Add Passion and Stir

How can we move poor communities from hopelessness to hopefulness? In this fascinating episode ofAdd Passion and Stir, Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International, and Matt Bell, chef andowner of South on Main restaurant in Little Rock, share insights about creating value in poor communitieswith hosts Debbie and Billy Shore. Ferrari speaks about the success Heifer International has had in pooragricultural communities throughout the world by driving social psychological change before anythingelse. “We work with communities that could almost be described as clinically depressed...the despair is sodeep…they feel condemned to this situation,” he says. Heifer uses value-based training to demonstrate topeople their own ability and capacity to make change. “Without that psychological shift, nothing we do, noanimal, no training will actually catch,” he notes. Bell has first-hand knowledge of the success of thismodel in Arkansas. He sources his chickens from Grassroots Farm Cooperative, a cooperative of 10formerly struggling small farms in Little Rock that was formed with the help of Heifer International to meetthe demand of the growing market. “My understanding of Heifer at the time was you buy a cow andsomeone somewhere gets a cow. I didn’t understand this small business component. I didn’t understandit could happen in Arkansas,” says Bell.Heifer International provides resources, capital, and knowledge to help enable small farmers to generatesustainable income, which gets cycled back into their communities creating opportunities for buildingschools, creating agricultural cooperatives, forming community savings and funding small businesses.Ferrari describes a program with female farmers in Nepal which is creating a goat meat value-chain byworking with banks to fund this system. There are now 150,000 women organized into small self-helpgroups, which organize into larger co-ops and then an even larger union. “They are now feeling thedignity of being economically self-reliant,” he concludes. Heifer International measures success by givingpeople a ‘living income,’ which is a carefully calculated value that is “very complicated…but basically letsfarmers live a life of dignity,” says Ferrari. Bell recalls his childhood when parents in his communitycreated an informal system to ensure one little boy growing up in poverty always had food. “A group ofmoms would take turns packing and extra lunch for Daniel, and they would say, ‘Make sure you give thisto Daniel before you get to class, so there’s no stigma,’” he remembers. Growing up on a cattle ranchalso gave him a unique perspective on the food chain. “An understanding of that gives us more empathyinto how we tackle hunger issues worldwide and locally.” Bell’s values led him to become a passionatesupporter of the No Kid Hungry campaign.Get inspired by this sincere discussion about ending hunger and poverty.

Do you think beyond the statistics to the individual lives affected by conflict, poverty, and hunger? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, two powerful and passionate advocates, Abby Maxman, President of Oxfam America, and Tatiana Rosana, executive chef at Outlook Kitchen & Bar at the Envoy Hotel in Boston, discuss national and international humanitarian problems through the lens of personal stories of suffering, courage, and hope. Both women rose to the top of male-dominated professions and believe their work ethic was in part a response to having to work harder than male counterparts to gain the respect they deserve. This fierce determination informs the work they do helping others. Maxman, who has spent her career doing international development and aid work, recounts meeting a woman named Faith in South Sudan who walked an entire month with her four children after being displaced by conflict, all the while making decisions like which child gets to eat today. “It fuels a sense of urgency, passion and inspiration to do the work,” she says. Rosana found that growing up in an immigrant family from impoverished Cuba made her acutely aware of the issues of poverty and hunger. Feeling fortunate and helping others was ingrained in her from very young age, and as a chef she became a long-time supporter of the No Kid Hungry campaign. “I’m doing what I can with what I have to help. It takes nothing more than your time to invest in these children,” she says.Host Billy Shore asks Maxman how Oxfam is able to tackle the overwhelming problems of conflict and poverty in areas where governments and the UN cannot. “We use our voice… we make sure that all of our polic[ies] and messages are grounded in the stories of Faith and many others,” she says. Staggering statistics alone — 65M refugees, 880M people going hungry every night – are not effective. “We’re talking about human beings,” she emphasizes. Clearly moved by the discussion, Rosana agrees “When we put names to the numbers, how can you not want to speak up, how can you not want to help? They’re not just numbers, they’re human beings that are going to bed hungry,” she pleads.Listen to these two dynamic women talk about why getting personal helps fuel their drive to help those in need.

Have you ever wondered how people who motivate others stay motivated themselves? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, two high-powered changemakers talk about what drives them as they inspire those around them. Dr. Clint Mitchell, Principal at Mount Vernon Woods Elementary School in Fairfax, VA works in a low-income community school. In a career that has unusually high turn-over (statistics say most teachers will quit after three to five years) Mitchell finds he has to hire teachers who are passionate about the work and willing to go the extra mile for underprivileged kids. “It’s my job to keep them positive,” he says. Relating it to passion in the cooks he hires, Zack Mills, chef at Wit & Wisdom in Baltimore, jokes, “It’s a slight craziness. You have to be slightly off to be that passionate.” Host Billy Shore asks his two guests how they themselves avoid burnout. Chef Mills considers himself lucky because he’s always had a passion for cooking and enjoys helping those who work for him achieve success. He uses the Japanese term Kaizen - trying to be better than the day before - to describe his philosophy for work and life. “We’re always learning. If we think we’re not learning anymore, then we’re in the wrong place,” he concludes. Dr. Mitchell echoes that sentiment. “I tell my teachers, ‘every single day we get a fresh start and the kids get a fresh start. So every single day, make that day the best day.’” Both Mitchell and Mills are long-time supporters of the No Kid Hungry campaign. Mitchell is on the frontlines of the battle against childhood hunger in our schools; 91% of the kids in his district receive free or reduced meals. “When kids are hungry, they shut down. It becomes a behavior issue…but the root cause is hunger,” he points out. Mills recently participated in a No Kid Hungry impact trip in Northern Virginia. He says there is nothing like bearing witness to the kids in need and the work that is being done to help them. “Everybody was so passionate about making sure the children were fed. I wanted to get even more involved after that,” he says. Get back to basics through this conversation about school hunger with two changemakers who not only share their own passion, but bring it out in others.

Have you ever wondered how helping another person can cause a ripple effect of positive impact? In this heartfelt episode of Add Passion and Stir, host Billy Shore and guests celebrity chef Curtis Stone and attorney and foster care advocate Miles Cooley discuss the far-reaching effects that occur when we act as an advocate for people in need. Cooley, who experienced profound neglect as a young child and lost his mother at age five, grew up in the foster care system in California. “The great part of my story, and why I think an advocate can make such a difference, is there was a school psychologist…who took an interest in me. Her name is Leslie Cooley and she is the woman I now call Mom.” Stone has seen an advocate make an impact in his own family. “It’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? … It’s just that one decision a person makes to say ‘I’ll give a damn about this person and I’ll actually go out on a bit of limb,’” he says. He recounts the story of his own mother-in-law, a Korean War orphan who lived on the streets of Korea for five or six years following the war and then was adopted by an American family. “If it wasn’t for that family deciding to adopt this little girl from Korea, my wife wouldn’t exist, I wouldn’t have met her and my kids wouldn’t exist,” ponders Stone.In addition to being a long-time Share Our Strength supporter, Stone - who owns two restaurants in Los Angeles (Maude and Gwen) - works with Chrysalis, an organization dedicated to creating a pathway to self-sufficiency for homeless and low-income individuals. For Stone, this provides an opportunity to impact individuals in need by mentoring. “We employed our first Chrysalis employee at the restaurant four years ago as a dishwasher. He’s now a supervisor, he looks after 15 employees,” says Stone. Recently, he shared the Chrysalis story with other leaders in the restaurant industry and says there are already six or seven who have begun working with them. For Cooley, paying it forward is part of his DNA. “Having come from a foster care experience…once I was in a position to think outside myself and had the wherewithal, it was a forgone conclusion that I was going to be invested and involved in trying to help kids who came up like I did,” he explains. He works with a number of organizations that advocate for foster kids including John Burton Advocates, Peace4Kids, and First Star.Listen to this authentic and powerful conversation that will make you consider the far-reaching effects of advocating for someone less fortunate.

How do we tackle the big social problems that government should be solving? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, Jamie Leeds, chef/owner of Hank’s Oyster Bars in Washington DC and long-time supporter of the No Kid Hungry campaign, and Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, an organization dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy and budget decisions, talk about the best ways to have an impact on the most important social problems. Leeds - who just completed the James Beard Foundation Chefs Bootcamp for Policy and Change - uses her platform to bring more attention to the issue of hunger and food waste in America. Lesley is focused on children’s healthcare issues. “When people think about the Medicaid program … they don’t realize that half of the enrollees in Medicaid are kids. That’s 37M across the country,” he points out. “The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)… serves another 8.9M kids.” However, a proposal in the Senate would have slashed Medicaid 31% for children and Congress allowed CHIP to expire on September 30th.  “How can this happen?,” asks host and Share Our Strength founder and CEO Billy Shore. “It seems like there’s this tension between things that you can do individually, but are small in impact, and wanting to do things at a bigger scale, which only government can do, but government seems to be so broken,” he observes. A veteran of Capitol Hill, Lesley saw first-hand the deepening acrimony in Congress, which led him to the conclusion he could have a bigger impact working on issues from outside government. Leeds developed a direct response to the Trump administration’s 90-day ban on immigration. Recently, her six restaurants began donating one percent of sales split among four organizations: Planned Parenthood, ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, and NAACP. “We needed to do something,” says Leeds. “I feel very fortunate in my profession, and feel very passionate about giving back and making sure people are taken of,” she explains. Lesley agrees with this approach. “Pick your issue or cause and really hook up with that non-profit… you feel like you’re giving to the community in some way, but it also gives you a sense of community,” he advises. Tune in to find out how these two changemakers are marshaling resources to take on some of our biggest social problems.

Jeff Bridges, the award-winning actor and national spokesperson for Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign has recorded a very special message for you.Jeff is helping us celebrate the anniversary of our new passion project, Add Passion and Stir, a weekly podcast I host with my sister Debbie about making a difference in the world through an examination of the central role food plays in all of the issues we care about. Every week, we talk with dedicated and compassionate culinary leaders and inspirational change-makers in a lively and thoughtful exchange unlike any other.

How can we focus our empathy for others to solve big social problems? The two guests on this week’s episode of Add Passion and Stir use their empathy to make the world a better place. AARP Foundation President Lisa Ryerson’s conscience led her to mission-driven work. Right now, that mission is hunger among America’s older population. “Ten million people who are 50 and older are hungry each and every day in this nation. And older adults who are hungry living in poverty don’t often ask for the help they need,” she says. Buttercream Bake Shop owner and long-time No Kid Hungry supporter Tiffany MacIsaac also carefully considers how she gives back. “It really is so hard because you… want to help everyone… but for us, food is such an important part of our life. We’ve invested most of our energy into helping with hunger,” she says. Both of these changemakers are focused on real impact. “Focus does matter when you’re trying to drive outcomes,” says Ryerson. “It’s way past time to solve for hunger in America,” she states. AARP Foundation is a founding member of the Root Cause Coalition – an Add Passion and Stir sponsor - which addresses the root causes of health disparities. Referencing recent headlines, host and Share Our Strength founder and CEO Billy Shore asks about sexual harassment in the work place - especially the traditionally male-dominated world of professional kitchens. “For women, these stories are not surprises,” says Ryerson. MacIsaac agrees. “That’s what’s unfortunate. I think everyone knows it, but nobody wants to talk about it. [We need to] force people to talk about it and force people to confront it,” she believes. She also emphasizes the need to speak out when injustice or harassment is happening to someone else. Whether talking about poverty, hunger or sexual harassment, Ryerson concludes, “We are all bound together. We need to take care of each other and not be blind to injustices.” Share in this multi-layered conversation about humanity and our sense of shared accountability.

Did you know that low-income kids get 80% of their calories from school meals? How can schools push the food system to provide better food? On this episode of Add Passion and Stir, hosts and Share Our Strength cofounders Billy and Debbie Shore chat with Washington, DC chef and restaurateur Mike Isabella and social impact innovator and strategist Josh Wachs about child hunger and improving school food programs. Both have seen how demand can drive food systems to be healthier and more sustainable. Wachs advises the Urban School Food Alliance, a coalition of 10 large urban school districts from around the country that serve about three million kids over three quarters of a billion meals each year. “They are a collection of districts that came together and said, ‘we can collectively through our joint purchasing power radically change the school food market,’” says Wachs. “Because more low-income kids are getting school breakfasts and lunches through programs like Share Our Strength, parents of low income kids are starting to increase pressure on districts over what’s in the food,” he notes. Chef Isabella sees a similar pattern at his twelve restaurants where customer knowledge and expectations are forcing chefs to become better. “Nowadays, everyone knows what they’re eating,” he says. “They read labels. Everyone thinks they’re a foodie, which is a good thing.” This dovetails with his work with school districts where he supports programs that teach kids about healthy food. Listen and learn how consumer education, demand and buying power can transform our food systems.