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She Built A Foundation From A Hospital Bed with Gladys Ijelu · find your cause

• Joseph Smalzer: And so I think that too is what makes us a little unique is we don't require IDs, we don't require your social security, we don't require specific documentation. And that's what makes it inclusive. That's what allows the celebrations to welcome all, no matter your socioeconomic status, right? No matter your race, no matter if you're working or not working. This space is for everyone. and we do our best to provide support to as much of the community as we can. Alrighty, so thanks everyone for tuning into this episode. These are special ones because Gladys and I, before we hit record, haven't spoken in a bit. And we did an interview, I feel like years ago now. We have the opportunity to do a, what we call community check-in. So without further ado, Gladys Igello, who's the founder of the Gladys Giving Foundation. Gladys, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much, for having me. It's great to be able to catch up and kind of share some of things that we've been up to since the last podcast. Yes, and I'm excited and we have a lot of new listeners now for the new listeners. We'll give a good background to about Gladys Giving Foundation and talk a little bit more. that said, what is the mission of Gladys Giving Foundation? So the mission of the Gladys Giving Foundation is to advance equity and compassion during the holiday season by delivering resources, acts of kindness and community support to marginalized populations. We work to foster the unity, spread the peace. and create inclusive celebrations that uplift individuals and families who need it the most. All right. Now we're going to get into the details of that in practice. But before we do, why you? Why is this something that you have such a passion for and are dedicating a large portion of your awake time to? Yes, as we've been able to talk about it in the last podcast, this mission was derived at the age of 15. I was diagnosed with a life threatening condition called lupus. And during my diagnosis, it was like a rough start. I spent about five months in the hospital in total. And during that time, while it was rough and challenging, but the rewarding part about it was just the love that was spread amongst me while I was there during that time, from the doctors to the nurses to the volunteers, to my family, to my friends. Since people going above and beyond to spread that love, to ensure that even during a tough time that I was still comforted. And so I always told myself that as soon as I got better, I would want to give that same love to people, especially during the holidays. So you can imagine sometimes people can be going through a variety of things during the holidays. It's not always a good time for everybody, whether it's like. grief, mourning the loss of someone, whether it's maybe someone is in the hospital or not feeling so well. So, you know, for me, it was just something great that I wanted to be able to do is just share that same love that was poured into me to others during times during the year to help them cheer them up. And so I've worked in nonprofit for over 15 years. I've always had a passion of working in community. working with families, working with youth, and just being that leader to try to help a better society as a whole. Being able to start my own organization is just something that has always been a goal and a dream of mine. Yeah. Wow. When you initially founded the organization, what were these, like, was there a specific activity or holiday or like, event or program that you started with. I'd love to hear the evolution of it from starting to what you're at now. Yeah, absolutely. So we founded, which is formally known as the Gladys Giving Project in December of 2020. As we know it, that was during the pandemic time. Again, another layer of wear, just wanting to spread love during a really tough time going on in our world. And during Christmas and kind of that winter season, it really started with me just creating baskets. Literally hard, sweat, tears on my own, creating baskets and just having a variety of things in those baskets based off of like the theme of the holiday. So for Christmas, we put gifts in there, we put toys, we put goody bags, just a variety of things. And during that time, there were a lot of like essential items that were needed, masks and hand sanitizers, things like that. So we will put that. in the baskets and I started off delivering them to hospitals and churches and schools and partnering with other local organizations and just literally letting them know, hey, my name is Gladys. I'm making these baskets to give back to the community, to spread love, joy and hope during the holiday season. And then from there, so many people were like this. a great thing. Have you ever thought about creating an event out of it?" And I was like, that would be fun. And so from there, I started creating a holiday celebrations. And so we would have the baskets to give out to families at the holiday celebrations. And then as more and more people found out about what I was doing, I started partnering with other organizations and businesses and they'd say, hey Gladys, I have bikes. I want to give the bikes out at your celebration or I have essential items, I'll have a table at your celebration and give them out. I have baby items. So we started to get a database of families and what their needs were. And from there, it turned into holiday celebrations with the baskets, but added on resources that our families could benefit from. Wow. That sounds amazing. The experiences and what you're providing. This is more of a philosophical question. like why you shared the instance that kind of the point in your life where you wanted to start giving back like the experience you went through in the hospital. But like, why does this matter? Why is it important? Why care? It's a little bit more philosophical. Yeah, no, definitely. I know. I don't say this. to be cliche or anything. I do know that part of my purpose in life is to help others. And while I've been doing that in my career for so many years, but I wanted to take it a step further and do it in a way that I could creatively provide that to people. And this has always been like a dream, a goal of mine to be able to leave on some type of legacy in my name. of really helping others and spreading that love and that joy. To be honest, Joseph, there is this like emotional feeling that I receive every time I host an event or I come together and do something with another organization under our foundation to support the community. It's hard to describe, but there's just this fulfillment and reward that I don't think I could. feel in any other capacity, I've been able to find that through giving back through our organization. I think there are a lot of people in the world that have a hole or a gap or just like a weird feeling in their spirit, for lack of a better example, and want to have that fulfillment and want to feel like they have more purpose. What would you advise them or say to them as they're on their journey of figuring out what areas in their life or what they could do to start having maybe more curiosity or start trying things out so they could work towards maybe finding what that purpose is. And maybe you use references from your experience and give some advice to folks that are going through that right now. Yeah, first and foremost, I think being able to pinpoint what motivates you to get up every day, right? And live life to the best of your ability. And for me, that was making others happy. That was serving people, that was being able to creatively be of good service to other people. And so that was definitely where this all originated. And then I think the second layer of it for me, once I kind of knew that, shifting into something full time that was going to be my own versus doing this in a career. I think for me, just having that flexibility, right? To do what I love and to freely do that without having to clock in or clock out. know what I'm saying? So it's just for me knowing what is motivating you every day to get up and to continue to live your best life. And for me is being able to help other people, get receiving that fulfillment. being able to freely help other people and to do it in a way that I feel I most can be of service to other people. So really find a point saying what is it that you truly enjoy doing and how can you freely do that within your own reach and within your own capacity? And then I think the last layer to that is being able to take those risks. I, as I mentioned, I worked in nonprofit for 15 years. Definitely a moneymaker for me. It stabilized me. It provided me a lot of support. I have two masters in the field of where I worked in, but it was time for something new. It was a time for a change. And I'm grateful for my experiences, right, that I had working in that field. But again, that fulfillment that I receive now and what I'm doing with my foundation, I was not able to receive. was just on my day-to-day job. This is how I knew that this was the time to shift. And you had 15 years in nonprofit. it sounds like you had a lot of good experiences of knowing, thinking of trial and error. Absolutely. So you know what you like, you know what you don't like. You hone in on a skill or an expertise, and then maybe you get to a point where you've You tried a lot of things and figured out what gets you excited and what doesn't get you excited. then in your case, you kind of doubled down and made a commitment to build your own thing. Yeah, it sounds like that was the experience you had. So maybe to summarize for people that are listening as well, maybe a lot of people listening probably don't have that 15 years of nonprofit experience, but like getting out there and trying different things and not feeling like volunteering for an organization or donating or participating in some volunteer event or giving event. Like you don't have to make a full commitment for 15 years. It's try a lot of things, see what resonates with you. And another thing, like reflecting on your life and understanding if there are kind of traumatic experiences that you had and thinking about what got you through those traumatic experiences and then seeing if there's organizations that are providing that for people to also get through certain traumatic experiences. And then that's like a good starting point for. Absolutely. Yeah. In your example, connecting it to something that you experienced in the past really connects you to what you're providing for other people. I think that's also important. So I'm thinking like tactically for people that are listening and want to figure out how to reach the fulfillment that you feel in your day to day. That's maybe a good starting point. Yeah. Yeah. And the reason why I think all of that is so great. And thank you so much for kind of adding context. to that is because as I'm sure you know through speaking with so many other organizations, there's this term called labor of love that you experience in nonprofit. And essentially what that means is that it gets hard sometimes, but what keeps you going, especially when you're like in this grassroots, newer kind of phase of nonprofit, but what keeps you going is. your love for it, your passion, what is keeping you getting up every day to fulfill your purpose. And so I think that piece is really important too, to someone who may be newer and thinking about going into this route and figuring out what their fulfillment is. that knowing that whatever this is going to be, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much labor you have to put in, right? Is that you're always going to focus on. that love for it and what originated you to go into this path from the beginning. Yeah, this is exciting. This is great. So transition to Gladys Giving Foundation. currently today and moving forward, what are programming that you want to continue to replicate or continually have and why and why are those the ones that you want to focus on? Yeah, so we definitely are going to continue on having those inclusive holiday celebrations. That is what got us started. That is the heartbeat of our mission and our organization. So that will continue on, bringing families together during the holidays to have fun celebrations, right? To spread love, joy and peace. But in addition to that, we definitely want to scale things up a little bit now that we are a ⁓ 501c3. And this summer we're actually piloting a summer youth workshop. We're going to be allowing middle school and elementary age girls to be a part of this workshop. And it's a once a month on a Saturday from May to August. And so we're having youth girls come together and have different topics about how to better themselves as an individual. And so the workshop program is called Glow Up Collective. The goal is that the youth would glow up in every area of their life, but we definitely have like specific areas that we want that glow up to happen and where we're gonna focus on. And so that's glow up in confidence, glow up in creativity, glow up in health and glow up in community. so. We, gratefully, have been able to partner with some amazing organizations to help us in all of those topics, to be able to better support the youth. And then we have some great speakers as well coming to facilitate some workshops as well. And this is a free opportunity for two hours for each workshop. And the youth will be able to learn some lasting skills and have some great impact and we really want to create this like safe space and community because as my experience of working with kids during that elementary to middle school age, there's so much peer pressure, right? There's so many things going on where they may feel pressured to be something that maybe they don't want to be or pressure in school with their academics, pressure in relationships. pressure and friendships. And so we really just want to bring this space together to allow them to learn different skills and tools on how to manage all of those things and build their confidence. So I'm really excited about this. It is a pilot program and we're hoping for the future in terms of our vision is to be able to do this a little bit more often. So quarterly, so maybe like in the spring and the fall and the winter as well. Wow, that sounds exciting. I to glowed up. Yes. Yeah. Wow. With the mission of spreading love, joy and peace. And now that you're a foundation, I want to one of the follow up questions I have and it's probably what grants that you feature want to have or donations that you're looking to get in the future is being able to convert that mission into something that's measurable. So how are you thinking about when you say you want to kind of teach these lasting skills and have positive impact and have a safe space. Are you think, have you thought yet about what, like how to measure that because, then translate that into the impact you've had since 2020 or moving forward? Absolutely. Yeah. One of the things that is really great about what we've been able to cultivate over the years is a lot of our families have been with us since 2020. And so we have had so many testimonies and different stories from our families of being able to talk about the impact that we have had on them, whether it be their child, being more active in school or being more present in general, because we've been able to support the whole family structure of coming out to our events and doing activities together as a family. And I think also just some of our families too. having really experienced some really tough challenges. We know there's no secret. A lot of funding cuts have happened in our world today from 2020 when the pandemic hit to even now with some of the more recent funding changes and being able to have the statistics, families being able to share how the impact of the resources we have provided to them. from 2020 to now, or even just a family who's attended one event, right? How it's been able to support them with food, when we have food distributions or clothing, when we have our clothing distributions, them being able to have access to those things, even just gifts for the holidays that they may not financially be able to provide for their families and being able to come to our. celebrations and have those things. I definitely think measuring for sure the consistency of our families continuing from 2020 to now to attend our events, just the impact on their most emotional mental health as well, knowing how drastic and how challenging it can be when funding cuts are hitting maybe their SNAP benefits or hitting their health benefits, their housing benefits. And so being able to receive these resources to help them. There's been so many times where families have reached out to us and said, hey, Ms. Gladys, I'm losing my housing or to be a little personal, I'm going to be evicted. Do you have resources to support us? I don't have food for this week for my children. Do you have resources? Just things like that or even. We have some families who have children with disabilities and like myself when I was 15, who may have had hospitals to stay or who have life threatening conditions. so even just being able to connect with them on that level to give them hope through my story that things will get better for their child who may be experiencing a tough time in their health. So definitely that, and then we also want to measure the impact of the specific communities that we're serving. We have had a high rate of Black and Brown communities that we have served, as well as communities of low income and communities that benefit from those SNAP benefits, those subsidized housing benefits. So being able to measure that impact, really shows where the need is currently. And the more we continue to have that consistency of those families coming out, we're always surveying them and just getting more feedback on what it is that they need or how the event has impacted their life. So those are just great ways that we're currently measuring everything. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. In since 2020. What would you say have been some of the unexpected challenges in connecting with youth or having programming connect with youth or get like people to attend certain events that maybe you didn't think of previously and then how you overcame that or changed it up a bit? Yeah, I'm gonna be honest. We have been extremely fortunate in the demand. from the beginning. It's like an unfortunate thing and an unfortunate thing at the same time. I don't know if that's just because I've been in community for so many years prior to me starting my foundation. I've had, I've built a lot of relationships with the communities that we're currently serving. Or if it's just because of the time of when we started, there was such a high need of support. And I guess it's just continued to go that way. So I will say that generally attendance has always been great and we're grateful for that. But to flip the question or sorry, yeah, to flip the question a little bit, the challenge with that has then been how do we ensure that we can fulfill the needs of the capacity of the demand? So that's where the challenge has kind of been more. How do we do that? Through donors, right? Through supporters, through partnerships. That has really supported us over the years since 2020. There's obviously been challenges in funding. There's been challenges even in small things such as space. Being able to have a space that's big enough to house all of the families that we're serving. And so we've had to make a lot of adjustments, whether that's finding different spaces to host our events, whether that's limiting the capacity, the amount of people that we can serve for that specific event. Sometimes what I've also had to do once we've reached our capacity for our events, I've had to refer them to maybe another event that's happening that week or another organization that could potentially support them on a larger scale. also just, I think what has also helped us to a lot. is one of the things that I wanted that was so important to me with hosting celebrations and providing resources to the community. I wanted the process to be simple because sometimes when, at least just from what families have expressed to me, sometimes when they're seeking support and resources, a lot of times it's like a ton of paperwork, right? Or you gotta wait in these long, long. and have to all this documentation and you have to have a certain qualification or you don't meet, whatever. So for me, like as a mom, as a single parent, as someone who's benefited from resources from the government, I always think about what can I do to make the process easier? And so I think that too is what makes us a little unique is we don't require like IDs, we don't require your social security, we don't require specific documentation. And that's what makes it inclusive. That's what allows the celebrations to welcome all, no matter your socioeconomic status, right? No matter your race, no matter if you're working or not working. This space is for everyone and we do our best to provide support to as much. of the community as we can. But there definitely are specific communities that we have really learned that, okay, this is our niche. so Inglewood has definitely been one of them. And we're just grateful for the partnerships we've been able to connect with to be able to serve that community. Yeah, wow. This is exciting. This is so exciting. Looking forward to the future. mentioned the kind of you want to have a legacy of impact and a legacy of giving. the next, what has it been, six years since you founded the organization? In the next six years, six years from now, if you were to have a conversation and be talking and looking back, what do you hope to have done in the next six years? Okay, so this is a big dream, right? Yeah, yeah, let's do it. I dream big. Me too, me too. piece of advice that someone would tell you about me. What is something maybe Gladys could work on? Big dreamer, right? I shoot for the stars. and then land on the moon. And that's amazing. So as soon as you said that, I just light up, right? Because I know it already, right? And the first thing would definitely be a scholarship. I would love to have a scholarship with the Gladys Giving Foundation. That scholarship would be able to support some of the families that we serve. A lot of times there are just things that families need that unfortunately we're just not at that point to be able to support. So right now we're able to refer them out, but it'd be so great to be like under this scholarship, we're gonna help such and such family. And so whether that's with education, with health resources, funding for housing, what have you. a scholarship for the foundation would be great. And then the second big dream would be a center. I would love to have a center as much as I am so grateful for the libraries that we use and the community centers that we use and churches and other places in the community that are just amazing. So grateful to use their space, but it's nothing like being able to have your own space to operate in the ways that you choose to and to even provide more ongoing support, right? It wouldn't just be limited to just the weekend celebrations. Right, right. Hey, we're open from Monday through Friday. Come walk into our center. You can utilize this space. That is definitely the big dream is to be able to have a center. And then one last thing, are from Nigeria. so there would just be, it would just be so great to be able to do something worldwide with the Gladys Givings Foundation. So I believe it can happen. Hey, you may talk to me, I may follow up with you in a couple of years and it's already happened, but. Sometimes it just takes enough people to invest and to really support what you're doing and all your dreams can come true. Yeah. What would you say is, because obviously that'll take, like you said, a good amount of donors and commitment and funding. What would you say if this box is checked? this first step, all these would be possible. How are you going about attacking this goal and this challenge? if there's like a, is there a silver bullet in making this obviously massive donation from XYZ person? But what would you say you need to do as an organization to get to the point where that is even more likely or probable to happen? Yeah, I definitely think first and foremost how we talked a little bit earlier about those measurable facts. making sure I have the proposal and which I have started, but really having the booklet, right? Of this, all of the kind of important factors of why the center or the scholarship is necessary. Who is specifically going to benefit from this and maybe even specifically what amount it's going to take, right? To make these things happen. And then I think another piece of it is having a board of investors. That is definitely something that I'm working on, something that I think is gonna be really important. A board of investors who really are passionate and connected to our mission and what we're trying to do will also be another important piece of it. And then I think ⁓ really making sure the families, right? Those who were gonna serve in this scholarship, in this center, and hopefully worldwide, that they are the face of this, that their stories are connected to this. And oftentimes when I go to networking events or when I attend galas and fundraisers, that is what you see a lot of, right? Whether it's visuals of the youth and the families that have been supported and... the impact or you hear those testimonies at those events. And I think that's really what connects donors and sponsors is being able to hear those real life practical stories and get a glimpse of what the impact has truly done. And so, you know, I have those things. It's just a matter of putting it all together. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And really being like confident in vocalizing this dream, right? My mom has always told me, close mouth, don't get fed. So you really have to have this, especially as a founder, you have to have this confidence and this presence that really showcases your why and how this is gonna be beneficial to someone who is investing in it. And so. I believe it can happen. Yes, yes. Me too. Me too. I very much believe it could happen. And that said, people that are listening and want to get engaged with you, what type of engagement do you look for? Yeah. And where can they find you? Yes, absolutely. So we, first and foremost, we are always looking for volunteers for our events, our celebrations, our, even this workshop that we're getting ready to do in May. starting May and we're on social media, on Facebook and Instagram, Gladys Giving Foundation. You can definitely find us there. You can send an email to us at the GladysGivingFoundation at gmail.com. I'm sure you'll hopefully be able to share our website. that is another layer. so yeah, volunteers definitely is a huge form of support. Partnerships. Our partnerships have allowed us to extend our capacity in so many ways. And so I am always super grateful for my partners because we're able to just reach the families in a way that I know I would not be able to do alone. So willing, I'm always open to partnerships and I'm just amazed over the years how many partnerships we've been able to have. And then yeah, donations are always important. We have Cash App, which is ggfoundation1. We have Arzell, which is the GladysGivingFoundation at gmail.com. We have another donation website that I also shared with you, but we are always grateful for any layer of support, whether that's volunteers, whether that's partnerships, whether that's donors. Whether that's even just showing up for events, a lot of our donors and our investors we meet who just happen to see our flyer and we're like, hey, we came just to see what this is about. And that has cultivated so many more lasting relationships as well. Glad to see this is amazing. We're going to be cheering for you for sure. Over here. you. Is there anything that we missed or you want to leave us with before you wrap up? just want to say to anyone who's out there, I know we've talked a little bit about this, but to anyone who's out there, maybe just starting off in the nonprofit sector or has a grassroots organization, maybe has been in it for a few years and maybe just needs that extra layer of support and encouragement just to keep going. As I mentioned earlier, sticking to your why and the love and the passion that you have. for the organization and really understanding that while you are the founder, you're the face and your organization may have a specific level of support, but I really want to highlight the importance of partnerships and collaborations. There's no reason that your organization on your own should be doing it by yourself, right? There's so much more power. when we're able to come together and collaborate to be able to do the great work in the community. So keep going. You got this. And reach out to me. I love collaborating with people. If you're ever looking for someone to collaborate, to partner with an event, I'm always open to that. Or if you just want a friend to connect with and vibe off of each other with ideas and have that extra layer of support. But thank you so much, Joseph. It's always a pleasure speaking with you. And this has been great being able to share what we've been up to with the Gladys Giving Foundation. Yes, that's amazing. Thank you Gladys as well so much for your time here on a Tuesday afternoon. And we're excited to share. to the listeners about how to get engaged. And yeah, we wish you all the luck and really excited to be able to reconnect. And I'm sure we'll talk again soon. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.