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Jail to College: Why Willpower Isn’t the Missing Piece · The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: 95 plus percent of the students they met in the jail have an undiagnosed learning difference.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: Someone just needed a pair of glasses, I swear to God, glasses.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_04: Someone needed a hearing aid.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um, they've got anxiety, they've got PTSD, I would say is universal, literally.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_04: You cannot live in a jail and not have PTSD, just the constant hypervigilance, the world they've been brought up in with just watching your back all the time.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_04: So we just thought this is what's blocking them.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Soul Not Skin Podcast, a virtual living room, a safe, welcoming place to land where you can pull up a chair and share stories straight from the heart.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jen Slumack, or as my students like to call me, Miss Jen.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about the real human experience, the hard stuff, the wonderful stuff, and the messy everyday growth that shapes who we become.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Real stories, real people, real insight, becoming who we are.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Settle in and let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, and welcome to another episode of the Soul Not Skin Podcast.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today I am joined by Denise Richardson and Mildred McKinney, the founders and leaders behind OpenGate Inc., an Oakland-based nonprofit helping people move from incarceration into education, employment, leadership, and a new sense of possibility.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Since 2014, OpenGate has helped create pathways from Santa Rita Jail, a local county jail here in California, to local colleges and universities.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Through its OG Mac Academy, the organization prepares returning community members for the realities of re-entry, including personal development, employment readiness, college enrollment, financial literacy, technology, mental health awareness, and self-advocacy.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, these two women do all of that.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wait till you need them.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Open Gates work is about more than getting someone registered for classes.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's built on a powerful belief that people should not be permanently defined by where they've been, what they've done, or the years that they may have lost.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because with the right support, education, and accountability, and community, returning citizens can become students, graduates, mentors, professionals, and leaders.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to talk about how OpenGate began, what Denise and Mildred have learned from more than a decade of walking alongside formerly incarcerated students, the barriers people face when they come home, and why a college campus can become such an important place to land.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We'll also see what this dynamic pair is up to today.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this is going to be a conversation about re-entry, dignity, education, transformation, and what becomes possible when we stop seeing only someone's record and start seeing their potential.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies, I am so excited to introduce you both.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, you're both close to my heart.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's hear about you a little bit, Denise.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you could tell us who you are and how you came to this work.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: What in your life brought you to this work?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm an immigrant to the US, obviously.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: I came to America when I was 38 years old for my husband's job, and we just decided to stay here.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_04: I came, I've been a teacher for a very long time.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_04: I've been teaching for over 40 years.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the reason I came into this work was because before I had a work visa, I was teaching adults to read at Oakland Public Library, California.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_04: That led to the Parole Center in Oakland offering, um asking me to come and run some literacy workshops, which I did really successfully.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: They were they were really fun and just getting people's feelings and thoughts down on paper and sharing that with their community.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: When I was doing these workshops, I met a young man called Michael, who was 18 years old.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: He was the exact same age as my son Robbie McClellan, who looks just like me and is also Scottish, obviously.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: And Michael and I were chatting, and he had he had had a baby on the way.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_04: He'd just done nine months in Santa Rita on a duck charge.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I said, Michael, you know what's going on?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: And he said he was selling wheat.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: This was before AB 109, before weed was um decriminalized somewhat in California.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: He was selling wheat from his car on International Drive in Oakland.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_04: He got caught and he got nine months in Santa Rita, which led to a criminal record, and also means that he would never be eligible ever for federal financial aid for any kind of college.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_04: So I had a chat with myself and I went home because my son Robbie, who was the exact same age, had just been caught in Walmart Creek, outside the high school, his high school, selling weed out of his car with his daft pals.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_04: They were hot boxing and had a little business going that I didn't know about.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: So I had a chat with myself and I thought, well, why does one 19-year-old get caught and he had to do 48 hours of community service?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: He had because I wouldn't pay a fine for him.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: He had to go to the food bank, Contra Costa Food Bank in Concord, and put tins of soup into boxes for eight Saturdays in a row, and that was the end of it.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_04: No criminal record, nothing, it's over.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: Michael, on the other hand, for the exact same crime, got a criminal record, a drug charge at 18 years old with a baby on the way.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_04: And the answer to why Michael got a charge and Robbie didn't was pretty obvious to me.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and so that really made me think about what's going on in America.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: I come from a country with a very, very similar criminal justice system, similar laws, similar education.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: But I thought there's something going on here that we all know what we're talking about.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: We're talking about race.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I just thought this is not okay.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_04: And is there something that I know women like me, a 38-year-old, 40-year-old Scottish immigrant can do about this?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: As it turned out, there was.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_04: Mildred and I met socially and we started to work in the parole centre.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_04: We did Mildred can tell you more about this because it was a raging success.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: When we were doing that, the library asked me to go to Santa Rita for an expo for inmates who were about to be released.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_04: I was representing Oakland Public Library.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_04: When I was there, the principal of education in Santa Rita, who did all the GED, all the classes, the wonderful, late, much, much missed Jen.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: You know who I'm talking about?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_04: Fred Brothledge.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, the legendary Fred asked us, he said, Do you want to come in here and teach in the jail?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_04: And we'd be like, Hell yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: So we did.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: We did.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: He got us in.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: We bypassed, we just passed all the it was amazing.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: And Mildred and I started college readiness classes in the jail.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_04: And they led to a pipeline to Chabot College, which initiated the RISE program, which we started 10 years ago.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_04: And it's now a roaring success and is seen as the model for pre-entry programs for colleges in California.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot more to say about RISE, but I'm going to pass you over to Mildred.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, Denise, first of all, thank you so much for that story.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that's exactly what I wanted to share with the audience is what it is that happened that brought you into this work.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, Fred is dearly missed.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mildred, tell us a little about you and how you got into this work and why.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I got into this work um because I was actually I was 20, about 22 to 24 years into corporate America in outdoor advertising.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I needed a change.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, corporate America was no longer for me, and I needed more to fulfill me.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so I just took this great leap of faith, and I ended up um meeting Denise during this whole journey.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: I've known Denise since our kids were in elementary school, and so uh we met and then we decided decided we had so much in common and stuff, and then after I decided to leave corporate America, we decided to do she decided to do some uh interviews, mock interviews for students down at the Day Reporting Center at the uh Center Point.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: And so at that point we did that and we were very successful.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: We had uh 15, 17 students, and all of them, everybody got twat two job interviews and two job offers, and it was so successful, and so we really knew that we were onto something, and then um we really assisted students just every day, just going there, volunteering, volunteering, and then we like, well, we need to do more with this.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's and then we came up with open gate and decided to start open gate, and we were just there every day helping, and then that is the one thing that filled me up, that made me have a purpose because the whole time I left corporate America, I'm trying to fill out what do I need to do, and I tried all these other avenues to volunteer.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: I went to volunteer at nursing homes, but you know, that didn't fill me up.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then Denise talked to me, talked me into doing the mark interviews, and that was she said, Oh, you're you're natural, you know, and you should be a part of this.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: You're natural.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh no, that's not what I want, that's not what I want to do.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Then we kept doing it and kept doing every day.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh, this is what it is, this is it, this is it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then we just started, and then then it just everything just fell in place for us once we got there because we knew it was a higher power that was leading this whole process for us, because nothing just gonna fall in place like that.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: You know, timing is everything for one thing, but that timing is your time, and so it was our time, and everything really fell in place for us so nicely for that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it was the beginning of the whole AB 109, everybody getting released from jail, from prison.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so it was the time and all these great programs, the funding for these programs, but the programs weren't there, and so we didn't we saw the need for the support for these all these students that we had met at these mock interviews and when Denise was there helping them with their GED studies, we saw the need for the support because so many of them wanted to go back to college, and there was no support on the college campuses, and so we didn't have any money, we didn't have anything, we just had our heart and our calling.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we went on and started to do the work, and then College of Alameda gave us$20,000 and no room, no anything.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: So we started our whole our whole classroom was at the picnic table underneath the tree by the burrito truck.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: Next to the burrito truck, because we had to feed them.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: And so, rain, shine, sleeve, and snow.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: We met underneath the tree on the picnic table, next to the burrito truck.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so, and from then it just went on and on, and then that's when like Denise was talking about Rise, and then after that, they uh contracted us to start the RISE program because they heard about our great work, and so you know, and that was so fulfilling, and that's what fills me up.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just the best thing to help these people because so many of them want to help, because that's why Denise said, you know, they're asking me, they're asking me, they want to go back to school, they want to go back to college, but there's no support.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: They've been already, and it's hard for them to get their financial aid.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard, this is everything is so hard.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so, what we end up doing, we started, we broke so many barriers for these formerly incarcerated individuals so they could get their financial aid, so they could get all these extra supports on campus and fundings on campus.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: And then these can tell you so much more.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna let her take over a little bit here so she can tell you more about the DSPS and this all the uh special services, uh, this on campuses, some of those that she wants to elaborate in once that's yes, when there's time for the okay.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So before we go forward, um you said so much.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to back up a little bit because part of the reason I want to have you on and other folks that I have interviews with is because the audience that is listening may not know this world or the jargon or anything about it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to just back up a little bit and give folks some context.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you said that you've begun teaching in the day center uh at center point.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: So in California, in our area, center point is what?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain the day center and center point?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's a it's a sorry, you go merchant.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, center point, it's a day reporting center for parolees only.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: So people who are out of prison.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, people who have been released from prison but still on parole, they can go there for all types of resources, jobs, uh uh resumes for school, whatever, any type of community resources that they need, they can get at least get the lead from there.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: They had that's the resource center for that.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: And also they provide meals for them during the day.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: Also, they have breakfast and lunch for them every day as well.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's where we started there.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_03: We started volunteering there.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: And Denise was going there when she was working with the Oakland Public Libraries.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so that's so important.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because people don't, I don't know how much people realize who aren't working with this population or don't have somebody immediately impacted by it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um when folks get out, they literally have to go back into the community.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very, very, very different world.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as you mentioned, uh, ladies, there's a tremendous amount of momentum against them, right?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: With their records and their uh time served and all these things.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Before we go further, um you mentioned AB 109, which I'm familiar with because that's about when I met you two uh when I was working in Santa Rita and Assembly Bill 109 was passed.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would you please share with the audience what that was, why it was, and how it impacted us?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because it afforded us the opportunity to create a lot of programs, right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So could you explain that, please?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, I'll go.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: So A B 109 was voted in by the California public, which was that people had been spending 20, 30, 40 years in prison.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um it was honestly the taxpayer's concern was money.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_04: It costs for a young man to go into center to or a young woman, it is mainly a man's deal with 95% of the students in there are men.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um it costs$100,000, it costs the California taxpayer$100,000 to keep and maintain in prison for one year the very, very minimal, totally minimal offender, which is selling weed, they're just annoying people, they're stealing cars, they're just making a nuisance of themselves, and it costs the public$100,000 in San Rita.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: That sum goes up exponentially for people who are moderate security, who are high security, who are protective custody.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_04: It goes up even more exponentially in the prison system.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um so the taxpayer just like this is not what's the money for?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: They're all we're just spending money and it's nothing, no results.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: So the money was transferred to local probation departments and local authority so that people could finish up their sentence in Santa Rita and then become eligible for services for people who were coming out of jail at that time.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of money put into it for work training, for colleges, for rehabilitation, and actually it has worked.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: It actually has worked.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: You can imagine, Miss Jen, well, you were there, all the stories of there's going to be rampages in the street, the Panthers are coming back, they're gonna be raiding banks, they're gonna be going up to Walmart Creek and kidnapping women.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: None of these things happened.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: None of these things happened.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's right.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: What did happen was there was a massive influx of men and women, but as I say, Stanjarita is mainly men into college, into GED programs, and into the colleges are now what we call CTEC career in technical education.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_04: We had guys flooding into auto maintenance and auto-tech and auto body.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_04: What we believe in is I know you could laugh, but transferable skills.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: I used to say to the guys, I've got a little mini in the parking lot outside the jail.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_04: If I lost my keys, who could get my mini started and get me home without damaging the car and smashing it up?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_04: Who can start my car?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Every hand went up.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_04: If you can do that, you can be a car mechanic and have a piece of paper that says, Here's this guy, you can now go and get 60 bucks an hour, you know, and they do.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: So transferable skills, if you can take four pounds of cocaine or whatever it is you're doing and chop it up into baggies and sell it for a quarter down.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_04: You know how to do maths and fractions, and you can run a business and you can have suppliers and clients and a supply chain.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_04: These guys know life.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: And what we did was, what do you want to do?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: What are you good at?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_04: Where do you feel?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um, what's your skills?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: What are you already what are you already doing?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: The big thing we noticed was that most of the guys that came to the classes were presenting on their written work and on their verbal work, they were presenting at very, very high level.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_04: However, their their performance in schools and any college debacles and failures they'd had, they presented extremely low but a very, very high fail rate.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_04: Ms.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_04: Jen, you're the teacher.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_04: You know that any teacher knows that when a student presents really, really high, but the performance is really, really low, what's going on?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: And what's usually going on is what we now call a learning difference.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_04: 95 plus percent of the students they met in the jail have an undiagnosed learning difference.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_04: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: Someone just needed a pair of glasses, I swear to God, glasses, someone needed a hearing aid.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um, they've got anxiety, they've got PTSD.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_04: I would say is universal, literally.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: You cannot live in a jail and not have PTSD, just the constant hypervigilance, the world they've been brought up in with just watching your back all the time.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: So we just thought this is what's blocking them.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: So we spoke to another superstar called Miss Debbie Green, who we still work with.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_04: She is a specialist in providing accommodations and diagnosing students who do have a learning difference, and then getting accommodations in the GED class in college.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_04: These accommodations can be as simple as reading a book that actually you can hear it on your headphones or talking book.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_04: It can be so it can be actually just having if the exam's an hour, you can take three hours of your exam.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have to sit your exam in the classroom.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_04: You can sit by yourself in a quiet room with earphones on and just take your sweet, you can sit for the first hour and do nothing.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_04: You can leave and have a cigarette.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_04: So some of their accommodations are very, very simple.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: Just extra time, extra support.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: Sometimes when our students are sitting exams, they know it, they can say it, but getting that onto paper is just too much.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: So they can have a scribe.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_04: They can say to the scribe, write this, and the scribe writes it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so using DSPS, which disables students' programmes and services, has been the key.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: The other key has been we work with guys, we call them our OG Max, which kind of speaks for itself, OpenGate.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: OG Max.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_04: OG Max.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we all know what an OG is.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_04: Original gangster, old guy is a respectful term for an old black man who ha who's done life, who knows about life, and who's now very, very respected and wise.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um so what we did was we saw the power, we actually saw the absolute power of these guys who'd done, as I say, 20, 30, 40 years in Thalsome and St.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: Quentin.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_04: We thought the power these guys have with these young men is immense.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: Let's give it a name and harness it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_04: We're not the first to do it, we're the first to do it on campuses.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: And so we assembled.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: A group of very, very obvious, very, very clear leaders, alpha males.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_04: Um 3% of the population of the world of males are alpha males.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_04: These men are concentrated in the military.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_04: They're concentrated in law enforcement and then also in a prison system.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's where you find it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's the percentage of alpha males?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_04: 3% of the world.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: So we can't mention it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: You can't do a blood test, but that's what we we believe that 3% of men in the world are natural leaders.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_04: Donald Trump is not an alpha male.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_04: Alpha males are quietly powerful.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_04: They don't talk much.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_04: They're the guys who, in an actual life that in an emergency, will stand up and say, follow me.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: I'll get you out of here.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_04: They're the guys that will tackle the dangerous person just quietly.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: There's no bluster to them, there's no ego to them.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's just, I'm the guy in an earthquake, follow me.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: In a fire, follow me.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: So we harnessed this, we harnessed this power and we gave them a name, Open Gate.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: Murdered and I also call each other Open Gale, Open Gate, Open Gale, OG.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: This is we believe that the OG Max have truly, along with the learning disability barrier removal, have been the key because they're just there quietly, powerfully there.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: Hey, you went to class, hey, you're smelling a meeting.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_04: What's going on?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_04: You get your girl pregnant, was it your baby?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_04: What's going on?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um also the young students just sometimes just someone checking in on them.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: No one's ever cared if they show up or not before.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: And they're just saying, hey, what's going on?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_04: They'll phone them, they'll go to their houses.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um it's a really powerful tool.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: And Mildred, you'll absolutely, absolutely agree with that.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_03: 100%, 1000%.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And these OGs also hold positions as TAs, teachers' assistants on college campuses.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we had one situation where one of the teachers was nervous about having the students in her classroom.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so Denise said, okay, we're gonna give you somebody.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: We you hired this person as your TA, your teacher's assistant, and he will be there to help control the classroom because the class was just too routed.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: She couldn't control it properly.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was her first time, but she really wanted to be a part of it and help the students.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so once we put Rodney Scott in that position, he was able to like just, you know, just give that look or whatever, like, look, man, we're not doing that today.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: We're here to learn, whatever.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: You know, either you get with it or get out of here, you know?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's right, that kind of thing.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so, and then he would walk her to her car, uh, also, you know, and just make uh just a sense of ease for her.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: And even late at night, you know, leaving the campus at eight, nine o'clock at night for a lady.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so, you know, and so they hold so many roles, you know.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: They place, they they play the main position right on the chess table.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: They're the main, yeah.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_03: They lead, they honestly lead everything.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: We're just here in the background, Denise and I.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: We build everything up, we build everything, make sure everything is in place, and then they run it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is why this is why you two are so important, and this is why these men that you're describing are so important.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are because you had the opportunity to get something like this started from the outside.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You both have executive histories, you both understand these things and how to meander and navigate the systems.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the two of you together being able to put this together, that needed to happen.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody can walk into the jails and teach in the jails, not everybody's gonna mentor an inmate, right?
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: But people can invest their energy, their time, their know-how to support organizations like this.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: To, you know, write a check.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Live your life, don't worry about this, but write a check to an organization like this, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because the work that we're doing is unbelievable.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And these folks that we're working with on the inside or formerly incarcerated are remarkable people who rarely had the support that they needed to grow up with some sense of themselves.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're talking about, Mildred, these folks need purpose in their lives.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: They need purpose.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of what got them into trouble in the first place, is because the purposes they were able to find in their particular communities, these folks were seeking purpose and they got themselves tangled up.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can give them purpose on the inside, I used to tell um the the uh sergeant at Santa Rita that I wanted to bring in, even if it was just virtually, some of the guys who had either been released from prison to talk to my guys, or uh who were still in prison to talk to my guys.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, they're scared about well, they have to have this amount of time since they did that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, all about that story.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like, you know, you just might make a difference if you take the risk.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and see, and that's what we did when we first started there.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: We started relationships inside.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, and which when we started that, we that just was just the avenue that the higher power just took us on.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because, and then after we got our OG Max, and they were like, you know what?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: What you guys do, you guys are doing time with them inside.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: That means so much to them.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: And they said the connection you guys have with them, that's why you have that connection, because you do time with them.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: We would go every Wednesday, faithfully every Wednesday from 11 to 2 o'clock at that jail, seeing students.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes we would see 120 students a day have classes.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_03: Our classes were so good and so big, the jail got shut down twice because some of the inmates wanted to go, but there was not enough room in the classroom.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: So they said, we can't go, ain't nobody going.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_03: So they shut it down twice for that reason.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: Our classes were so popular.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: And so, yeah, so we start those relationships inside and we build their trust and stuff, and then we tell them about their purpose.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: We let them see, we treat them just like they one of us, you know, which they are.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_03: You're one of us, you know.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: Until you prove me you ain't shit, I'm gonna treat you like you somebody.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we do.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you start acting up, we're done.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: But when you if you want to come back and you're gonna act right, you're welcome to come back and act right.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: Our doors are always open.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: You know what we found was if there was any hint of something gonna rise, every classroom does, I mean, it didn't really happen with us, it absolutely did not.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: But the OGs of the class are like, hey, we're done here.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: And that's done.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_04: Because we we really feel that it was about what Mildred says, it's about dignity.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um we believe that, I mean, uh this is obviously quite controversial, but there's a lot of people who believe this that during the 80s, the war on drugs, Nancy Reagan just say no.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: Um there were hundreds of alpha males who were 17, 18, 19, 20 years old were removed from Oakland.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_04: They were removed from the street, removed from their families, removed from their communities, and they were locked up for 20, 30, 40 years.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_04: So if you remove the alpha males from any group of animals, humans, wolves, chickens, seriously, if you remove the alpha, the tribe will collapse.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_04: And the people who take over the alpha roles are not alphas.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_04: The women are trying as hard as they can, they're running as fast as they can, and the people who take over those roles are people who the alphas are not there to keep in order.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_04: So the community falls apart without other alphas, the families fall apart without the dads, without the sons, the uncles, the stepdads.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: We've seen it.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly what is happening now in our communities.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's why all this breakdown, that's why all these kids don't have parents.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's why all these kids are not in school, that's why all these kids are committing these small crimes, just to have a roof over their head and have food on their table, because their dad is not home to help them, to help their home to survive and do what it's supposed to do.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: And they don't have that guidance from that man uh that they need either.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: You need that.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: We all know that it's very much needed, even if it's not your father, just some male figure, but all they're all locked up somewhere.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing I want to be devil's advocate for a minute, okay?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say to you guys some of the things that folks have asked us, or some of the things that people would talk to us about when we say this, right?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: When we know the communities are fatherless and brotherless and uncless, right?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe one of the guys in my class might have come in there for, you know, dealing drugs or whatever, he might have been responsible for caring for his mom, his sisters, his cousins, his nephews and nieces, his siblings, because he was the only male who was around still.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so he put it on his shoulders because he had to.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then he found himself inside, and now he feels bad because he's left his family and everybody with nobody.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing as devil's advocate, you just said, I don't remember how many you said, Denise, uh, folks, we're removed from Oakland, then we're removed from Oakland and incarcerated in that time period.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: But this is what has devastated the families.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hear people who don't know this community saying, Well, if you don't want to go to prison, if you don't want to break down your family, like get a job, do something else.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you guys say to that?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give us some realistic uh some just because these people are sincere when they say it?
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let's give them some good information.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'm gonna start this, Gail, and I'm gonna let you take over.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_03: The main reason is what we found out main reason for what over our time is the reason these people do not have a job.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: I know they can just go down to McDonald's and get a job, they're paying money.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, they're paying$20 an hour here in California or whatever at McDonald's, but the main reason is because these kids, these young men, cannot read or write.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_03: They can only recognize street signs and bus signs on front of the bus telling them where they're going.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Majority of them never leave their community, their area, their block.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: So, or their little neighborhood.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: For safety reasons?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: For safety reasons, and because they yes, but the main reason is because they cannot read or write.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: And why is that?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: Now we've discovered that.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Denise, would you like to take over from that?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_04: Most of the guys, they could write a letter, they could answer an email, but they're not going to be able to fill out a form.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_04: Well, they can do it, but that this learning, this learning difference is there's there's just an absolute failure.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_04: School has been an absolute failure for them.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_04: If you have ADD or depression, anxiety, PTSD, someone in your street got shot last night, you saw the body being removed by the corners, then you're not really caring about the capital of Greece or the Roman Empire or Pythagoras.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_04: You don't really care about that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_04: You're hungry.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so our guys have a very, very high fail rate with education, very, very high.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: The schools pause there.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want, I want to just don't forget where you were, but I just want to have the audience sit with that for a minute.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: If somebody was shot in your neighborhood last night, and you saw the coroner take them away, and you show up to school anyway, but you're hungry, and you don't really care about the Pythagorean theorem.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not relevant in your life.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want you to sit with that for a moment.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just give a moment of silence for like 10 seconds.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Can anybody in this audience imagine having somebody shot in your neighborhood and you witness the body being taken away, and then you can perform at work the next day?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And these guys are seeing this multiple times a week, and their families are being shot.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we can get to the bottom of because I'll hear, oh well, you know, then they shouldn't be shooting each other and all that kind of stuff.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could have a whole show on that.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I wanted to just really have people sit with that for a minute because the expectation of people who are not getting an education, there's no understanding of what they're carrying when they show up to school.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, go ahead.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: And so if this student already is five years old, six years old, seven years old, and they are they have ADHD, they have anxiety, they have PTSD because their dad's in San Quentin.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: Oscar Grant's father was in San Quentin and was not released for Oscar Grant's funeral.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_04: Um Uncle Cyprus brought him up.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_04: We all know this guy.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_04: The dads aren't there, the mums are a lot of the mums are on crack.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_04: There are many theories about that, about the crack epidemic in Oakland in the 80s.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_04: There are many, many theories, which I won't, this is not the time or the place.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_04: And this would be a question for honestly a Black Panther or someone who was there, I wasn't, I was in Scotland.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um but the students turn up for school and they're absolutely failing, they're tired, they're hungry, their home's disruptive.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: There's some some nights there's uh food in the fridge, some nights there's nothing, and they're stealing a banana on their way to school.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: Or um, and if the teacher confronts the child and says, You know, well, you weren't listening, what did I just say?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_04: That five-year-old boy is gonna throw his pencil and he's gonna pretend to fall off his chair.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: He's gonna make a big farting noise to get everyone to laugh because he doesn't want the attention on him as a fool, as a failure, as someone who's thick, who's daft, who doesn't know any better.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's the we've all seen it.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_04: Every teacher's seen it, and it's usually young men, young boys.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_04: That boy probably has another two or three years in the education system.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_04: When it gets to middle school, they just stop showing up.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_04: When it gets to high school, they're long gone to the streets.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_04: And we have had many of our OGs have told us the same story.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_04: Their mum and dad were not present, even if they were present, they weren't capable of bringing up a child, nurturing a child for their own demons and their own criminal justice impact.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_04: We've heard so many times of an older man, our age, will say, You know, I was 14, hanging about the park, nobody cared, 10 o'clock at night.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: This guy said to me, You know what?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I'll give you a bicycle.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_04: Here's a bicycle.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks very much.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_04: This is fantastic.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_04: Next three weeks, see this little parcel.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: Can you go and take this parcel to that place, this guy?
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: And then it's for 20 bucks.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_04: And the boy goes home and he gives his mum 20 bucks.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: And then the next night, 40 bucks.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_04: Can you take this up to this guy up there?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_04: And he'll be waiting around the back of this and that.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_04: 40 bucks.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: Home chase mom.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: There's no child.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't have said no to that.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_04: I would have done that for money, absolutely.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: And then they're in the gang.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: And here, and and here, so so you so you're you're I hate to say grooming because that's just gotta be.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's all survival, and then you and then you come up that way.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, go ahead.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: What were you gonna say, Mildred?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um just I was just I'm I was so deep into thought with this conversation here because it's been a while since Denise and I have really had a conversation like this, you know.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: And and just to hear it and just to know how much we have made a difference in people like.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you have.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, ma'am.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: And also just the absolute, and I know I keep going back to this to the point of um it's quite controversial.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_04: We believe, not as just us, many, many people, including law enforcement, believe that if these alphas that we are now who are now running programs, they're running college programs, they're running community programs, they're working with OPD, having barbershops, they're doing violence prevention, they're doing gang prevention, they are doing a phenomenal reparation work in the communities.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_04: We believe if those guys had been there for the start, there wouldn't be as many men hanging about parks giving away boys 20 bucks for taking for Kentus somedrun on the back of McDonald's because there would have been oversight.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: And like, like now, one of our alpha males, our OG Mac, Rodney Scott, he likes to go down to the lake and take his chessboard.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_03: And he pulls his chessboard out, and he sees some little wandering youngster or whoever, hey, come over here.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: And next thing you know, he's teaching him how to play chess or whatever.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: And he is doing the this is the kind of people that they are when they come out, they want to give back to the community.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, every single one of Open Gate's uh employees has been formally incarcerated individual.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: Denise and I are the only two individuals who work for Open Gate who is not formally incarcerated.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: We're the only two.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_03: But they're all I'm I'm telling they do so much good.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um and Rodney, he has a test program that he does, and he goes out to the libraries and and give free tests for the young kids.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing, is we're talking about purpose again.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about providing purpose for people and we're talking about hope for tomorrow.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have those two th hope, you know, and if you don't have those two things as a human being, if you don't see any way to get uh through a situation, what what's the motivation?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you continue to see uh people not make it, I mean, how does it feel to be a 16-year-old and have four of your friends shot and killed by the time they're 15?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's the purpose for getting up to like it's gonna be me next.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm walking around like that.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_04: We have so it go ahead.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_04: In our time with Open Gate since 2013, we have had, I think it's seven young men, beautiful, like under the age of 23 young men, they came to campus, they enrolled, they got into class, they didn't show up, they just never came, or one of them came once then, and we have seven um young men dead to the street.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_04: Seven, we know, we know if they had shown up for class and graduated, they'd be mechanics, they'd be paid tax, they would not be dead.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_04: We know that there needs to be another way for putting value back onto the lives of these young young men who who just see oh, having two pals and your brother killed in the street, that's just what happens.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_04: Let's get the bottle of toquila.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's absolutely horrendous.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_04: Mildred and I know that we're professional women, we know our backgrounds, I know what I look like, which is why the power of asking the students what they want and then letting them, we're the sort of workabies under the surface.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_04: We actually uh we had to be the ones to keep the doors down, but now that the doors are somewhat down, we just believe it's time for it.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Always has been time for us just to pass the reins over to people who actually know what they're talking about, who have lived the life, and that's what we've done from day one with the OGs and student peer mentoring, all the things we do to get the students running their own people.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you, ladies, a question, and I'm gonna also ask um answer this if you know these things, if we can actually look this up and and verify this.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you've done some some studying or something, I don't know.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if you were to give a just a simple one oh One explanation as to the gun violence in these communities?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Would you have something to say to that to give just sort of some context?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can't speak on that, honestly.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like I have enough.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have enough knowledge on that because we don't really focus on the gun violence.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_03: We focus on making sure they don't do something.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: If it's gun violence, then make sure they don't do it again.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: We just work on helping them stay above all that, the gun violence part.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't feel like that we're in a position just to speak on the gun violence itself.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_04: The whole world knows it's an American issue.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_04: I'm an immigrant.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_04: I'm very happy to be here.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_04: I fought really hard to get my US citizenship and I got it, and I'm very, very proud, very patriotic.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_04: But it is an American problem.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_04: We do not have people getting shot in the street in great numbers in Australia.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, we had Bondi Beach, that was horrific.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_04: But we don't have Bondi Beach, the anti-Semitic attack last year in Australia in Sydney.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: When there's something like that happens in Europe, it's shocking.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_04: People fight in Scotland.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_04: We love to fight.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_04: The Celts, the Irish, we a fight's just how you finish off a night if you're a young man.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_04: But you're fighting with your fists and your boots and maybe a glass and a knife.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_04: You cannot go around and stab people.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you have to be right up close and see them to stab someone.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_04: It's just the distance that a gun, I mean, it's a whole story.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: We can't answer this question, but this is a bigger issue that governments have been fighting over for years, all the thoughts and prayers nonsense.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's a huge issue.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's huge.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_04: And as Murray said, we only we can only work one-on-one with our young, foolhardy young men.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and here's the thing: I think if we do more of the focusing on the individual and pouring into the individual, then the other things will die of neglect.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other problems will, you know, find their way gone.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we aren't focusing on pouring into people, we're focusing on punishing people.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um and it's terribly tragic.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I remember uh I was trained to do a uh restorative justice healing circle and went into San Quentin.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the gentlemen who was in there, he's out now, his name is Troy, and he uh started a media company while he was in there, and now he's out and he's creating videos.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one is Troy was our first student.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was our first student.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_04: Troy Williams?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_03: Troy came to Opin Gate, he walked to San Quentin and he walked over to out of Santa Rita.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean out of San Quentin.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: Five days out of San Quentin.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, Switchy.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: See?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I love I love him.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I interviewed him uh once before.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: He he was training some of us when he had already been released, and we were out uh getting trained to do the victim offender education groups, okay, or the insight prison project.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember which of this, but he was leading the training because he had done the work inside, which is very reflective, taking accountability, understanding and articulating what happened to me and why I made the choices that I made.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then they have this opportunity to take accountability, which if you want to empower somebody, give them the information that they need to see themselves accurately, and then give them the opportunity to take accountability and shift the direction, because then these men are going into the community and being peacemakers.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: So here he is training this like group of people uh in restorative justice, and part of the program is sitting in the center and telling your story.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that he shared that I'll never forget, he said, even when I was in the height of my gang activity, I was doing it to uh protect my community.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and what has changed today for me is that my community has grown.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that because it grew and he's able to welcome more people, many of whom haven't lived the life that he's lived or look the way that he looks, and he welcomes everybody into the community because he was poured into because he was brilliant on his own, but he was poured into and that's what I would do in my classroom.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would Miss Jen, I don't know what you're doing.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: The deputies would say, I don't know what you're doing in your classroom, but these guys are the whole dorm has changed.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: The whole housing has shifted.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: These guys are like welcoming in the new guy, and they got showing them to their bunk and they're introducing them to everybody and telling them how things work, and they're doing Bible study and book study.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you're doing.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I was pouring into them.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_04: You really were.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_04: You're still a legend there.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_04: You're still a legend there.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_04: Still, you're still Miss Jen, the absolute rock star or something.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_04: So you know that.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_04: Well, your legacy is massive.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: You leave your mark everywhere, ladies.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_03: Everywhere everywhere.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's amazing.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have to tell you that that tickles me to death.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could yeah.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for saying that.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: That means a lot.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so what are you ladies working on now?
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing today?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know you have a different contract.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing today?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_04: We completed last year an Alameda County probation, Alameda Probation Department um for education contract.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_04: We got 350 students referred to us actually, it's more than 400.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_04: Just the two of us.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: We've got them into job training, fortlifting, college, GED.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_04: We did not choose to renew the contract.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_04: It was it was too big for us.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_04: However, we're both now working in supporting um the students that are in the AB Bond 09 program.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, new contract now.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_03: Tri Valley.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_03: But OpenGate is now a subcontractor under the in the new contract, uh Alameda County Probation Education and CTE contract.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: And the carrier is uh Tri Valley uh Career Center.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, so we're still in the game.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_04: However, Miss Jen, I have to check our dream for the past since we had a cup of tea in my garden in 2012.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we want to establish OG Malik Academy so that men like Troy and men like Rodney and men like CTR can teach.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_04: We've written the curriculum.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_04: We start in Ben and Nick's pub in Rockbridge position chips with the OGs, and we wrote it on a napkin.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_04: We've thrown the napkin, we've got the curriculum, the jail approved the curriculum, then COVID hit.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_03: Then COVID happened.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_03: They had approved the program and then COVID happened, yes.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_03: And so we would love to have um Medic College would host it.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_04: We would love to get the funding to start OGMAC Academy.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_04: We also want to tell you that we just finished working with a group of consultants at York University in Toronto, Canada.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's a very highly um esteemed business academy.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_04: They do MBAs and they we worked with them for a year on they've got all of our data.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_04: They did a massive big consulting project for us, which was overseen by one of the biggest accounting companies in the world, KPMG, one of the biggest multi-billion companies in the world.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_04: That is um ready to get published, and that's our findings about what we need, what we think needs to be done, and what we think needs to be done is that the GED needs to be removed as a barrier to union jobs, to work in a target, to getting financial aid.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: We think it needs to be that's a big, big, big, big story.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_04: However, the immediate story is we want to start OGMAC Academy, probably at Merritt College in Auckland.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, we would love to start get the funding to hire our guys to go through the curriculum with guys who are just have just been released.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I know we're talking a lot of guys here.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_04: That is our that's our area of expertise, is working with med, that's what we're good at.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're amazing.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: You two are amazing.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love, I love you so much from the second I met you two.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you what, you're you're legends in my life.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: I swear to God.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: I started two coming through.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, look at these women showing up, look at these two, they are hustlers, you two.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart, oh your hearts.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do this stuff because you gotta fight for every penny to make it happen.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so one of my dreams as I I resigned from my corporate, not it actually it was nonprofit, but it felt very corporate.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was on the executive team of an addiction treatment organization, and I started as a trainer at that company, and I ended up as a marketing person, and I didn't want to do that.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And um, my mom passed away in February, and I had a real wake-up call, and I said, you know where my heart is, is in this work, right?
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: My heart is in doing uh the work of helping people see each other more realistically, right?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this population in particular has been a passion of mine.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that I had had a gentleman, I'm sure you guys know him, I'm not gonna name him, but a gentleman in one of my classes, and he was in my class 60 days, did the course, did the Friday night talking circles that I did with the men, and was doing really good and was just feeling like a student, feeling like a dude, right?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: He would come in with a smile and he would, you know, help the other guys and hey man, you guys, Miss Jen's talking and stuff like that, right?
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I always told my guys, if you get out and God forbid something happens and you're back, you come and see me.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: No shame.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so this guy did.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: He came back to my class about five months after he'd been released.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he just came in class, didn't say nothing to me.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just resumed class, I didn't point him out.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: He came up to me afterwards and he said, Miss Jen, I'm so sorry, I didn't want to disappoint you.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: I said, You didn't disappoint me, what happened?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, the short version is this there ain't no place like your class out there.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I came in here and I started to get better, and I went home and there is no room for anybody but the dude who left.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so my dream right now is to do this podcast sharing stories for people who will never meet the people that I've met, and hopefully humanizing things.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can start to have people have a different compassion for each other, whether they ever encounter each other or not.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: It can impact where we put our money, it can impact how we vote about certain things.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go into the communities like Oakland, like Pittsburgh and Antioch around here, and I want to teach families about adverse childhood experiences.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to teach them about post-traumatic growth.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to teach them about some of the things to give them the language that I used to give my guys.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to teach the class I taught at jail in the community for family so that there is a place like this outside of Santa Rita.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe we can talk about something like that too.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like the same thing to me.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do it together.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have one story about somebody who may have really everybody thought it was pretty hopeless.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: Humble.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Humble.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Should I bleep out their name?
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_04: No, that's not his name.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's not his name.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: I can't uh okay.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_04: I know his name.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_04: I know his name.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_04: He is an older white dude, an older white dude who had spent his he was from Livermore, um, he was from every birth station, every bush, every behind the tree, every under bridges and tunnels for all his life, really, since he was 15, now he was 16.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because we have the form sign.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think he'll not, because he's doing well now.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, we can tell you.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_04: However, he um oh my goodness, that he was he kind of lived in Santa Rita and he looked at the set again.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_04: Like he was not had had did not have long for this earth.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_04: That real hardcore addict, look, he was purple and sunken and just his eyes were dead.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_04: And he we said, Look, why don't you come onto the campus for one day?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_04: That guy showed up at Shipboard College, even when he didn't have class, he sat around chat and he befriended everyone in the school.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_04: He, when COVID hit, he'd never had a phone, a smartphone, he didn't know how to work in ATM.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_04: That guy worked out how to do online class and he transferred to Humboldt State University.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_04: He um Poly, he transferred there.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_04: The guards thought we had AI'd the image we sent him, his graduation photo.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_04: The guards were like, that that's we're like, no, we can't believe it either.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_03: And during the time that he was at Chabot College, he would show up every day, whether he was under the influence, because he has showed up many times healthy under the influence, which we were always prepared for because we had an on-campus uh drug counselor who was a former incarcerated individual, Rodney Scott, certified uh drug counselor, and he was on campus all the time.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so we had an area where we could take them to let them sleep it off.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so we would take them there and get them all situated, let them sleep it off.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then later on in the evening, when someone would take him home to make sure he was safely at home or wherever he was going that night.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so we was always taking care of him, and he would always just come back and come back, and then all of a sudden he just stopped.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_03: He just stopped using, and he was just there every day.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_03: And then, like Denise said, he graduated and he his his dream ever since he was young was to go to Humboldt State.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: And he sent us pictures of his dorm out of his room with all these beautiful trees.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: It was gorgeous, and he was so excited, and he still checks in with us from time to time to let us know that he's doing fine.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and always calling to say thank you.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_03: So those are the kind of students that we support with him.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what we do.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's non-judgment.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I hear people listening to this saying, what he showed up under the influence, like wasted, and you still took him.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's unacceptable.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: You should have sent him home, all this stuff.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: But people are self-medicating, and if they show up, that is the win.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that's and you care for them and you help them see that there's a different way to live than what they have developed for themselves.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: And our motto is to just show up.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care what condition you're in, just show up.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_03: We will help you through whatever your situation is.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: We even tell if you got a hangnail, show up.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: We teach you how to take care of that hangnail.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's not that bad.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: Come on.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_03: Just she's got no shoes on.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: Show up.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_03: We got a pair for you.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_03: Show up, or we're gonna buy you a pair.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's so many barriers that could step in, and many of them have to do with pride.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've got this, you've got this man that you've had to be, and but I tell you what, I'm so so grateful.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would love if we could also connect in.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to get some of these men on my show and let them tell their stories themselves.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I would love if you've got folks, please send them my way because I want them to tell their stories.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to tell their stories for them.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want the world to meet these men because they're phenomenal.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not to say that some people don't need to be incarcerated, and this is not to say, Oh, hell yeah.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're not like you know, saying we need to go into the prisons and empty them out.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, okay, put everybody in school.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're saying.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're saying there are gazillions of men who, if given the opportunity, could add value to their communities and add value to their families in the systems that their families are in and change everything.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_00: In for certain areas, for certain families, for certain young men coming up so that the cycle doesn't have to continue.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_04: And we're not we're not abolitionists, we honestly believe that some of the guys in jail, that's where they need to live the life.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's where they need definitely need.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_04: Go out and box, out the back door in the box in 20 years.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_04: We absolutely are not saying this is not for everyone, it's absolutely not for everyone.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_04: We do believe that sometimes we can easily judge someone by the worst thing they ever did in their life.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes that thing was so bad and has destroyed families forever.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the grief that the family has to carry ruins their lives.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_04: We we we we do know that we're absolutely aware of the impact that our guys have had on destruction and violence and grief and bereavement and just absolute heartbreak and trauma and horror.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_04: We we know this.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_04: We're not like Polly Anna singing around the fields, but we do we do actually see with our own eyes that some of the guys who who have actually taken accountability, and I think that's the key, that's the key to being released.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_04: The parole board, that's what they're looking for.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_04: If you're taking accountability, think okay, I did that, that was 40 years ago, I wish I hadn't, I deeply regret it.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_04: Now I'm going to go back and see what I can do to fix the community I helped to destroy.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_04: So, Jen, let's talk.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_04: Let's talk off camera because we can do a lot of work together on this podcast.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Would love that.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you two would like to leave the audience with?
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yes, I would like to say if you know anyone in your community or in within your family, within your friends, family, or anybody that you see that's having a rough time, that might be doing just having a rough time, going to jail or whatever.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_03: If you feel it in your heart, reach out to them in any way and see if you can be just a support system, sometimes just to listen.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I talk with just listening.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_03: Just be there for somebody, just to support them, because we did once did a survey inside the inside of Santa Rita, and the biggest thing was that they was missing that they wanted to be able to succeed in life with support.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_03: Just support an individual.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_03: Support doesn't mean uh giving them money, doing all this.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes, like I say, support is just to listen.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes support might need to be a ride.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_03: Do you need a ride today to go fill out an application?
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you need help filling out an application?
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_03: I know times have changed so much.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're not technically with the technology.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_03: I can help you with those things.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_03: That kind of stuff.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_03: Be supportive in any way that you see you can.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_03: Are you hungry to anything to support?
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say thank you for that, Mildred.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: So important.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes it can't be the family who's doing the support.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, sometimes the the family needs to create a strong boundary so that they can be okay.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because they are very sad and sometimes very angry and having a hard time um with the individual's absence and maybe not understanding what's happening either.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's embarrassment, there's there's a lot of things going on uh that it might not be the families who can offer the support.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, all the more reason what Mildred, what you just said, look for organizations in your community that are serving folks who are re-entering society.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: Put your money towards even just a little bit, these organizations and allow the folks who are able to do the work to do the work because the work needs to it it changes things.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: What what about you, Denise?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: You got anything to leave us with?
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_04: Just exactly what we've all been seeing, just the fact that that our people are going to listen to this with the Scottish granny in the Mississippi executive and Miss Jen from the jail.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_04: The fact that people are listening, thank you for showing up.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for listening.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_04: And the fact that you're listening means that there's some part of you does feel something.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you're raging about crime, maybe you're concerned about it.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_04: Whatever that is in your heart, thank you just for showing up and come back and listen to Miss Jen because we need your help.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_04: This is not a three-man job, a three-lady job.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_04: This is this is we all need to get on board here.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_04: So we support any, any support, any just just for showing up.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_04: And come back.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you both so much for being here.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're two of my favorite ladies, and you do some of the most courageous work.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to tell you that when I was at Santa Rita and I was teaching the men, uh having you there mattered to me too.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it gave me some sort of folks to walk alongside.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's right, and loved you just as much.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_00: We love you, Miss Jan.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys too.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation sparked something for you, or if you want to dive deeper, head over to soulnotskin.com and take a look around.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_00: Grab a copy of the book, Soul Knot Skin, free resources, or get on the wait list for our next workshop.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll pull up a chair next time to hang out with us again.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're figuring out this world and ourselves at the same exact time, growing as we listen to the stories of others.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep getting to know each other.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: After all, we are in this together.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_00: See you next time.