- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "Transforming Lives One Step at a Time".

We'll learn more about an organization changing the lives of people with disabilities and other barriers to employment through the power of work, education, and empowerment.

A nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the potential in every child, and the latest advancements in diabetes management from an organization helping to transform the lives of those living with this condition.

We'll also share a special moment from our SPARK Awards 2022.

- From our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance has been built on the values of customer se rvice, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance is honored to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

- (male announcer) Additional funding for The SPARK is provided by United Way of the Mid-South, EcOp, the Memphis Zoo, My Town Movers, My Town Roofing, and by Meritan.

- Have you ever been excited by a new idea, inspired by watching someone lead by example?

When we talk about creating change, we start by sharing the stories of everyday heroes who are making a difference in their own way so we can learn and do the same.

I'm Jeremy Park and this is The SPARK.

They're an organization changing the lives of those with disabilities and other barriers to employment through the power of work, education, and empowerment.

We're here with Samantha Dowdy, Director of Career and Workforce Development at the Excel Center with Memphis Goodwill, which are celebrating 100 years.

So, give us some background on Memphis Goodwill and this 100th anniversary.

- Sure, thanks, Jeremy, for having me.

And yes, we are celebrating 100 years.

And guys, we are super jazzed about that.

Goodwill was founded here in Memphis in 1923 by a Reverend Edgar J. Helms and Mr. Helms' mission was to provide supportive services, guidance, and employment opportunities for those individuals facing barriers to employment, education, cultural challenges, you name it.

And it is through Mr. Helms' mission that we were fortunate enough to continue that here in Memphis today.

So, yes, 100 years at Goodwill Memphis.

- When you think about Memphis Goodwill, you think about the donation centers, those play a vital role in your efforts.

Talk about that in support of the mission.

- Absolutely, it is through our donated goods services that we are actually able to take what's donated and give it back to those communities, but while also doing that, Jeremy, we're creating jobs for individuals.

We're creating a safe haven for those who are experiencing barriers or obstacles where they can go and receive services.

So, we're taking that and paying it forward and continuing to support that mission through jobs, through training and development, through educational resources, and other philanthropy acts here in the city of Memphis.

- Carry that into the Excel Center.

- Indeed, and the Excel Center is so near and dear to me.

We have transitioned Mr. Helms' mission from employment into education.

There is an absolute need across the United States and actually, here in Memphis.

Every year we're seeing thousands and thousands of individuals drop out of high sc hool for whatever reason, and we're here.

So, in 2015, the Excel Center was born.

We actually, have 30 across the country.

But here in Memphis in 2015, we knew there was a need, and we are bringing for the free high school diploma to individuals who were seeking to return to school.

But outside of that, free certification programs, childcare services, transportation services, and those life coaching and supportive services here as well.

So, we are really broadening the gap on education, but also, making sure we're continuing that mission.

- Dive in deeper, because you are meeting students where they are.

And I think you mentioned the childcare, transportation, there is a lot of wraparound support with what you do that creates the success.

So, dive in a little deeper.

- Absolutely, and that is our motto.

We are meeting the students where they are, but we are actually leveling that up.

We're elevating and expanding on that.

So, through our supportive services and life coaches, our students are able to come in with flexible scheduling, with childcare and transportation assistance, with guided steps to change some of those barriers they may have experienced in the traditional path.

So you're coming in, we're working with your schedules, we're removing all those barriers that may have caused you to drop out or be deferred the traditional way.

It is through my department, Workforce Development, we're giving you those upskilling skills you need, those life skills you need, soft skills you need, and also, getting you in front of those employers to land that career, not a job, an absolute career.

And again, we're all doing that free of charge at no cost to the students and we're absolutely taking that and transforming our communities and the workforce here in Memphis.

- Touch on some of the different certifications.

- Absolutely, so here at the Excel Center, we offer 18 industry-recognized credentials to our current students and graduate students.

Some of our most popular are gonna be your certified nursing assistant, commercial driver's license, CDL program, pharmacy technician, and ServSafe, for our future restauranteurs.

- Give us some statistics or success metrics that put a smile on your face.

- Oh my god, this past June graduation was one of our largest graduations.

And of the 118 students that graduated, more than 80% of those students walked away, Jeremy, with a high school diploma, okay?

They walked away with certifications, job offers, making more than minimum wage, and they're also walked away with post-secondary admission opportunities.

They are completely transforming their lives.

This is the real mission.

And the transformation we're doing here at the Excel Center, they're going out there breaking generational curses, they're changing the barriers for their household, and they're changing the workforce here in Memphis.

So, what we're doing here is building our city and that's ultimately what we wanna do at the Excel Center.

- So, how can the community help and support your efforts?

- Come out, we love tours, we love giving tours, we love visitors.

We have an amazing marketing department.

We have a great community engagement department.

So, come here to the Excel Center.

You can actually go out there online at the excelcentermemphis.org to get more information about our organization and also, when the terms are starting.

So, we welcome partners, we welcome employers who are looking for that pipeline of students that are actually ready for the workforce.

You can get that here through the Excel Center.

- Talk about website, phone number, how else do we connect in and start taking those next steps?

- Absolutely.

So, if you are a student out there or you are an individual who wants to partner with us, please go out there to our website at the excelcentermemphis.org.

There's an application portal, there's a donation portal.

And for those students who are interested in getting ready to transforming their lives, we have our first term starting again on December the fourth.

- Well, congratulations to Memphis Goodwill 100 years in terms of the legacy of making a difference of powering the good in the Mid-South.

So, Samantha, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- And thank you for having me, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - They're a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing the potential in every child.

We're here with Rachel Lauletta, the Executive Director with Harwood Center.

And let's start, give us a little bit of history for Harwood Center.

- Yeah, definitely.

So, we were founded in 1957.

There was a group of men that got together.

They had a daughter with cerebral palsy.

And back then a lot of those kids were put in institutions and they said no.

So, they founded Harwood Center to offer a new hope and a new path for these kids.

So, ever since that founding, Harwood's changed multiple times.

We now offer intensive early intervention therapy, but that hope is still there.

So, that is our guiding force and our mission that we continue to this day.

- Go ahead and dive into the ages, a typical day, go ahead and dive in.

- So, a lot of the kids we have, have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.

Our kids are around two to six years old.

So, it's right before they go into kindergarten, first grade.

All of it's one-on-one early intervention therapy.

So, it's all evidence-based practice and we build on the kids' strengths.

So, a child the other day here who wasn't playing with peers just went home and played card games with his dad.

So, we really work on what really impacts the family and the child to help them have the best life that they can.

- Talk about playing to the strengths, I think that's an important piece of this.

And every child's strength is a little different.

So, talk about how that works.

- Yeah, so when they come in, we do assessments and we individually look at all of the great things that these kids have to offer.

And build on, well, this child isn't talking, but they can wave, and they can interact, and they can play with other peers.

All right, well, let's use that motivation to play with peers to talk.

So, we have one kid recently that just started talking.

So much so that the parents are like, "I know I asked you to get him talking, but can you get 'em to talk less?"

And that's our goal.

So, we really meet with the parents.

We really try to say, "What would help you the most?"

And then assess the kid and be like, "What would help the kid the most?"

Work together as a team, we are a team with the family, with the goal of really operating that hope and that future for them as they go through this process.

- You yourself are an example when you talk about the specialization, the expertise, the backgrounds, but talk about what it means for your team in terms of expertise.

- Yeah, so I'm a board-certified behavior analyst.

So, that means I have a master's degree, I'm licensed, I'm certified.

I got all the letters that all the parents see and it makes 'em go cross-eyed.

So, the staff that work with our kids also have all those letters.

And then we also have a speech language pathologist who has his own alphabet soup after his name.

And then we also at our charter wh ere we have a classroom, we have a licensed SPED teacher who also has a bunch of letters.

So, all of them have master's degrees, they're certified, they have experience, they've been trained, so that we know exactly how to help these kids and help their families in their future.

- What is it like to be able to see not only the special moments with the children, just like you're talking about where they start speaking for the first time, but to see the impact on the parents, who in many cases might feel lost or helpless and all of a sudden they feel hopeful and they get to see this transformation, this beautiful blossoming take place right there in front of their own eyes.

What is it like for you to experience that through the lens of the child, but really through the lens of the parent as well?

- I want to help these families see that a diagnosis it's not an end, it's just a different path.

And every employee I have here feels that way.

And so when we teach, we taught a little kid to say I love you, and we didn't tell the mother.

And she came to pick him up and I was like, "Go say I love you."

And that was the first time she's ever heard it.

And it sounds small, but like that's life changing for these families.

So, that is what we do.

We focus on each kid, each family.

What is life changing?

What will help you have a better future?

And that's what we do.

And we do it every single day and we try to extend our reach to as many families as we can.

And that's what my staff are doing in the other room right now.

- That's amazing, and that leads me to how can the community help?

How can we help you expand your efforts and your impact?

- Yeah, so we are a nonprofit, so we rely on donations a lot.

We just launched, it's actually a brand new T-shirt.

So, it says we support all kids, because we do.

And so, if you do a reoccurring donation, we send you a T-shirt so you can really support us.

We have a 5K nonprofit race series in the spring, so keep an eye out for that.

So, following us on Facebook, signing up for our newsletters, our website, any donations, anything helps.

It really just, it helps empower us to teach that kid to play UNO for the first time, or say I love you, or go knock on my door and say, "Look, I drew something.

", when he didn't care about me at all a month ago.

That's what that support is doing for us.

- Mention the website, where do we go to take those next steps?

- So, it's harwoodcenter.org is our website.

Our Facebook page is Harwood Center Inc. We also have an Instagram account, which is also Harwood Center.

And just if you can go onto our website, subscribe, and follow us, and you'll get all the updates on everything we have going on.

- Well, Rachel, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you.

[upbeat music] - The Spark Awards annually recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the community.

The 2022 Nonprofit with a Budget Under $1 million was awarded to Healing Hearts Child Advocacy Center.

[gentle music] - At Healing Hearts Child Advocacy Center, We serve both DeSoto and Tate County, Mississippi as well as some surrounding counties.

Our mission is to respond to child abuse with a supportive team approach that reduces trauma through advocacy, treatment, prevention, and education.

We've been doing that since 2013.

Before child advocacy centers were around, you may have had other entities around that are there to protect children.

They may have done their own investigation without collaborating with each other.

And it's very important to lo ok at a child advocacy center with our multidisciplinary team model that we use where we bring all the in vestigating agencies together so that we can share things that maybe one entity found out that the other didn't.

So that we can collaborate and make sure that we are keeping that child and family at the center of investigation to make sure that that child's past trauma does not become their future.

We want to make sure that they're finding healing, justice, and just hope, so mewhere to find hope.

Last year in 2021 alone, over 900 children and families were served.

then we trained over 2,000 individuals in our community regarding signs and symptoms of child abuse and how to recognize that and then how to report it.

Because so many in our community are unaware of what that may look like or what they should do, even if they do see it.

And awareness is key to preventing child abuse and neglect in our communities.

Just recently, we had a young nine-year-old come in and see us, and he was vibrant and smiling and laughed and hugged us on his way in the door.

But as he started telling his story and started opening up to us, Jordan began to shed some tears and cry to us a little bit.

And this is a nine-year-old child who lived in a neighborhood even down the road from us.

A neighborhood that we pass every day.

And since Jordan told us his story, Jordan has received the help that he needed from Child Protection Services, making sure that he is in a safe home.

And then Jordan has also gone on and he's in mental health therapy right now, which is so important.

So many people don't understand that you need mental health therapy to get over traumatic events and we wanna make sure that we're providing them the best possible services that they need.

And one very important thing that we do is each child that comes in gets to stop in our button room on their way out.

And our button room is where each child that comes in can pick a button that represents them and they get to put it in what we call our button machine and make a wish.

And what's really impressive about this is when they get to see it go through the maze, they see it fall to the bottom with lots of other buttons in there and they know that all those buttons represent children that have been right where they have, and they know that they're not alone at that point.

They're not the only ones that have gone through something like this.

They know that it's not their fault.

They know there's lots of other children who have come in just like them and have received these services and this help that they need.

And you know, just going in that room makes me know this is why I'm here, this is why I do this.

Because you see the numerous amount of buttons from the years from children that have come in and you go, this is it.

This is these, every one of these children have come through here and they've left just a little bit better after they've come in and seen us.

[gentle music] - They're an organization helping to transform the lives of those with diabetes.

We're honored to be with Dr. Kent Stoneking.

He is the Director of Diabetes Education and Self-Management Services with AM Diabetes Centers of America.

And let's start out, how do you define diabetes?

- Wow, Jeremy, diabetes is such a big area that we deal with here in the Memphis Mid-South demographic.

Diabetes in its most simple definition really is an error in metabolism of primarily glucose, but also fat.

And those two interplay to provide the body's energy needs.

And so we, really need to effectively metabolize both to stay on balance.

And diabetes, whether it's type one or type two, introduces an imbalance in that regard.

- When you look at pre-diabetes, how does that play into the equation?

- Great question, a lot of people have pre-diabetes and don't even know it.

In fact, for every person with diabetes out there right now, there are three with pre-diabetes approaching 100 million Americans.

And so, pre-diabetes is a, we really look at what's happening in the cells that take up glucose and utilize glucose for energy.

The air in those cells is they quit responding to insulin.

That's the first step.

We call that insulin resistance.

And as insulin resistance mounts, insulin production does its best to keep pace.

But as insulin production ramps up, resistance also ramps up.

And so, it becomes a vicious cycle until eventually the cells in our body, the beta cells in our pancreas that make insulin, can't keep pace with mounting resistance and eventually they wear out and they die out, rendering a person fully into type 2 diabetes at that point.

- So, let's go ahead and talk about what you do, because you help on a lot of sides, education, support services, and more.

So, give us some background on all you do.

- Certainly.

So, I'm the Director of Diabetes Education and Self-Management Services.

Diabetes education is something that only maybe 1 out of every 20 people with diabetes ever have in their lifetime with diabetes, and that's tragic.

So, we're really trying to change that paradigm, create a whole conversation around the need for diabetes education with our primary care providers and our other endocrinologists in the area who know that it's important.

They just don't have the resources in their own offices.

And so we say, you know, send 'em to us just for education.

We're not gonna steal your patient, but we wanna make sure your patient understands all the nuances of diabetes care.

And what we found in our own practice, Jeremy, is that when people better understand diabetes, they're better able to take on the responsibilities of caring for their diabetes, because they know the meaning and they know the impact in terms of both their short-term and their long-term health.

- Dive in deeper on that education side, because when I think education, you think nutrition, fitness, all of that plays an important role understanding where you are.

Talk about what education means in your world though.

- Absolutely, and I'll just to kinda lay your groundwork.

There are really five things that people need to do in order to well manage diabetes.

Others might argue there are more.

I've rule 'em down a very simple list of five.

Number one, is good nutrition, and that's an important component of our educational service.

We also have licensed dieticians who are diabetes educators here on staff at AM Diabetes.

So, we're able to introduce that in our classes with the groups, but then we follow up very quickly with a one-on-one session with our dieticians, carbohydrate counting, meal planning, that kind of thing.

So, that's number one.

Number two, is physical activity.

We have a fitness center, full-scale fitness center here as part of the diabetes center.

And our approach is that you need to be staying physically active to best utilize glucose, to best manage body weight, and all those important things that help move metabolism in the right direction.

for a non-diabetic person, but certainly people with diabetes need to be physically fit.

So, we have that base covered and we introduce that in the education session.

The third thing for almost every patient with diabetes is gonna be medications.

That's kind of my favorite area as a pharmacist.

We'll talk about medications and the combinations of medications that really help people address their glucose metabolism needs.

Pre-meal, post-meal, and overnight, everywhere in between.

So, medications are important part of that.

Number four, is blood glucose monitoring.

And we're all familiar with the finger stick machines they've been on for decades.

Nowadays, the standard of care really is the glucose sensor that someone wears on their body and tracks literally every five minutes we're getting a glucose reading that goes to an electronic da tabase, an app on their phone.

They can track it very quickly and easily and make sure that they're staying on track.

We can track that data as well and help them really dial in and do the fine tuning on great glucose control 24/7.

And it makes sense, if you're gonna eat right, you're going to bother to exercise and you're gonna take your medications like you should, you wanna know if that's doing the job or not.

So, that's where monitoring comes in.

And if on the glucose data we see that things aren't working, then we go back to nutrition, exercise, and meds, and we make the necessary adjustments to get people back on track.

So, those are the kind of the top four things.

The number five is education, which undergirds all of it, but really to help people use the diet, the exercise, the meds, the monitoring to understand how all those interplay and to create a system where those work best for each individual, 'cause no two people are alike, including people with diabetes.

So, we'll bring 'em in for a group session and really introduce things at a high level, but then work with them on an ongoing basis and drill down one-on-one and help them create a diabetes management plan that is gonna work well for them and for their lifestyle.

- So, where do we go to carry these conversations forward and include an upcoming event that's an annual series?

- Absolutely.

So, Jeremy, people can find us on the web at www.amdiabetescoa.com.

They can email us directly with their information.

We can enroll 'em in classes at education@amdiabetescoa.com.

We're all over Instagram and Facebook, but the special event coming up will be November the 18th.

Saturday morning is the annual Sugar Run 5K that we sponsor.

People can enroll and find out more on Instagram @TeamSugarRun5K, Facebook at Sugar Run 5K or on the web at Sugarrun5kclassic.com.

And if they miss us this year, we do this every year.

It's a 5K, it benefits the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, so we're helping kids with diabetes through the funds that we raise.

- Well, Dr. Kent Stoneking, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you, Jeremy, it's a pleasure.

[upbeat music] - In this episode, we're reminded that transformation and empowerment can take many forms and it takes persistence to create success, whether it's through career development, early childhood intervention, or managing chronic health conditions, each of our guests demonstrated that change is possible and achievable.

As Memphis Goodwill celebrates its 100th anniversary, they've created a legacy of changing the lives of people with disabilities and other barriers to employment through the power of work, education, and empowerment.

The Excel Center is serving as a beacon of hope for individuals seeking to further their education and earning potential as they meet students where they are and help them achieve their dreams.

Harwood Center is nurturing the potential in every child and their early childhood intervention services for children with developmental challenges and their families is transforming lives.

And AM Diabetes Centers of America is empowering individuals living with diabetes to take control of their health and wellbeing and helping them transform their lives through education and support services.

We hope these stories motivate you to be part of the change in our community, to empower those around you, and to transform lives one step at a time.

Every small step we take can spark positive change in our communities.

To learn more about each of the guests, to watch past episodes, and to share your stories of others leading by example, visit wkno.org and click on the link for The SPARK.

We look forward to seeing you next month and we hope you'll continue joining with us to create a spark for the Mid-South.

- From our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Lipscomb & Pitts Insurance is honored to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]