(upbeat music) - Next on "You Oughta Know".

This exchange program gives high school students a chance to see the country and expand their viewpoints.

Plus creating opportunities for girls in Philly to explore careers in the natural sciences and filling in the gaps when healthcare and other resources fall short for cancer patients.

(upbeat music) Welcome to "You Oughta Know" I'm Shirley Min, Legacy of Hopes PHL 24 event takes place this weekend on the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

And your participation could help the nonprofit provide critical resources for underserved cancer patients.

(upbeat music) - I started my career working at a major rehab hospital in Philadelphia as a physical therapist and I primarily worked with patients with catastrophic injuries.

At the same time I was working as a fitness instructor in the city and I really was ready to start my own business.

So in 2001 I opened Core Fitness.

Breathe in and breathe out.

Our major spot is right here on the art museum steps and I was able to transition from working with patients with injuries, to working with people who wanted to get fit.

Nice work.

- I was working as an EMT in the ER at Jefferson and Center City.

And there was a patient that was there a lot and towards the end of her life she was too sick to live on her own.

So she lived with her older brother.

He said, Mike, I know Sosa's gonna die soon.

He said, but we have to listen to her gasp for breath every night 'cause we can't afford the home oxygen and tears are streaming down his face.

And it instantly just changed the lens that I looked through life at.

I graduated from Jefferson.

I was playing on being a physician.

That's what I wanted to do for years.

And I walked out of that room and I said, I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do, but I've gotta do something.

And that was the genesis of Legacy of Hope.

I had planned a fundraising run, knew we were gonna run around Kelly Drive.

I planned this run and I thought there was gonna be maybe hundreds of people there.

I ran that run by myself that day.

Very humble beginning.

- Good stuff, we're taking it up, you ready?

All the way to the top, here we go.

- I see this woman across the way by the art museum steps leading this fitness class just so full of energy and everybody's having a great time.

And as I'm waiting for no one to show up, I'm just kind of watching and I thought, you know what?

I don't know who this is, but the energy she has, the way she is able to engage people.

This is someone who I need to work with.

- I have been working with Legacy of Hope for a couple years and at the same time my very dear friend from high school, Carrie was diagnosed with colon cancer and she was at the end of her life and she and I were spending a lot of time together and one day I said, Carrie, I just wish there was something I could do for you.

And she said, oh there is, and I got really excited.

I said, what?

She said, oh, I don't know.

Neither of us know what it is yet, but you'll eventually figure it out.

And the day after her funeral, I was driving back home to Philadelphia and the idea dawned on me for a stair climb marathon in her honor as a fundraiser for Legacy of Hope.

So I was able to put the two things together that I am really passionate about.

Fitness on the art museum steps and working with Legacy of Hope to support cancer patients in our city.

Good stuff, guys.

(class clapping) - [Michael] She sounded good when I talked to her.

I'm excited to see them.

About a year before we met Candace, we noticed a trend, an increase in referrals for patients who were either already homeless, you know, they're too sick to work and they were evicted or they were very close to eviction.

So we started looking at properties and we knew at some point we wanted to purchase a property and offer free short-term housing.

You meet Candace and her family, you can't help but like 'em, they become family very quickly.

This is a serious case.

Just a really, really hard situation.

- How are you?

- [Gina] Hey, how are you?

So good to see you.

- You too, you look good too.

- [Michael] Fortunately for us, it coincided with PHL 24, which is one of our biggest fundraisers.

We ended up raising enough money last year in about a six to eight weeks.

We were able to find the home, purchase it, renovate it, and get the family moved in.

And again, that's just a testament to the incredible organizations and companies we work with.

- So you're gonna come out to PHL 24 and go up and down the steps with us a few times?

- Yes, I will.

Y'all been very inspirational to me, so I appreciate that.

This was a blessing.

- [Gina] We're here for you Candace.

- Well you've inspired all of us too.

We provide emergency services for family, everything from legal services to clothes, school supplies, food, transportation, you name it.

We've supported a family.

If a family is really struggling financially secondary to a cancer diagnosis, all bets are off, we'll take care of them.

- I was in a two bedroom house with four kids and they were older and it just wasn't enough room.

We had mold in the house, it just wasn't feasible.

- This year at PHL 24, our goal is to purchase and build an emergency patient support center and that which is gonna be the hub for critical services for underserved cancer patients here in the city.

It's gonna offer everything from accounting and legal services to physical therapy, occupational therapy, ultimately with the goal of getting them back on their feet so they can sustain themselves.

- PHL 24 is a 24 hour stair climb marathon at the art Museum steps.

We're now in our seventh year and we have 32 amazing athletes who are gonna climb the steps for 24 continuous hours to raise funds for Legacy of Hope.

It's one of my favorite days of the year, it's a big party.

There's food, there's music.

This year there's gonna be a live band, we have a yoga class, we have a midnight spin class.

The city of Philadelphia's gonna come together for the benefit of the people in our city who need it most.

(upbeat music) - It's back to school time.

And if you are an aspiring media maker or know someone who is, listen up.

Since 2019, WHYY has selected students who've completed our media lab curriculum to participate in media internships at area companies.

For six weeks, the interns work and publish stories at local and national outlets.

Our partners this year included the University of Pennsylvania Project Smart, Ronald McDonald House Charities and of course WHYY.

This is a great opportunity to get real hands-on experience.

These next stories come from our pathways to media interns.

As you'll see, their world is inclusive, diverse, and affirming.

This first story takes us inside a local refuge for LGBTQ+ youth looking for community and support.

- I came to the Attic Youth Center when it was just an afterschool program not too far from here and I was 14 years old.

I was suffering from bouts of depression since I was 12.

Didn't really have much of an outlet knowing that I was growing up queer in a neighborhood that was not very welcoming in communities, that were not very welcoming.

And I got on the bus that afternoon and came to this small room on the attic floor, a voyage house, hence the name, and saw a room full of amazing youth who shared my experience.

And the rest is history.

- [Narrator] Located on South 16th Street, the Attic Youth Center has served over 20,000 LGBTQ+ youth since 1993.

The center provides a safe space for young individuals in the community to express their identity, talk to understanding adults and engage in fun activities and events.

- April of 2019 was when I first came here.

I really liked the vibe and it was a really cool hangout spot and it was a great opportunity to meet people who were like me.

- For our youth, it is an opportunity for them to carve out the rest of their lives and not have to worry about being judged about the kind of lives that they live, who they love and how they identify and how they see themselves.

- And so I decided to keep coming back and the more I came back, the more I wanted to get involved.

I've been a pretty consistent member ever since.

Your personal issues.

I think the most important skill that I learned here was leadership and how to run a group, how to communicate with people.

So the attic used to have a group called Boys Club and it was a group for Achillean men or men who are attracted to other men and men adjacent folks.

Basically to come in and talk about our experiences, share our stories, give advice, and basically be a support group.

I wanted to bring that back.

So last year I had an internship with State Representative Ben Waxman who serves this district and I actually got that opportunity from here through the Attic Youth center.

And I'm passionate about working with other communities, especially communities of people that look like me and that share my same background.

I met my adoptive family through my internship.

My adoptive father George is very important to me and he's someone I love and care about a lot and I'm grateful that he and his family took me in and basically guided me and loved me as one of their own.

- So Scarlet was going through some, we'll say housing issues, wasn't easy.

We had a lot of talks, there were a lot of tears, a lot of self-doubt.

But even those things are a lesson of growth.

It is a symbol of an opportunity for rebirth.

And I see that happening for Scarlet right now in their lives and it's a beautiful thing to see.

They are no longer looking at failure as the end.

To see them claw their way out of it.

They realize that their strength is unmatched with whatever life we'll throw at them.

- I love her and I'm really glad she's in my life and is able to serve as a mentor figure and at guiding post for someone who I want to be like when I grow up.

They're the types of organizations that keep kids off the streets.

They're one of the best ways to prevent crime.

Spaces like the Attic Youth Center and any type of third space that's youth-oriented.

These places deserve funding.

They deserve attention, they deserve love, they deserve support because they serve us, they serve the youth.

- I have had the privilege of watching a generation, a community that I've been a part of a very long time reach a level of pride, of resilience that I didn't think I was gonna live to see.

And to be able to see that is so promising and it gives me hope and I know for the viewers out there, it will give you that same hope as well.

- In this next story you'll see our youth correspondence are making sure their peers know about local career opportunities like the women in natural sciences after school and summer program.

(soft music) - My parents have always pushed us and tried to give us opportunities they never had.

So I feel like when WINS came up they're like, oh yeah, definitely you'll give it up, like go give it a try.

- [Narrator] Women make up less than 35% of people in science, technology, engineering, and math, otherwise known as STEM.

And less than 8% are women of color.

WINS or Women in Natural Science is a Philadelphia youth organization at Drexel's Academy of Natural Science.

They accept young women from unrepresented groups giving them guidance, information and enrichment through workshops and mentorship.

Internships from WINS offer these young women the opportunity to take care of animals and take part in publish research.

They provide a pathway to a future in science careers to decrease the gap between demographics.

(soft music) - WINS was like a deeper connection for me.

It was like a second family with just science included and it's like the best thing I think for me that could have happened because not only am I learning, but I'm learning and growing with people that I consider like my sisters.

- August of 2023, a group of WINS girls and I, we were selected to be a part of the WOW internship, Women on Water.

The group of us would canoe down Delaware River and we would camp out at different camp sites.

- It was me and Vicki in a kayak together.

We were partners and we were coming up the Delaware River and Ms. Kim was like, take a moment of silence everyone and appreciate what we have right in front of us.

- That particular trip is one of my favorites just because it away from the city, since that's where we grew up.

- I got more out of just living in the moment because I've never really seen like big trees or giant water or birds flying everywhere.

- WINS a showcase that like minorities like myself, whether that's a woman or like a person of color in STEM, we are like capable of doing things that others are.

- Not many kids are encouraged to be curious.

I wasn't even the type to be curious.

I was just the type to go my own route and think, oh, this is what I'm gonna do, period.

Being curious is a powerful thing, in my opinion.

We don't have that much representation, especially for young girls who are interested in STEM.

I know some people who've lost their way because they never had the proper support or the proper encouragement to be able to explore things such as science.

- When I was younger I couldn't imagine where I am today.

Like I'm doing all things I enjoy, I'm getting opportunities I didn't know I could get.

- I think if someone were to really give WINS a chance, it would change their lives for the better.

and if I had the chance to do WINS all over again, I would do it all over again.

(soft music) - The hit TV show, "Abbott Elementary", about a fictitious Philly school has put the Philadelphia school district in spotlight.

Each week, issues facing Philly teachers, students, and parents are broadcast for the world to see.

WHYY News decided to delve deeper into those issues with a new school podcast, "The Cascading Impact of Abbott Elementary".

And here now with more about the podcast is education reporter Amanda Fitzpatrick of WHYY News.

Amanda, welcome to "You Oughta Know".

- Thank you so much, you know, this podcast has just been such an intricate part of our education team for weeks.

We've been working to really delve into some of the issues that we're seeing not only in the show, but also in real life in some of these schools.

- I'm super excited to hear it.

Let's talk about how "Abbott Elementary" inspired this season of school.

- Absolutely, people watch the show and some people don't realize that this is really happening.

What you're seeing in the show from not being able to afford a rug in the classroom, which was one of the first episodes of the first season, that episode was real.

There are some schools and there are some teachers that I've talked to in the district that are like, you know, we spend thousands of dollars in our own money to buy a decoration for our rooms or to provide book bags or coats when it's cold, or even school supplies, just to be able to provide what our classroom needs to get through the day.

And I think that it's important that this show really highlights the hard work that teachers face every day, the challenges they face and how they overcome those challenges to make sure that the students are taken care of.

Quinta Brunson, she's a West Philly native as we all know.

She created the show and it was based on her childhood and growing up in the school system and going to the schools.

And she named the show after Joyce Abbott, "Abbott Elementary", who was a teacher who was decorated.

She served at the Persian Gulf War.

She was a teacher with the district for years.

She's retired now and she's also featured in this podcast.

I got a chance to talk to her when she was at the renaming of a street sign out of Overbrook High School outside of the school.

So she was excited about that.

So you're gonna hear all of this sound from these incredible people.

Shirley Ralph, you know, she plays the character Barbara on the show.

And again, she talks about what it's like playing Barbara and how there are so many Barbaras in the school district of Philadelphia and around the world that really don't get the attention that they deserve.

And so this show really does that.

- And I love that we're hearing from all of these voices, people who are committed to kind of furthering the cause and the challenges and issues that this school district is facing.

In addition to the challenges, you know, we see a lot of ways that the Philadelphia school district is doing things right.

So I know that you have someone else also contributing to the podcast.

Who is that?

And and then what is he covering?

- Stephen Williams is also our education reporter.

He was able to talk to Quest Love from the Roots.

We all love Quest Love, right?

And he was able to do a story in arts and culture.

He's also covering stories about the libraries.

You know, in his research we found that a lot of schools no longer have libraries and there's a new grant that's being funded to provide librarians in some of the librarians that's gonna be talked about in the podcast.

Also, there is a music studio that people aren't aware of.

So he kind of talks about the arts and culture.

We know that Philly is a cultured city, so that is important to delve into those topics and not just, you know, this isn't about bashing the school district or talking badly.

This is really about just highlighting the hard work of hardworking principals and teachers and staff and the families that are able to send their kids to school and learn.

And that's what this podcast is about, really just kind of highlighting that and how it parallels to "Abbott Elementary".

- This is a four part series.

When will we be able to hear the first episode or when will it drop?

- Sure, it's gonna jot this month, later this month.

And you're gonna be able to hear from Jalen Hertz.

He donated $200,000 to provide air conditioning units.

I talked to parents who were at Spring Garden School and they were disappointed that their kids were dismissed early because the school didn't have AC.

That school still doesn't have AC, but because of Jalen Hertz, Edward Gideon school and some of the other schools were able to get air conditioning units and were able to stay open this year and not have to close early.

And he was on "Abbott Elementary", right?

He was on there.

I think the principal called him the world's finest quarterback.

- I second that, I second that.

- So you know, but you're gonna hear from Jalen Hertz, you're gonna hear from Shirley Ralph, you're gonna hear from Quinta Brunson herself.

I have, you know, we've got sound and interviews with her as well.

So there's gonna be so many great things that you're gonna be able to hear from in this podcast.

- I'm so looking forward to it.

Amanda, thank you so much for joining us.

"School: The Cascading Impact of Abbott Elementary" can be heard on whyy.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Well, what if you could travel and experience a town which was totally different from yours during the summer after high school graduation at no cost to you?

The American Exchange Project is connecting students and changing lives.

(soft music) - [Parent] All right, ready to go.

- It began with a road trip I took in college in 2016.

I borrowed my mom's Mazda, the family kid hauler and drove 7,000 miles around America.

The friends I made and the lessons I learned on that road trip utterly changed my life and my understanding of travel and what happens when you bring people physically together creates a kind of connection that it seems like we're really missing in the country.

I'm David McCullough III and I'm the CEO and Co-founder of the American Exchange Project.

When you travel, your horizon that you're looking at goes from here to here.

And so suddenly your whole future that your whole understanding of the world is on a whole new plane.

So after graduate school, I got together with some old professors and we wanted to figure out a social innovation that could scale up and bring the divided country back together again.

And we landed on the idea of a massive domestic foreign exchange program right here in America.

What you're seeing here in Malvern, which is students becoming friends, getting to know one another and by seeing what it's like to grow up in a different town, they themselves grow up there a little bit.

- First couple of days are a little bit like everyone's a little quiet.

They're testing the waters, they're getting to know each other.

By day three, the phones are away, they're talking to each other, they're laughing.

- In ways large and small.

The people we meet, I think, shape who we are and the future we look at as individuals and what we're trying to do at AEP, the vision and really the mission is to not let prejudices and tribalism that are so quickly growing in this country limit the futures of our children.

The goal really is to make this as common to the high school experience as the prom.

The thought that a week in a different town should be part of our senior year.

Kind of a ritualistic rite of passage for the American High school student through tapping young people and their love of adventure and their easily ability to connect with each other when having fun.

You see kind of bridges happening, connections happening that cross a lot of the gaps on which we're so divided.

And the idea is that as they understand each other more as people, as human beings, not bias stereotyped groups, they'll not only have more charitable views toward folks who are different from them, but they'll have a deeper understanding of where people are coming from.

We hire in each high school an exchange manager who runs the program like it is an extracurricular at the school.

Students sign up through their exchange manager in the fall.

We place them on AEP day March 1st every year, we place them in a community.

They travel throughout the summer and they travel in groups of kids from all over the country.

Travel for a week, host for a week.

And while you're there you get to meet all sorts of different people.

You have all sorts of different shared events and activities that are really tailored toward what local life is like.

We place them in a town that we know is gonna be a really valuable experience for them.

We do cultural immersion, which is fun through local culture.

(soft music) You have a day of volunteering on every exchange.

We do a lot of community events and activities.

So rattlesnake roundups and rodeos and state fairs and farmer's markets, and then what we might call professional development, which is Q&As with folks who have really interesting jobs in the community, the diversity we're trying to introduce them to is not what they're gonna get at home and is coming at a really critical time in their ability to form their views about the world and the country.

- This is a chance for you before you move on with the rest of your life and make the rest of your huge life decisions to just take a week and go like meet new people and find who you are and learn about the people around you to increase connection across the United States.

- There's so many things that I didn't know I related to 'cause I couldn't put it into words, but everyone here was able to put it into words and I just learned so much from it and I feel like I connected a lot with myself.

- I think like we're all entering this new chapter of our lives, which is adulthood no matter where you're from.

So I think it was great just to see each other meet each other and I think we all have something to learn.

- The whole project is predicated on the belief that Americans are good people, who under the right circumstances are gonna get along with each other.

And at AEP, we're just creating the right circumstances.

I knew the program would be impactful.

I had no idea it would change lives consistently the degree to which it has changed lives.

By the end of the summer, we'll have had a thousand students go through this program.

To me that's extraordinary, it's a total dream come true.

(soft music fading) - The dog days of summer may be coming to an end, but for some they continue all year long.

Photojournalist Paul Parmley catches up with our former intern.

- [Riley] Say, cheesy weenie.

- Well thank you so, so much.

- No thank you!

I was on my way to a club at Temple University where I went.

Having one of those like Monday afternoons that are just not the greatest.

And then I saw the wienermobile and it just made me laugh and made me smile.

And then next thing you know, I walk into my club and I have a former hotdogger, Temple alum recruiting for the job.

And it was truly life changing for me.

♪ Because if I were an Oscar Meyer Wiener ♪ ♪ everyone be in love with me ♪ - So essentially the Hotdogger drives the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile all over the country, just sparking smiles, making people happy, taking their pictures, and of course, giving everyone a special wiener whistle.

You can only get one by seeing the wienermobile in person.

So they're super exclusive, very fun.

Every week we're essentially assigned a new city to go to.

We go to all different kinds of events.

We were in the Independence Day parade in DC and now we're here in Ridley Park celebrating Independence Day.

And we also are in car shows as well.

- I told these guys, I said, I've never seen one.

- Yeah, they're very, very rare.

It's one of a kind.

It's America's icon, really.

The Weinermobile, it started in 1936 during the Great Depression to try to bring joy and happiness in such a difficult time.

And that's what we're doing almost 90 years later.

Just spreading that joy, continuing to make people happy, smile wherever we go.

Hello!

- Anytime we pull into a parking lot, you can guarantee that there will be people out taking pictures almost immediately.

So curious and every single one of them has a smile on their face.

- It is truly an amazing experience.

You really can't have a bad day because everyone's constantly looking at you and smiling.

When you're driving on the road, someone just turns and looks at you and is like, wait, wait, oh my God.

We turn right here.

We actually learn how to drive it through retired policemen and women in Madison, Wisconsin.

They create little obstacle courses for us.

And if you can pass those obstacle courses, it makes the roads feel so easy.

There are two drivers at a time.

No one is ever alone, or you're assigned a region for the first six months with a partner, but then after six months you get switched different regions and different partners.

So you really get to experience all of the country.

- I've never been to the northeast coast, so this is all a very new experience for me.

I've gotten to see a lot, meet a ton of people, and I get to drive around a 27 foot hot dog on wheels.

So that's been pretty, pretty incredible.

- Oh my God, it's probably the best job in the world.

Anybody can apply to be a Hotdogger.

It's a one year contract from June to June.

- They love people with a background in journalism and strategic communications, but they've had people who went on to be lawyers, they've had people who went on to be engineers.

So anybody with a love of communication, a hunger for travel, and a thirst for adventure.

(upbeat music) - When opportunity knocks, open the door.

That's what Riley did and we hope she's relishing the moment.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

That is our show and we will see you next week, bye.

(upbeat music)