jasmine Cordero-West, making a difference.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Joining us now is Barbara Martinez, Chief Executive Officer of the New Jersey Children's Foundation.

Full disclosure, the foundation is an underwriter of our Urban Education That Works Initiative.

Barbara, good to see you again.

- So nice to be here, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

- You got it.

Barbara, before you became the executive director of the New Jersey Children's Foundation, the website is up right now, your background is in journalism.

Talk about that background.

And then I'm gonna ask you a little bit more about media coverage, mainstream, legacy, and other media coverage of urban education, please.

- Yep, well, as you know, I was born and raised in Newark.

And always wanted to be a reporter.

And was really fortunate that I spent a 20 year career at The Wall Street Journal as an investigative reporter in the last few years there.

As a reporter covering Newark and Newark Public Schools.

And it really hit home to me to be in schools that worked and schools that didn't work because I was a little girl in Newark who went to schools that should have been better.

And I got to college and nearly flunked out.

And I hadn't read a book and I was a straight A student.

And, you know, and that it was so important to me that the media tell the truth and that people tell the truth about what we're really offering in schools and how we're preparing kids for their future.

- Barbara, let's stay on this.

I'm fascinated by us, the media.

How we do what we do, how we don't do what we're supposed to do.

The graphic is gonna come up, "Media Leadership" and here’s my question.

Where do you think most people are getting most of their information about urban education?

Because there are implications for our representative democracy in that, not to mention urban education as well, please.

- Yeah, it's terrifying to me where people are getting their information.

They're getting it from TikTok.

They're getting it from Instagram.

When I was a reporter covering the Zuckerberg money that came into Newark Public Schools in around 2010, there were 10 reporters.

Now there may be two or three.

And we just, you know, learned that there's gonna be even fewer, so it is very scary where people are getting information.

And it is so critical because the media is a form of accountability.

And if we don't have accountability in our schools, who's gonna make sure that kids are getting what they need?

- So along those lines, Barbara, as the CEO of the Children's Foundation, who has this background in media, what I'm perplexed by, and your perspective on this matters so much, is that those in power in policymaking positions on the state level, the federal level, often make policy based on their perception of public opinion.

Public opinion is shaped by what you were just describing as the media landscape and universe.

People, you know, the algorithms, I'll get you what you, I'll get you information that tell you that you're right about what you think you already believe.

I know I said that in a very inarticulate way.

What are the policy implications of a public being so misinformed about urban education and then policy being made to try to reflect that?

- Again, it's very scary when I'm looking at this landscape and it's bad for democracy to have just a smaller group of people who are focused on accurate information and balanced information.

And so at the Children's Foundation, we do what we can to provide data.

And what's a little scary to me is that we are one of the few organizations left that are providing, we're putting it all out there, all the information.

You know, you could say that the government provides information, and they do.

You could OPRA the government and data, but they provide it in a way that's not consumable by the average person.

And so there's really no one breaking it down for people and saying, this is why this is important.

When our literacy rate is under 30% in Newark, this is why it's important, because this is thousands of human beings who are gonna go into the work world, and not have the skills necessary, and not be able to finish college, and all of these things that are really important for children of today and the adults of tomorrow who are gonna run the world.

- Along those lines, so our series, "Urban Education That Works," attempts to look at the best practices, the better practices.

Not perfect, because I don't even know what that means, of schools that appear to be doing well for their students.

However, when it comes to the media piece of this, particularly the social media piece of this, Barbara, it's much easier to show videos on TikTok, or Instagram, whatever, of an urban school situation where a teacher is, and these things happen, but the problem is a teacher in an urban school getting beaten up, a fight in the hallway, all sorts of chaos and violence.

And those things happen, but to represent that as the totality of urban education impacts people's perception.

And ultimately, again, policies from Washington and Trenton and local school boards.

Am I oversimplifying that, Barbara?

- You're not, and what's worse is that people's attention span because of things like Instagram and TikTok and all of these videos coming at you that are 30 seconds and cute little kittens, our attention span has shrunk.

And it's very scary for kids, but it's happened to adults as well.

And all the studies and the science shows the impact.

These are serious issues that need people to really sit down and be able to analyze data and sit down for a while.

And we've got a citizenry now who is used to getting their information in 15 or ten second bites.

That's problematic.

- We're describing the severity of the problem, okay.

What is one meaningful action that won't solve this massive, complex, multifaceted problem of media coverage, lack of media coverage, distorted media coverage, sloppy media coverage, simplistic media coverage?

What is one action that you believe we, in the media, the so-called, I don't even know what mainstream media is, legacy media, should be taking in this incredibly competitive environment where everyone's fighting for a piece of the audience?

What should we be doing?

- That's such a great question.

I mean, those of you who are left have to keep asking the hard questions.

And I do see some foundations across the country coming up and trying to ensure that we keep what's left there, and trying to start new media, but we also, we're funders of media.

But I think this is one of those things that people will not realize it's such a problem until it has become such a problem that it's really hard to get out of the hole.

- One more final question here.

This is an age old question in media that I'm sure you thought about, and learned when you got into the business, and I continue to think about it.

For those of us in the media practicing, is it our job to be giving people what they need to know, you know where I'm going, versus what we believe the algorithm tells us they want to be entertained by?

- Ideally, there's room for both.

I get worried when you don't have one or the other, or when you really don't have the information that you need.

We, I mean, the future of our country is in our schools right now.

And if our schools don't get better, think about the future of our country.

And so it's very concerning, but it's really important that there are people to say, this is important.

This is somebody's life.

If you can't read at third grade, what are you going to do?

How are you going to get a job that's meaningful and that where you can provide for your family?

It's very scary.

- Finally, to Barbara's point.

People will say, oh, you're talking about covering media coverage of urban education.

Stop thinking about urban education and think about the young people in urban communities across this state and nation who, as Barbara said, will grow up and be members of society.

What is it that we want and need from them in terms of their contribution to society or lack of that contribution?

It's complex stuff.

P.S., complexity's hard to cover.

That doesn't mean it's not important to cover.

To Barbara Martinez, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the New Jersey Children's Foundation.

I want to thank you so much for joining us again, Barbara.

Thank you.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Vesta Godwin Clark, Executive Director at the St. James Social Services Corporation.

Ms. Clark, good to see you.

- Good to see you too, Steve, thanks for having me.

- It's my pleasure.

Tell the room what the organization is.

We'll put the website up.

- St. James Social Service Corporation is one of the largest providers of food in Essex County through our Emergency Food Pantry and our Soulfood Cafe Soup Kitchen.

We also do rental assistance for homeless prevention, La Hee clothing, diapers, adult briefs, just about anything that people need, we do it.

But food is our biggest thing, where we provide over 800,000 pounds of food annually.

- Based where?

- We are located in the heart of Newark, New Jersey, on Martin Luther King Boulevard, 604 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

- Beautiful, talk to us about the connection.

We have a partnership with the Community FoodBank of New Jersey to do public awareness around food insecurity and related issues.

What's the connection to the Community FoodBank?

- So, the Community FoodBank, they are our very best friend.

We receive about 80% of our food donations from them, and any other resources that we need.

If it's not donated, we get it at a discounted price.

But the FoodBank, on a once a month basis, they deliver 25 pallets of food to us to distribute.

So we definitely couldn't do what we do without them.

And just recently, we were awarded at their Blue Jean Ball for the work and our connection that we have in the community with them.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you.

- Let's try this.

During COVID, describe who was coming to St. James seeking assistance with food, and why would be surprised at who those folks were?

- Wow.

To look back to four years ago, I wonder how we even made it through.

So initially, when the governor told everyone they had to go home, and the only entities could stay open were places like the grocery store, and I reached out to the late Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, and I said, "What are we supposed to do?

What are our people supposed to do?"

Well, I didn't realize that within a three-week time period that the world shut down, that our people became everyone.

We had people in our lines that worked on Wall Street that had six-figure incomes that couldn't work and hadn't got any unemployment.

So we saw the change.

It happened quickly, and because of the FoodBank, we were able to provide food to anyone who came.

They didn't have to register, which is the normal process.

They could come more than once a month, which was not the normal process.

So we saw people, some of the same people every day.

And literally between our Emergency Food Pantry, we were serving 700 to a thousand families a day.

And then our Soup Kitchen, we were doing 650 meals, and we had to learn how to do everything on the to-go basis, because before that, we were not.

So, it was very interesting.

We actually had an article, we were featured on "Nightline" with one of our clients who, she's an attorney, and because her son could not go to preschool, she couldn't go to work.

She lost her job, and she had to turn to our organization for not only food, but also for rental assistance.

So we saw... COVID let the world know that there was no...

The color, income level, it really did not matter.

It was all about food that the world really needed food.

- You mentioned our late friend, Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver, who we did a, my colleague, Jacqui Tricarico and I on our series, "Remember Them."

Checkout, "Remember Them," and the feature we did on our great, our late great Lieutenant Governor, Sheila Oliver.

Just remind folks who Sheila was, and why Sheila still matters.

- Wow.

Sheila was literally, and still is our angel.

With her position, the DCA, Sheila made sure that in- - Sheila was, excuse me, she was Lieutenant Governor and the head of the Department of Community Affairs, DCA.

I apologize, Ms. Clark.

- Yeah, yes, which is the department that has funding for nonprofits.

So it was a very important department, and the fact that she was the head and she knew us, we were able to get grants that we, not that we weren't deserving, but that we were never, we didn't know about, we weren't in that network.

And because of Sheila, her very first discretionary grant that she gave us, her first year in office, it was $150,000 discretionary.

- Because she knew your work and the people you were serving every day.

- That's right, that's right.

And only because she knew who we were, and she continues to bless us, we continue to receive the grants.

We knew that the Lieutenant Governor would not always be in that position.

It's only eight years, which is why I've always said to my staff, "We have to make sure that we administer these grants and these funding the way that they should be, because when she's not there, we want to still be awarded."

And it's been a blessing.

This past year, it's the first year that she's been gone and we continue to receive the funding, which has really helped our organization.

- Ms. Clark, do this for us in the time we have left minutes.

So why do you do this work?

(Ms. Clark laughs) - It's something, I've been here for 24 years and we have struggled, where we've been unemployed, but still volunteering to do what we've been called to do.

And it's basically that.

It's what I was called to do.

And people wanna know, "Well, when are you retiring," because all my friends are retiring.

And I said, "You know, I enjoy what I do.

And because of our lieutenant governor, she helped us get into a different financial space than where we were before, where we can buy food, and, you know, do the things that we were supposed to do."

I said, "You know, how can you, what else can you ask for in terms of employment, but to be able to help people?

And I love what I do."

- You know what, Ms. Clark, you and I have more in common than you think.

People ask me all the time, "When are you gonna retire?"

No time soon.

- Right.

- That's what happens when you love what you do, right?

- Yep, yep.

- It's a disease.

(Ms. Clark laughs) In a good way.

Vesta Godwin Clark, who's the Executive Director of a terrific not-for-profit organization in the heart of the city of Newark, Brick City, making a difference every day, St. James Social Services Corporation.

Vesta, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you for having me.

Have a good holiday.

- Good luck.

- Thank you so much.

- We're taping right before the holidays.

Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

The North Ward Center.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

The Fidelco Group.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

Citizens Philanthropic Foundation.

And by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Promotional support provided by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

- Let's talk about the state of hunger.

- The state of no hunger.

- (Narrator) For 50 years, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey has worked to fill the emptiness caused by hunger with food, help and hope.

Now it's time to look forward.

What will the next 50 years bring?

How can we, regular people like you and me, make a difference?

How can we change the state of hunger?

Can we change the state of hunger?

We can.