From the Fidelity Bank Foundation studio, PBS Kansas Presents One on One with Victor Hogstrom.

This is the program where we get to know the person behind the persona and talk about life and the lessons learned along the way.

This week, I continue my discussion with Splurge magazine publisher Jody Klein.

In part one of this interview, Jody revealed for the first time publicly a discovery about her past that her mother had kept secret.

It wasn't until her mother died that Jody learned the man who was married to her mother and raised her was not her biological father.

We also discussed Jody's dramatic turnaround of Splurge magazine, despite having no publishing experience whatsoever.

This week, in part two, we'll find out about Jody Klein's devoted and generous efforts to help break the cycle of family destruction by taking in the babies of at risk mothers.

And we'll find out how she's overcome family trials and childhood obesity to become an inspirational driving force in the Wichita community.

This promises to be another compelling half hour.

In part two of my interview with Jody Klein.

Thank you for joining us for part two of one on one with Splurge magazine's publisher, JodyKlein.

Jody is also very much involved with another organization in our community.

It's called Faith Builders, and we'll be talking about that as we continue our conversation.

Welcome back, Jody.

Thank you.

I have to kind of chuckle because I have been given the gift to talk a lot.

So the fact that there's part two is that does not surprise me.

I was actually noted in my high school yearbook for the ability to tell stories.

As I look back, that's why I left the underclassmen this ability to tell stories.

So I've been able to talk about anything for good.

Could that be one of the reasons why nursing didn't interest you any longer?

Well, you know, it could be.

I think it was a definitely a bridge to to where I am today, because it was that goal that I set for myself and I still miss patient care.

I'll be honest, I miss patient care.

But I feel like I'm not necessarily in the hospital but with faith builders that I do feel like that is the way that I'm providing care.

Just outside of the hospital, though.

Do you sometimes advise your husband who's a medical doctor?

Oh, absolutely!

Absolutely.

I can remember one time the phone rang in the middle of the night and and he said, just, you know, call come to the office in the morning.

And I made I woke him up again.

I said, you need to call them back.

They need to go to the emergency room.

Right now.

It was a head injury.

And I said, you don't know how bad this head injury is because you'll discover patients, They don't tell you everything.

You kind of.

And so you're kind of trying to make a diagnosis.

And I felt that was more serious than what the patient on the phone is saying.

So he called the patient back and said, I think you need to go to the emergency room for an evaluation.

Wow.

So, yeah.

Okay.

Well, good to have you by his side.

Yes, we make a good team.

Yes.

Okay.

So let's talk about Faith Builders.

Tell us about it.

What is it?

Well, Faith Builders is a local nonprofit organization, and I wish every city could have this benefit of having what we have here.

Andrea Dixon is the founder of Faith Builders.

And you know, we talked about what a Splurge done to my life and Splurge has given me so many different relationships.

I've been able to mentor high school seniors.

I've been on committees and I have just been all these different events.

I've met the the rock stars of Wichita.

I've met politicians and people I never even imagine ever meeting before.

And they've all affected my life in such positive ways.

But none, none the level that Andrea Dixon has.

So is four years ago, I met Andrea at a Gymboree store, and I had just finished the photo shoot with the Children from Rainbows, which is I'm very, very passionate about.

And they'll tell you that, too.

We give a chance to the children at Rainbows to model in the magazine, and then it's promotion for Fashion Passion, which is their big fundraiser that they have every year.

And I was returning the clothes and Andrea happened to be in the Gymboree store with this little girl in her arms.

And the manager of this store introduced us and and she told me about it.

And I said, Well, what do you need?

And she said, I need homes.

I have babies that don't have homes.

I'm like, Well, you're talking to the right person, because at that time I had three children, had already moved out of the house and had gone on to college.

So we had some extra space.

And so I signed me up and so I literally left the parking lot, called my daughter and my husband.

I said, You are not going to believe what I signed up for.

And so they had to do a background check and and the nice thing is my husband and I both are in careers that are very transparent.

So it didn't take long for her to figure out that we'd be a good match for her.

However, no one believed that I would walk the walk.

And so they just think there's no way possible, because a lot of people, I think, misunderstand me and they really don't know who I am.

And so that was, I think, on Thursday.

By Saturday morning, we had our first baby.

His name was Dwight and the cutest little boy ever.

So we kept him for the weekend.

And then the following week I got another one.

And by Thursday I got a phone call from Andrea and saying, I need you, I need your help.

And I said, This baby's going to be for five days.

And I said, okay.

And I count on my fingers.

I said, Well, my son's in track, my daughter's in cheer.

I said, I guess you can just go with us.

And it was a six month little girl, six month old little girl, and we ended up with her for over a year and still involved with the family, still working on her case a little bit.

It's kind of that that case had some didn't have the happy ending yet.

Yeah, that's still in progress.

But Faith Builders is an organization, like I said, a nonprofit organization that provides just about anything a mother needs from a family to food, clothing.

We have a warehouse that they can go and get furniture, clothing.

We have the food pantry.

We have so many children that go to school that don't even have backpacks.

And Andrea has a huge campaign to help the foster kids with backpacks.

And the thing that I like about it, it is so transparent.

I mean, you donate a dollar and you know exactly where it goes because it's just local.

And you can see the work in progress on a regular basis.

But so much mentoring and walking beside these families and it really gives volunteers because that's what we are.

We're all volunteers a chance to really make a difference in a child's life.

And I've seen that happen in our own home.

So we have a little girl right now.

Leah We've had her for almost... she was born February 22nd and she's on my Facebook.

She's has been in the magazine quite a bit.

She's pretty famous right now, actually, and her mother actually is a basketball player and she's.

Professional.

D1 basketball.

So she got recruited out of state.

And my commitment to her was I will help you with your baby as long as you need.

And that's the beauty of Faith Builders.

There's no time frame.

It's as long as it takes to get these mothers and fathers.

And often, unfortunately, there's not very many fathers on board.

We do have a couple very successful cases where the fathers involved, but most frequently the mother.

And so not only are we mentoring them, they become a part of our family.

And so we had actually, like his mother come home for Christmas.

And she I got her hotel room first for a few days, and then she asked to stay with us.

And that's just to see someone trust me and want to be part of our family.

And she's young.

She's had to fight for a lot of things in her life.

There's just it's God's work.

I really feel it's God's work at hand.

And Deuteronomy 15, ten says, Give graciously to the children and those in need.

And God or Lord, excuse me, will bless us.

Wow.

Sorry, my makeup artist told me to have a Kleenex ready.

I forgot to have it handy.

So anyway, sorry, Brooke.

So, anyway, so one of the things that happened over Christmas was we made sure she had a Christmas, the mom and the baby.

Right.

And I did not realize for the last three years she's been in her dorm on Christmas by herself.

She didn't have a Christmas.

I didn't even know that at the time.

And so the fact that she wanted to stay with.

The mom in college.

She's in college playing D1 basketball.

Yes.

And like I said, I didn't realize that she hadn't had a Christmas.

And so we wanted to make it special because this is her first Christmas with the baby.

And so I had presents wrapped from her to her baby, from the baby to her mom, because I thought she would want a Christmas by themselves in the hotel.

And so I had it all prepared for them.

And she didn't she wanted to stay with us.

And that's a lot because we are a big family.

You know, I have three daughters or three kids that are in serious relationships, married or two of them are married.

And so there's like 11 of us.

And she still chose to be with us.

And and she thanked me afterwards that she this is the best Christmas she'd ever had.

And see.

So those are the things that you can't prepare yourself for because you don't know the impact that you're providing until you hear it and see it and see the results of what this baby, her life, what it could be like without Faith Builders.

Right.

So the goal is to have kids live in homes.

Well, briefly, yes.

And that it's not a long term thing.

But this has been going for about a year.

For a year now.

I think.

It.

Yes, a year.

Okay.

So what happens is the whole goal is to help these families break the generational cycle of destruction.

And in order to do that, we have to remove the mother or the father out of that situation also.

So we we have transitional living homes that Faith Builders can provide for them.

We've also partnered with different shelters if there's domestic violence, but there's often times where the kids can't go with their parent to drug rehab or whatever.

So the families that volunteer for Faith Builders will take that child in and tell the mother the father can get on their feet.

That is the generational destruction.

Yes.

That you just described.

Yes, that's right.

Because we want them to break the cycle of things that they often I mean, every psychologist will tell you there's often repeat offenders.

You know, if you grew up in a house that's violent, then your household is probably going to be violent.

So we want to teach these mothers to break the cycle.

And Faith Builders have done a fabulous job at helping these mothers, first of all, learn how to parent, feel that they have support and someone who believes in them.

It really just takes one person to believe in you.

And if you have that person and like Leah's mom, she's believing in us right now.

She trusts us.

And we face time each other.

We talk, we send her pictures.

The interesting thing is, when I send her a picture video, she responds me to me immediately.

If I ask her how basketball is going or her grades, she doesn't answer.

So she keeps it pretty private.

But but the fact that she is engaging with her child and my husband, I took the baby to the actual college, the 12 hours drive to visit her mom, meet the coaches, meet the players.

And and that was a lot of fun.

That was felt like a long journey, but it was well worth it once we saw her excitement of reuniting with her baby.

So here again, the ultimate goal is to keep them with the family, integrate them back with their family when it's possible.

So how did your family react to this first trial and and the continuation of more kids coming and living in their home that you have to take care of when they found out about it?

Yeah.

Well, the youngest, Taci, she would probably not want to admit this, but I feel like she's my mini me.

She's always wanted to be around babies.

She's always wanted younger siblings, just like I was because she's the baby of the family.

And she was ecstatic to this day.

I mean, she she referred to them as her little sisters and or brothers.

Most often we have girls for some reason, but so everybody was very receptive and they have all and that's the nice thing.

When when Leah's mother came home for Christmas, she saw not only my friends, my family, everyone just embellishes Leah and just shows her so much love and affection.

So that was reassuring for her as well.

But there's been no one in my family that's resisted her at all.

Everyone is on board 100%.

My friends.

On the other hand, I remember getting a phone call, had the baby on my hip, get a phone call, and one of my friends, her husband, said, It's your counselor calling.

He's calling to tell you you're crazy for doing.

What I'm doing is a little different.

You know, I'm getting up there in age and but like I said, I really feel this.

This is God's work.

I have to have the patience and the getting up every 2 hours when she was a baby to feed her and do whatever she needed.

Especially after you've been through it on your own, with your own kids.

Right.

And run a magazine at the same time.

Really amazing.

But like I said, my staff has helped me find a really good balance.

They know because my philosophy at the office is Family First, right?

And and the magazines are going to get there at the end or get it done.

But you have to put your family first.

So, Jody, are there any of the goals yet to be achieved on the...

Goals yet to be achieved?

Well, my youngest daughter, Taci, just got accepted to Arkansas University.

I have this secret hope that she becomes a nurse because I think she would be fabulous at it.

But she's not so much interest right now.

So what I'm discovering is my children are not coming back to Wichita.

My son is in Maine.

My daughter's in Springfield, Missouri.

Our daughter Laura owns a restaurant in Lawrence.

My son Payton loves the mountains.

My daughter Taci loves the beach.

So I've told my husband we probably should sell our house and buy little condos or apartments in whatever state our children are going to be living at.

So my husband is now semi-retired.

He works Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays.

And so we're able to travel around because our son is on the track team at CU.

And so we just it's just family time any time.

We're driving tomorrow morning to Springfield to go spend a couple of days with my granddaughter.

So I guess that would be my goal is just being there for my family when they need us.

Now, we've heard about your, in part one of this program, we heard about your growing up days and your parenting.

Your parents and your father.

That causes me to ask the question, what has been the toughest part of your life so far?

What has been the toughest part?

Believe it or not, I had a weight issue in high school and in my twenties I was 30 to 35 pounds overweight.

And I think to this day, it affects me in different ways because I remember the way I was treated.

I remember I truly believe to this day I was on the homecoming court my junior year and senior year.

And I believe I didn't make homecoming queen because I had extra weight.

I could be wrong on that.

But that was the only reason my mom could think of why I didn't get it.

But it was awarded to my friend Tammy, who really deserved it.

So I'm okay with it.

So the hardest part is, even though I don't struggle with my weight now, I since I still struggle everyday, is a struggle because you're constantly I mean, in order to maintain adequate health, you need to be careful what you eat and drink.

And so it's a daily issue.

But I don't make it an issue.

I make it a habit.

You know, I'm reading a book called Atomic Habits, and I've I've tried to do more things right.

But I think once, as I said in part one, that I found out all these answers to my childhood.

I really kind of think I grew up with daddy issues, which is why there's overweight.

Overweight is basically some level of an eating disorder.

And I feel like I struggle with that way more than I should've changed my level of confidence, changed my, what I thought about myself.

I mean, honestly, in preparing myself for this interview, I've been dreading it because I didn't have the confidence to do this.

And I, I didn't think I'm that there's nothing you need to hear about me that's worth listening to.

I just like I listened to the other guests that you've had on the show and they've got, you know, years of education, their doctor and degree, nine years become an RN.

So I just thought there's just nothing worthy that anybody wants to hear.

You're so wrong.

Well, thank you.

But I do believe that's the hardest part of my life, is getting over the that I am God's child and I am a value and and I can create good at what I do.

So what do you like best about life today?

What I like best about life today.

I feel like I'm a I'd like to be a really happy, positive person.

So I feel if I can instill some of that, I always like to try to be the jokester and make light of situation, make lemonade out of lemons.

I think here again, my family and when I say family, faith pillars is my family.

Now, I also it's, I guess, extended family.

I'm just really happy in where I'm at with my relationships with my children and the kids and Splurge.

I have a lot to be thankful for.

Splurge.

So Splurge is making a difference in your life too?

Definitely.

Especially the people that I've met in my life and the relationships.

And I think the biggest surprise to me is politicians, because growing up, my parents didn't have money to support politics and even nonprofits and to have met the different mayors and different politicians and senators.

And we are so far removed from that.

Growing up, that was not anything near and it's nothing that we would ever expect to have.

So I think it's interesting that I have met so many different politicians because I don't know very much about politics, I'll be honest.

So I don't like to talk too much because I don't want to look silly, but just the movers and shakers of Wichita.

So Splurge has provided me that opportunity.

Tell us about the biggest missed opportunities that you've had.

Biggest miss ever.

Okay, I mentioned that it took me nine years to get my RN.

And the reason is, is because I did the LPN program for a lot of people right out of high school, right into the program.

I didn't want to leave home.

I had a high school boyfriend and I just didn't want to leave home.

And I applied for Southern Illinois.

I got accepted into Carbondale for the university for the program nursing program.

And I didn't go I just stayed home, found the local program in Decatur.

And so my biggest opportunity and I didn't really realize this until my daughter Kelsey was a cheerleader at TCU.

I wanted to be a college cheerleader.

Oh, wow.

And I think by going back and trying gymnastics at 36 and breaking both legs was a failed attempt.

But I really think and then she was involved and she's a Theta and I didn't know anything about the Greek like Greek life in the universities.

And so I just thought, wow, there's a really important part of my life that I could have done differently had I have gone to college.

Not saying I would have made the team, but I certainly would have tried and college cheerleader in the story life I think are some missed opportunities and starting my children earlier because I kind of ran out of time I had last one when I was 42 and I sort of started earlier so I could have had more.

Oh, wow.

So you had a goal in life in children?

The number of kids?

My husband's one of nine and I'm one of six and no.

Yeah, I didn't have.

Just however many God provides for us.

What about a pet peeve?

What?

What is your pet peeve?

I have a few, some silly ones, but probably the biggest one.

Well, there's a couple, I really hope through this program that people see who I really am because I think I don't like to be misunderstood.

And I think because you see me at all these events and I'm trying to put my best foot forward and that's all people see of me.

They don't really realize.

Heading Splurge magazine.

Right?

They don't realize I'm just a person, just a mom and and I just have I feel like I am so compassionate and so sympathetic.

I really listen, I how many times I cried today.

So I'm just very sensitive.

But what I when I there's something I believe in, I'm very passionate about.

And so that is I think being misunderstood is I don't want to consider that pet peeve, but the other pet peeve is littering.

I don't understand why people litter.

That just drives me crazy.

And I think from, you know, traveling along as a younger child, there'd be signs along the highway, $5,000 fine for littering.

I'm like, why are people still doing this?

It's a it's against the law.

And so when I see people just throw things out the window, I just literally want to track them down.

And then the other thing I think that is really, really passionate about and I don't get this subject too often because people feel differently is spanking children.

I am so anti spanking children that I can't even begin to tell you.

I have approached families at Disney World and the parking lot in the mall.

I'm going to call the police if they don't stop.

That's not the way you raise children.

My kids just duck down in the seat when I get out the car at a parking lot one time.

Because this when you're yeah.

I just I'm very passionate about the way you raise children and hitting is not the answer.

So so when you approach people who who spank their kids or hit them, as you put it, what do they say to you?

Mind my own business, they get very angry at me.

They don't mind my own business.

And when specifically at Disney World, she kept slapping her little girl's legs because he kept trying to get out of the highchair.

And I saw that there's a buckle on your high chair.

If you just buckle it, she can't get out.

You know something, something.

And she just mind your own business.

So I never have gotten any thank you's at all, because I think when I catch them, they know they're wrong and they feel guilty.

And so their first reaction is to be defensive.

But yeah, that's something I'm yeah, there's a country and I was going to look it up a long time ago, that outlawed spanking children.

I think that should be a law, especially in schools.

I think that's wrong.

So.

So what are your guiding principles?

My guiding principles?

Prayer and the Bible, really, if you read the Bible and I have not read it, I'm trying to do the day at a time in a year.

I cannot commit myself to that.

Lifes instructions are in the Bible.

It tells you what to do, what not to do, when to do it, basically.

And it's this life is like, say, life doesn't come with instructions, but it really does if you read what's in the Bible and pay attention.

And I think something that I've learned and been very fortunate about is especially the last two years, I have been surrounded by so many godly women.

Even right before the show they prayed with me because they knew how nervous I was to do this.

And I think that learning that sets your goals, don't give up.

Listen to God what God's telling you.

And so, like I sort of say is the last couple of years, I had no idea God was telling me to do something.

And and I now just listen and surprise how many prayers get answered.

Well, and it's not always my answer that I want, but it's the one I live with.

So how do you know that God is speaking to you?

So because it's they're just not coincidences.

They're just will pray about something and and something will happen.

Then people say, you know, they'll say, those are God taps, those are God winks.

But you can just feel that that just could not have happened by itself.

That was a resolution of a situation that God had to have his hands in on.

And it's just it's interesting how you just feel like you're not alone anymore.

Right.

And there's always an answer.

That's the other thing I'm known for in my family is I have an answer for everything.

Everything.

I'll find an answer one thing and don't cry over spilled milk.

And there's a problem, a solution for everything.

So it's not worth getting upset about.

And my daughter, Kelsey will tell you exactly that I can solve just about any problem that comes in front of us.

So no wonder you've been successful with the magazine Splurge.

Yes.

So, Joe, Jody, my final question is, what are the the words that best describe you?

The words that best describe me?

Can I use the words my friends use?

Yeah.

Like I said, they don't understand how I can give so much to a child at this point my life.

So I they always say I'm the most generous kind of person that they know and giving and I think I'm pretty happy and I love to laugh.

I don't see scary movies.

I don't watch violent movies, my husband is so tired of love stories and comedies.

I mean, that's how I look at every movie.

Nope, we're not going to that.

We're not doing that one.

So I think just surrounding yourself with positive people helps with that too.

That answer your question.

On that note, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Jody Klein.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate that.

Thank you for your time.

Its been a pleasure.

Thank you.

And I thank you for watching this week's edition of One on One.

Our email address is oneonone@kpts.og.

That's if you have a question or comment.

Until next time.

I'm Victor Hogstrom.

Do take care.