Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #199 Food Deserts, The Business of Food, & How to Start a Grocery Store

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EYL #199 Food Deserts, The Business of Food, & How to Start a Grocery Store · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Coach, the energy out there felt different. What changed for
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: the team today?
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: It was the new game day scratches from the California
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Lottery player is everything. Those games sent the team's energy
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: through the roof.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Are you saying it was the off field play that
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: made the difference on the field.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, little play makes your day, and today it made
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: the game.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: That's all for now, coach.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: One more question play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Francisco forty nine ers and Los Angeles Rams scratchers from
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the California Lottery. A little play can make your day.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Peace made responsibily. Must be eighteen years or older to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: purchase late or claim buyo farms.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: Come ay, my graduates from my school being forced back
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: drop bag drop, Mike, drop back, drop b drop.
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: All right, welcome back, ey l. This is something that
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: is a very important special episode. Old topic that we
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: haven't covered yet, but an essential topic. And it's it's
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: ironic because I actually put a post up a few
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: days ago about farming and about agriculture and said we
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: wanted to, you know, kind of have more topics about that.
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: So this is in line with that a little different,
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: but it falls in that bucket. Uh, in this business
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: as well, big big business and something that you know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: we don't usually think about as far as starting a business.
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: So you know when we talk about grocery stores. Yeah,
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: so Aaron Johnson AJ. We were connected with him last
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: year when we went to Tolsa for the hundredth year camemorates.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: I guess we should call it of the Black Wall
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: Street bombing and we did Market Monday's Lives. That was
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: that was crazy to actually do Market Monday's Lives crazy
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: one the day around the same time, I believe they
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: So that was just you know, a very very very
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: you know, just all kind of emotional experience for us.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: It was really dope. But we got connected with AJ
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: and he has a story where he started a grocery
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: store on the north side of Tulsa, which is where
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  Speaker 5: Black Wall Street is that that area right, yes, sir,
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  Speaker 5: and that is predominantly black neighborhood. In the neighborhood that's
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: had a variety of different issues ever since, you know,
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  Speaker 5: Black Wall Street. So this is going to be an
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: interesting conversation because having a grocery store something that is
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: extremely important. Like I said, it's vital for survival because
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: everybody has to eat food. It's like non negotiable. But
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: also when we talk about like food deserts and we
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: talk about low quality food, different things of that nature.
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: Like it's very very important to have you know, good
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  Speaker 5: groceries produce and meats and different things of that nature
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: in the community. And being that, you know, it's hard
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: to really start a startup grocery chain. Most grocery chains
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: are like chains, yeah, MP shop, right, different things of
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  Speaker 5: that nature, and so stopping shop you don't really see
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: too many. So what happens in a lot of neighborhoods
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  Speaker 5: is that the grocery store is turned into like gas stations,
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  Speaker 5: different things of that nature. So that's when I was
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  Speaker 5: in Baltimore, and we'll talk about that, but I did,
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  Speaker 5: I actually did a study on food deserts in Baltimore.
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  Speaker 6: So I mean, look right here in Greenburg, they took
• 3:23
  Speaker 6: our super walking out turned into a DSW Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So this is this, this this conversation is very important
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: because we understand the effects that nutrition has on us
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  Speaker 5: as far as you know, our health. We're talking about diabetes,
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: our blood pressure, cholesterol, all the different things, yeah, heart disease,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: different things of that nature. And so to be an entrepreneur,
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: to be a black entrepreneur with a grocery store in
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: North Tosa, home of Black Wall Street very important. So
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: this is going to be a very educational, informative episode.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: I'm sure of it. So yeah, so thank you for
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: joining us. Appreciate it, man.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It's an honor to be here, honor to serve y'all.
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  Speaker 2: Y'all have no idea the impact that not only you've
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: had on me and my family, but the millions of
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: people that are being reached because of because of you all,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And so it's an honor to be amongst some of
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: the ogs in the game.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: We appreciate that.
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  Speaker 6: Brother, and we ran each other at investments. Mean well,
• 4:27
  Speaker 6: I said, we got a classic on the way. So
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  Speaker 6: I'm happy that you're here to make this happen.
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  Speaker 5: So I want to get into it, but before I do,
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  Speaker 5: I want to just kind of give some historical reference
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  Speaker 5: point for people that they might have heard of black
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Wall Street, but they don't really know too much. Like,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: you know, why is Tulsa important? Why is North Tulsa
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  Speaker 5: black Wall Street? Why is it important historically? And why
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  Speaker 5: is it still important now?
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  Speaker 7: Man?
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  Speaker 3: Great question.
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  Speaker 2: The thing that happened in nineteen twenty one. The race
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  Speaker 2: massacre can never be quantified because we don't know how
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: many Amazon inventors were there, how many iPhone you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: patents were there, how many things that we have today
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  Speaker 2: really we could have had back then. Tulsa at that
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  Speaker 2: time and Oklahoma really was considered a refuge for blacks,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: and there was at that time more millionaires per capita
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  Speaker 2: than any other state, more black millionaires. So that's crazy
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty one. Think about the wealth that would
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: equate to today had that continued. And so, you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a young black got on an elevator. You know, the
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: story is that she said, you know, he said that
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  Speaker 2: he was attacked or he attacked her. She ran out,
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  Speaker 2: which wasn't true at all of the elevator, and all
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  Speaker 2: of a sudden, they're going to lynch him, and some blacks,
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  Speaker 2: wealthy blacks, got together, former military and said we're not
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  Speaker 2: going to let this happen in our community. Release him,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: and they refused, and all of a sudden, planes start
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  Speaker 2: dropping bombs in Black Wall Street, destroying businesses, killing people,
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  Speaker 2: and so over three hundred people were murdered.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the story of Black Wall Street.
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  Speaker 2: And so when the centennial came May thirty first of
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, the question and the world was asking
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: what's changed.
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  Speaker 3: For blacks in the last one hundred years?
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  Speaker 2: Because how many other black wall streets would have been
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: created had that one not been destroyed, how many other
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: minority wall streets were there? There would have been a
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  Speaker 2: Hispanic like that would have been the model. We would
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: have created the model for other minorities to say, man,
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  Speaker 2: if they can do it, what if we come together
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  Speaker 2: so that the wealth disparities that we have today wouldn't
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  Speaker 2: be the case.
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  Speaker 3: I believe had that not.
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  Speaker 2: Taken place in Tulsa, in North Tulsa at that time.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, he was saying when we took the tour, like
• 6:59
  Speaker 5: it was one gentleman. He had like a restaurant, he
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: had a he had a hotel, and they were saying,
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: like he could have been like Marriott. Yeah, I mean,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: like there was a bunch of people that you know,
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: when you look at when you look at it, you
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: never know the trajectory of what could have happened. But
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: it was, you know, such a successful and thriving community
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: that you know, just that one neighborhood, like you said,
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  Speaker 5: could have produced generational wealth for a variety of different people,
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  Speaker 5: and even bigger than that actually created industries like tycoons
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: in the industries. And you know it's from my understanding,
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: the only you know, us uh bombing that was, you know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: because I think it was like military planes that actually
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: dropped those bombs, and that's the only time that bombs
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  Speaker 5: was ever dropped from planes that was sanctioned from America
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  Speaker 5: in American history on American citizens ever was then wow,
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  Speaker 5: So you know, I kind of puts it in perspective
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: when we think about it, like, you know, the only
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  Speaker 5: time that America actually sanctioned bombing from lanes on American
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  Speaker 5: citizens was in Toso.
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  Speaker 7: Even bombers in general.
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  Speaker 6: They were saying that the outside of Pearl Harbor, that
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  Speaker 6: was the only other time there's been a bombing on
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  Speaker 6: American soil in the first one.
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  Speaker 5: From planes planes each other even nine eleven, I wasn't
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: abominated they drove the planes that building. But yeah, because
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  Speaker 5: it's not it's not easy to drop a bomb on America.
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  Speaker 5: That's why Pearl Harbor is such a historical time because
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: the quarters by surprise when the Japanese did that. But
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: you know, it has a pretty good defense system, the
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  Speaker 5: greatest military of all time. So it's not easy just
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  Speaker 5: to fire five plane and drop bombs, y'all.
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  Speaker 2: Y'all just shook me. I didn't even know that, and
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  Speaker 2: I live in Tulsa. I didn't know that that was
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  Speaker 2: the first say that again.
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  Speaker 5: It was. It was the first sanctioned American UH bombing
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  Speaker 5: on American soil, and it was against the American citizens
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: obviously because it's in America. And I think, yeah, like
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: Troy said, the only second UH bombing from airplane ever
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  Speaker 5: to ever happen in America, because, like I said, it's
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  Speaker 5: not easy to just drop bombs.
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  Speaker 2: That's crazy in the core relation to that, you know
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: what a key say, add value or to add to that.
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  Speaker 3: That's the text.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, ad to your wisdom. Yeah yeah, yeah, shout out keys,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: add to your wisdom on that that. At that time,
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  Speaker 2: from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty one, there were so
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  Speaker 2: many black millionaires in Oklahoma. That also caused the movement
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: for Oklahoma. Throughout that time, more KKK family members were
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: moving individuals that were involved in the kk they were
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: moving to Oklahoma because they didn't like that stat So
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  Speaker 2: the resistance as black excellence was rising, the resistance was
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  Speaker 2: also rising. So Oklahoma eventually became one of the most
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  Speaker 2: racist states. But why is that on this side we
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: was building the wealth and then on this side they
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  Speaker 2: were dropping bombs. So that just the system. That's crazy
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  Speaker 2: and I didn't even know that.
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: So how do we get to because I read correctly
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: if I'm wrong, But you started.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Milwaukee, started Milwaukee go b and we.
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: Were just we were just in Milwaukee when we're talking
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: about black business thriving. This is another city where we
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: saw a lot of black business thriving, and we got
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: the history on that when we visited. But you moved
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: to Oklahoma, and I think, what was it about Oklahoma
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: that you saw growing up that you decided as an adult,
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: I need to make a change. Because I know there
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: was some statistics about the life expectancy of blacks in
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: the state. So what was it that triggered you to say,
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: all right, I need to make a change here in Tulsa.
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: Obviously the history of black Wall Street, but was it
• 10:29
  Speaker 6: something else?
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: You know, it's crazy throughout the pandemic, you know, just
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: getting back to serving people. I was never that smartin school.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I actually cheated in college to get to get it,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: to make it. Se'z get degree. Shout out to all
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: my my sees. Two point five GPA, don't quit, baby,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: don't quit. And so I always just felt as a
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: kid growing up in a single parent home that I
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: wanted to give my life to serve people. I didn't
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: know what that looked like. I majored in business, manage meant,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: but anyway for me. Throughout the pandemic, I saw, man,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: if this continues a long time. At the time, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: was running a nonprofit in North Tulsa, and I saw, man.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Food, health, gut, all of.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: These things are are so connected, And I said, man,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: something's got to happen. North Tulsa hadn't had a grocery
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: store in fourteen years. No grocery store in North Tulsa
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: in fourteen How is that even possible? But yet there's
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: ten dollar Generals, So no complete full service grocery store.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: But yet ten dollar Generals. Dollar General, by the way,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one ended up closing thirty two billion dollars.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: So most of they proliferate underserved communities and rural communities.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: So throughout the pandemic, I recognize, Man, we have to
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: something's got to share.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Something's got to shift. So I was in my closet
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: one day.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: I'm a I'm a person of faith, I like y'all,
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: and I just felt like something was happening. Like I'm
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: not I've never carried a baby, but I felt like
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I was carrying something.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: And I said, Man, I'm.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Not going to move from this spot, God until you
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: give me a word. And I felt the war was
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Ezekiel thirty six. I will rebuild the wastelands and replant
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the ruins. Was that was what I got. And so
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't know how I was going to do that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Long story short, I left my job. Didn't have a plan,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Like that's the cray you talked about faith over fear. Like,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: didn't have a plan, left my job, and I said,
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I'm going to figure out way how to serve people
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the way that I feel is right. Got a phone
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: call from having great relationships with, you know, people in
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: our city. I got a phone call, Hey, we got
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: we got this grant. We got four million dollars that
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: we're gonna have to give back to the federal government
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: that was supposed to be used for a grocery store.
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  Speaker 3: AJ you got grocery experience.
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  Speaker 2: I worked at a grocery store, was a regional manager
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: for a grocery store right out of college. Had seven stores,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: most of them were in underserved communities. And anyway, long
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: story short, I said, that's it. How much money will
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: it take? Well, aged, we think about six and a half.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: We only got four, so you're gonna have to I
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: don't got four million dollars. I don't got two million
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: dollars at the time. You know, wife, three kids, Asian persuasion.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Shout out to my wife. We got three blazon daughters.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: And I put it all on the line. I took
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: everything we owned, all of the money out of my
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: four one k and it wasn't much, but I just
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: began to connect. So four point one million turned into
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: six and a half. We built the grocery store, opened
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: it up. Now it's at ten million, but we just
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: took a step.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: So the first four meon. So that was a federal
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: grant that they just had pending. You had to come
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: up with. How much money did you have to come
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: up with before you was awarded the grant or did
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: they just give you the grant and then say come
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: up with the rest together?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: The city get a ordered Rose Washington toss Economic Development
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: the grant, and she essentially turned it over to us,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: and so together we had the public private partnerships and
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: so just knocking on doors, connecting with people, Hey, we're
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: gonna we're gonna build a grocery store. The definition of
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: oasis means refuge, safe place, shelter. That's why we picked
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the name because in a food desert, there's no refuse,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: there's no safe place, there's no shelter. And I didn't
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: grow up and said, man, I'm an own grocery stores.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: I never thought that. But now we have a for
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: profit grocery store and the nonprofit where you can get
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: a gallon of milk, but you can also get your
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: bills paid. You can get an apple, but also you're
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: on food stamps, We're going to give you a recipe
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: pug to teach you how to how to eat, how
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to live.
• 14:41
  Speaker 6: So that was the part of the comuner because even
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: reading the story, it was like, we got to get
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: seven million. Obviously the four million was public fund funded,
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: government funded, but you had to get private too, right,
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: And so I wonder what that process was like, because
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: you said, like, Oklahoma not the friendliest to black Americans. Yeah,
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: so what was the process of getting the private funding?
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: And then the second part was like that nonprofit arm Yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: because like when you know you have a nonprofit and
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: you have experience in it, there needs to be a
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: community attachment to it, and so you very intentionally made
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: it that way or was that like, hey, we have
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: to figure out how we can make this supermarket or
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: this grocery store this fresh market like fresh market, Hey,
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: how can we make this fresh market unique to this
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: area and that so we can set the trend going
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: forward for food deserts.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: So our answer to the second part, first, the grocery
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: store was a byproduct. I actually said, the nonprofit has
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: to be bigger than the grocery store because we have
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: to serve people, you know, and underserved communities. There's a
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: lack of transportation, lack of education, lack of jobs. So
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I said, man, how are we That is the purple cow,
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: that's the unicorn. What grocery store for profit gives away
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: groceries every day?
• 15:51
  Speaker 7: We do.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: We give people free groceries every single day.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And we've been in the black since month four and
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: now we're month sixteen. So for me providing those wrap
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: around services and serving people adding value was the unique thing.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Shout out to my councilwoman, Vanessa Harper District one. She
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: really she fought to get a moratorium in place to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: block any more dollar generals in her district, which is
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: District one, because there was ten of them.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: So she fought.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: A black woman went against a billion dollar company to
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: say you can't cross these lines without my permission anymore.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: She got threatened. She had to get security for a season,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: and her husband is a police officer because they were
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: all kind of crazy things happening.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: But it started there.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: She put a moratorium in place years before there was
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: ever a grocery store. But that was her fight, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: it was it's an honor for for us to serve.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: It was really her vision and still is to this day.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: It was her vision and she's a city councilor. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: so we They got that award years ago, and they
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: were gonna the Food Desert Federal award. They got the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: four point one million dollars years ago, but never had
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: a person that would take the reins of that. They
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: had two groups that said they would do it. They
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: fell off. I left my job not knowing what the
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: next step was gonna be. But I always knew I
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: was going to be an entrepreneur serve people. Long story short,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: with Vanessa, with Rose and our team, we just begin
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: to just knock on those doors and the right like,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: we didn't even really have to knock on the doors
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: because people knew North Tulsa was a food desert, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: everybody knew that centennial was coming up. So somebody, somebody
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: better be a part of saying something happened in North Tulsa,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: something happened in black Wall Street. And so we give
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: credit to everybody that that that's helped us build that
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: grocery store, that gave and yeah, we're just serving people man,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: giving apples, giving hope.
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: So you was all right, So the two it was
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: it wasn't so much like crowdfunding. It was just like donations.
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah that raised that helped outside of your money and
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: then probably friends, family, whatever, and then the community just
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: kind of raised and gave donations and that equal that two.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Million, yeap the two and a half that that came in.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that it was really private money. It wasn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: really even donations. We went to a few different foundations
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: that we had relationship with that's why your your gift
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: makes room for you. And so we we had those
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: relationships in my other role, and so going with counselor
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Harper and Rose the other partners, people said we want
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to give to this.
• 18:35
  Speaker 6: So city councils playing a major role in this. The
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: mayor is obviously playing. They were all in the same
• 18:40
  Speaker 6: page as you, like, were they coming in like, hey,
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: this is an idea that you're the person that executed
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: or they're like, all right, can we partner with him
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: to get this done? What was that like dealing with
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: city council, the mayia. I'm sure there's other people that
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: probably don't want you to get it done. And then
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: you have a lot of constituents and saying like we
• 18:56
  Speaker 6: need this, North Tulsa needs this has been before your drill.
• 19:00
  Speaker 7: What was that experience like for you?
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: The mayor was was was also behind it as well
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: and helped open up doors. And so that public private
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: partner can keep going back to that because there are
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: dollars federal dollars, county dollars, state dollars that every state has,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: but they get to decide where they spend their money. Well,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: it's good that our mayor and city councilor said, we
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: got to address this food desert issue in North Tulsa.
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: AJ.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: You're we feel you're you're the one to do that.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: We'll open up our connections, our resources, uh to help
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: you get that done. But you got to own this thing, oh,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: by the way, to make sure it don't fail. Because
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: black businesses and underserved communities. You know, it's there's not
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of successful data yet, but earn your leisure.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Y'all changing that. We changing that, and so.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: We raised that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: We raised that money and we've got forty one people
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: on staff. Most of them live right there in North Tulsa.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So that was key for me, is that we have
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: to hire from the community. We can't hire people that
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: don't look like us. What now, we do have a
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: very diverse stapple Like my wife is agent, so obviously
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: we diverse. But we wanted to show people because I
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: never saw growing up somebody that looked like me owned
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: a business. So now for the other little Ajs, the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: other little Rashads and Troy's in the world, we're showing
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: them a model like, hey, if we can do it,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: y'all can do it too.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: You said something very important about the non profit piece,
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: and he said, when you come to the fresh Market,
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: we're going to give you financial literacy. If you need
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: help with your rent, we can help with that. If
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: my son needs glasses, what does that look like?
• 20:42
  Speaker 7: Right? Because I've never experienced anything like that.
• 20:44
  Speaker 6: So how do you incorporate all these things inside of
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: the fresh market itself?
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. I just go with my gut, like I don't.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: There's no real formula. We have what we call First Saturdays.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: So every First Saturday we give away thousands of dollars
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: worth of groceries, but we bring in the glass Like, so,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: how does it work? The connections that we have. I
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: hit them up and I say, hey, you're in the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: mental health space, you're in the medical space, you're in
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: the banking space, you're in the real estate space. I
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: want y'all all to show up on this day and
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: we're going to do an event and we just post
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: it on social media and the people come. But you
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: have to be seen by every vendor because we want
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: to give you the power the knowledge that you need
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: to transform your life. And they go, oh, I do
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: need some chicken while I'm here? Dang, I need some
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: greens and so we become the center of the community
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: intentionally because I said, what's missing in our community? And
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: how do we fill those gaps? How do we serve people? Okay,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: and and and all the dots start connecting, And now
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: like who has a for profit and a nonprofit and
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: gives away groceries? So to answer your question, how does that?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: How does that happen? We just like y'all, We just
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: take steps every day. Sometimes the team is like, Asa,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: that's the crazy idea, but we try it, we learn
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: from it. Tomorrow we're giving away over a thousand backpacks.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Y'all didn't know that y'all was a part of a
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: backpack drive. We told her, shot, look aren't you at
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: Lisha is giving away thousand dollars backpacks tomorrow Because it's
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: about partnership. We don't have to do everything on our own,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: but together, like what a mother Treesa say, I can
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: do things that you cannot. You can do things that
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: I cannot, and together we can do greater things.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: Very important. So all right, so let's talk about this
• 22:52
  Speaker 5: from the beginning. So you get the money, all right,
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: you get the grant, you get the money. What's the
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: first steps that you had to go through to open
• 22:58
  Speaker 5: up the grocery store and get it up and running.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: So all along we had we were doing community meetings
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: where we would tell a community, Hey, well come to
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: this event center on this night. We want to get
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: your feedback. So community engagement, we designed and I built
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: the grocery store. We're counselor Harper based off the feedback
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: for the from the community. So we were having meetings
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: for eight months almost weekly to get hey, what is
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: it that you want in the grocery store. Because we
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: would tell people the success of the grocery store doesn't
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: depend on AJ, it depends on us. Like so we
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: got all of that feedback and then that's how we
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: designed and built our grocery store. We have a small
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: footprint sixteen thousand square feet, small back room, we have
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: a cafe, you know, fresh produce and all that.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: That's our mission.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: We exist to eradicate food deserts, to bring fresh and
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: healthy access to all. So we let the voices of
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: the the community build the store.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: What did they say? So what'd the voices of the
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: community say? What do they want?
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Man, Sometimes we destroy our own they wanted, you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: some people wanted to have fifteen restaurants inside and I'm like, bro,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, what are you even talking about?
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: What they wanted after all of that, what they wanted
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: was fresh produce and a place where the community could gather.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Out of all of those meetings, that was the summation,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: months of driving home sometimes feeling like dang, I ain't
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: open it up, no grocery store.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: This is hard.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: But after all that, it comes back to how do
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: we serve and add value? And that's what the community wanted.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: We want fresh produce. And the stigma was nor Tassa
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: doesn't want fresh produce? What like, oh, they're not going
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to buy it? Produces? Are we have to get a
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: produce truck seven days a week. They have access now
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: there was no access. Dollar General was all you know,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: processed stuff. So listening to the community and that's how
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: we continue to build and evolve and building it and
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: expand it.
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: Right now, so all right, how do you get fresh protos?
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: You just local farmers.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So we do have some local farmers. Our distributor is
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: out of Oklahoma City. So we were in a co op,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: which your agriculture piece. We must get a black co op.
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: What is explaining what the agriculture co op is.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: The agriculture co op is where different groups. So if
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: this table is a co op, you would pay shares,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I would pay shares. You would pay shares into to
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: this business. And this business is dealing with the craft foods,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Kellogg's all your big people. So that's where we get.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: We had to buy a license pay into this co
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: op and so they basically broker food deals for us.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And so that was the first step is to get
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: a food distributor, and so we do all of our
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: ordering through this food distributor. What people don't understand is
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: bulk buying is a real thing. I'm an independent grocer.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: So coke, I mean Walmart, they probably buy a million
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: bottles of coke a day and sell it. I need
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: a thousand a day. Well, who's going to get better
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: purchasing power? They are because it's about volume. So this
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: co op is made up of thousands of big grocers
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: small grocers, but there's still a hierarchy within and that's
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: where we get our food from. But what we also
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: are doing now is we have begun buying from local
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: outside of the system, because we want to support local
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: businesses and black businesses. But there's not a lot of
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: black farmers, especially produce, so that agriculture piece that you
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: guys did is huge. We need to and we will
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: create with you all a black co op because the
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: black business is that the ecosystem of Black Wall Street.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: That's why it was so successful because we work, play, live,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: shop amongst each other. So you got you got a restaurant,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: but you buying your food from Rashad.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Who got the grocery store. That's why Black Wall.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Street was producing so many millionaires because we had an
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: ecosystem of our own.
• 27:18
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you have a tie.
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: When you were developing a store and creating it, you
• 27:22
  Speaker 6: were very intentional about how you wanted it to look.
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: So I want you to talk to the story about
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: The Man's Brothers because you're not the first grocery store
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: to be in Autosa nineteen thirty. The Man's Brothers was
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: the first, And so can you tell about the impact
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: and the influence that it had on you.
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was we were in final final phase design
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of the grocery store and there's this blank wall. The
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: architect had had a blank wall in the grocery store
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: and I remember one day before we opened that I
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: was looking at this wall. I sat in the cafe
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: and I was looking at this wall, and I said,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: something is missing, something is missing, and so I just
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: had an instinct look up black grocers. So I looked
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: up black grocers and there wasn't a lot of information.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: I called Tulsa Historical Society. I even called the State
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Oklahoma Historical Society, and I asked them, can you send
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: me a picture of of a black grocery store? And
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: they cooperated, but the only pictures I got were after
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the Race massacre, so it was burned buildings, and I
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: was like, yo, somebody's got to have somebody got to
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: have history. So doing further research and learned about the
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: Man Brothers. The Man Brothers were. They had Man Brothers liquor,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Man Brother's recording studio, and Man brother groceries, and so
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: right there in the heart of North Tulsa they had
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: a grocery store. And I saw this beautiful picture. I
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: think there was thirteen thirteen family members standing in front
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: of a grocery store after the Race massacre. And I
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: got my research and started just studying. I said, that's it.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: We have to pay homage to those that came before us.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Because I wouldn't be here had it not been for
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: their sacrifice, and the sacrifice are so many.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: So we have this.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Massive picture in our grocery store that when you work,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the first thing you see when you're going to the
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: grocery store you see this black excellence family from that
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: time standing in front of a grocery store to show together, hey,
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: we can do this. So don't steal here because you're
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: stealing from them. Don't act don't act crazy in here
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: because because they went before us. So we intentionally put
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: that design at the front of the store to remind
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: people together, we're gonna rise out.
• 29:39
  Speaker 7: It's powerful.
• 29:40
  Speaker 6: So going back to the co op because now I'm
• 29:43
  Speaker 6: thinking to myself the co op obviously you use the
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: example of Walmart, and obviously you at a smaller scale,
• 29:48
  Speaker 6: do you independently try to find corporate partners?
• 29:51
  Speaker 7: Right? So, like, if can you go to a distributor director?
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: Can you find like a coke distributor in the South
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: or the South region that you can directly go to?
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: Is that something that you guys utilize as well, or
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: is it just all right, We're going to use the
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: co op and we'll figure out small businesses as well
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: or how do you how do you balancing that?
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's there's there's two sides of that coin.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: So the majority of our food comes from a distributor
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: because they are they're like the Amazon in that space.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And there's several different distributors across the country. We chose
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: the one that was obviously an hour away from us
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: in Oklahoma City.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Yes, we can go.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: It's called direct DSD direct sales, UH direct sales, a
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: vendor basically is what it is. So we can talk
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: to the Cokes. But our our our volume buying power
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: still is dependent on the co op.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: So that that that that's the.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Challenge that we face being a smaller chain right now.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: But as we go to eradicate food deserts across the country,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: that won't be the case and much longer and and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: what what what I see is we will have we
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: will create multiple co and identify, Hey, you're you're a
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: chicken farmer, you grow apples, you grow So then we
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: create this ecosystem. We have a logistics company that's gonna
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: start picking it up. Just we we reverse engineer what
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the current co ops do and we take steps to that.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Can we know we need drivers we know we need warehouses.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: We know we need hubs throughout the throughout the US
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: to get in holdy. We know we need warehouses. So
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: how many other black grocers are there in the US
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: And in our co op there's five of us. But
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: yet there's five thousand grocery stores partners in this co op,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: but there's five black owned.
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: So the co op is for farmers all across the country.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Farm like anything that you think about, like cereal, chips, coffee.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: The co op gives you access to everything in a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: grocery store that you need.
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: Oh, so you're only buying from one source. You're not
• 31:54
  Speaker 5: like getting water from another. Like everything that you get
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: in the grocery store is coming from the co op.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, but we have started to go outside of the
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: system because we are intentionally are looking for black businesses
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: and even local businesses. We got one guy scoops. He's
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Waterhouse Italian Ice, young black dude. He came to me
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: right after opening the store and he said, I've been
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: watching you inspired me. I got this idea for business.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: I said, you got all your paperwork, your documentation, health department,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: all that going through. Yeah, he got it all, I said,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: A selling the store. He's on track right now to
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: make six figures and about to leave his job because
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: his product is going crazy in the store and we
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: want to create more black products. So that way we
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: can have that ecosystem of sustainability, economic development. But wealth
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: building wealth is key, but the system does fight against that.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: But we breaking through.
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: The system even inside that.
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: I remember we had that conversation about pricing by shelf right,
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: so like if he has a well, this company says
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: that they have to be on the top shelf in
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: the first row of the out So like I can
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: imagine a lot of people coming up with ideas they're
• 33:10
  Speaker 6: gonna have to combat that or do you have some
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: way to say, all right, well we're gonna make sure
• 33:13
  Speaker 6: that you're a place in a prime location as well.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing, like your coch your PEPSI
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: they pay they can pay you direct for shelf space.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: So as a businessman, it's like, nah, you can't take
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: that because I need coch check coming in. But we
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: can be strategic around. Okay, let's put Coke is here.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: They are paying good dollar. And I will say to
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: that the first time around dealing with those contracts, I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: missed out on a lot of money because I didn't
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: have the proper knowledge. And when I learned that there's
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: a whole world of the giants that you can deal
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: directly with, everybody's contract has changed now because I said, ah,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: you fool me once when we open the store, you
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: won't fool me in year two. So we need more distributors, businesses,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: suppliers that are doing anything that's in a grocery store.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Label makers. I need a black plastic maker today. Is
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: there one who makes who makes plastic bottles? We like,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: we can create our own earn your leisure oasis water.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: But who's making these caps? Who's making these bottles? Who's
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: got the company that that purifies the water that goes
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: in so we can we can put this so the
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: next conference, y'all got you got your own your own water.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: But there's three or four different businesses that when you
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: buy this from your supporting them because they played a part.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: But do we have the infrastructure to do that?
• 34:44
  Speaker 7: We will.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: So I heard somewhere before that it's very thin profit
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: margins on grocery stores. Is that true?
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Facts on?
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: Wow? So that just has a business man, How are
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: you trying to improve because I'm assuming that you're trying
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: to beat that and get higher profit margins because we're
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: in business to make money. You're in business to help people,
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: but you're in business to make money also, So do
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: you have any ideas on how you can potentially beat
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: that one to three percent ratio or is that just
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: kind of impossible to beat?
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's all bulk buying power.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And so when there's a deal from the co op,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: let's say, what do we just do. We just signed
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: our September, October, November deals December. I had to put
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: up two hundred thousand dollars for it. But basically our
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: co op is going to give us ridiculous discounts.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Every single week.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So we're going to do basically, we're going to advertise
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: crazy things like buy two things of bread, get three free.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Now I paid for that, but from an attractional standpoint
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: coming to the store, people are going to see crazy
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: deals every single week. And so that bulk buying that
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: I that I did, that played, I can now get
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: higher margins because I bought in bulk. And so that's
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: how we we we we beat that one to three percent.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: But I gotta do massive deals all the time. And
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: so that's why the importance of having a distribution center
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: is so key because it sits in their warehouse, and
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: I got to pay them more because it's now you're
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: taking up space.
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: We'll hold it for you, AJ, but you got to
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: pay us like you do cubons.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: We do q pons, Yes, sir, people still do cupons.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: People still do cupon virtually we got we got digital
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: q pons, but people still do physical qpons. Your Grandma's
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: in the world is not going digital.
• 36:42
  Speaker 7: That's a whole job in itself.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. We got three senior citizen community centers
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: right bias, they still use paper q AJ. Here's my cupon?
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Dang girl, can you print it off? But but you know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: like like of course I'm not gonna it's it's we
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: take care of our community this. Yeah.
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: How often do you have to buy from the call?
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: Are you doing this on a monthly basis?
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: Week?
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Three times a week?
• 37:06
  Speaker 7: Three times a week? Okay?
• 37:08
  Speaker 6: Okay, Now you talked about logistics, right, So like obviously
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: when you have to get the fresh produce, you have trucks,
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: So is that like another business that you have to
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: create or is that part of the infrastructure of the
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: fresh market in.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: Itself, that's part of the co op infrastructure.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: So we pay them this license, We pay them to
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: buy our groceries and they take care of everything else
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: for you. But it comes out of cost. So every
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: time you order groceries, the hidden fees that's inside is transport.
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's a company that I know that has a
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: truck or two. We might talk about that. But something
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: that is affected obviously the country and obviously grocery prices
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: is supply chain issues. So I wonder how that affected
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: you first, and I got another follow up after that.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: So we do have as many grocery stores, we do
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: have empty shells. But what we try to do is
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: get on the horn asap with distributors, even outside of
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: the state. And now it comes at a cost. But okay,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: if we don't have this specific kind of Cheetos, what
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: other offerings are there? So that way we can fill
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: that space. Because you've got to drive profit, you've got
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: to be successful, and so it's a race too. Now
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: we're talking to three or four different distributors. We're paying
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: the price because if you want that brand, they're in Minnesota.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So Now, if you want that truck, you got to
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: pay all the way. With these gas prices, you got
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: to pay for it to come. But your customers want it.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: But Walmart has it because they don't have supply chain issues.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: They built their own shipping. What does it barge throughout
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: the pandemic because they said we're not going to wait
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: on who we were anymore, so they built their own.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: Who does that? So that's crazy?
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: That's crazy?
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: So what about food waste? Because you know, when I
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: was I used to live in Hawaii.
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: And malaik maka.
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: Aloha to all the good people on Hawaii. So when
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: I used to live there, I was in an apartment,
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: went to school there, and every like Thursday, they would
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: like come and they would give food away. But what
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: it was, it was the food that technically just expired
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: but it was still good. You could still eat the bread, whatever,
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: but they couldn't sell it in the grocery store anmore
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: because it expired. So it was a bunch of food
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: every single week that they were just giving away because
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: they couldn't. So that's when I realized how much food
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: actually gets wasted. Yeah, which obviously that's an issue for
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: a few different reasons, but from a financial issue. From
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: a financial standpoint, that's an issue as well. So how
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: do you deal with food waste and how has that
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: been for you?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a it's a fine line there because
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: if people get the if the word gets out, oh well,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: if we just wait a few days, you.
• 39:59
  Speaker 7: Know, we're gonna wait out.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we gonna wait outside like we itire exactly exactly,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: and so it's it's it's it's a fine line because
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: we hate food waste, like and so that's why we're
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: we have a great leadership team. But they know, hey,
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I don't want that that shrink in the grocery word
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: it's called shrink, and you're gonna have shrink every every month.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: You have shrink every day. Like if your salads don't go.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: You try to market down two for two for five,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: you know, if it on market it like you, then
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: you got to you gotta take it off the shelf.
• 40:35
  Speaker 7: Erners, what's up?
• 40:35
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• 40:38
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• 43:26
  Speaker 3: But that is that is a very real thing and
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: it's hard.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: But we we we donate, we donate that that food
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: because we don't we don't want to throw that away
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: less people.
• 43:36
  Speaker 7: Yeah, that could be that ties into the nonprofit and h.
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: That was Gooder. We interviewed you ever heard of that before? Gooder?
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: So we interviewed a young Lady's name is Jasmine Crowe.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: She has a company in Atlanta. It's called Gooder and
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: just for this so it was and it's actually she
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: turned into a business because now like right when the
• 43:57
  Speaker 5: like restaurants and grocery stores and she would give it
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: to homeless shelters. But I think she's actually like buying
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: it from the from the stores at like a very
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: low price, but it's still some level of money that's
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: coming in and now so now it's like a win
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: win for everybody. So it's not like they're just giving
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: away food for free. She's actually buying it. Well, now
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: she's created a whole ecosystem where she actually turned a
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: nonprofit into a business because the food. She saw so
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: much food being wasted that she said it could be
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: a more efficient way to go about it.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: And they call it. I will look her up.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: What's her name, Jasmine Crow, Jasmine Crowd.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: He spoke gooderh g o O d R g o
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: O d r okay. So in that they're call in
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: the grocery where they're called street deals. So if Coke,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know why I keep going back to Coke,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: I guess Coke is about to cut me a check.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: I feel it. I feel it kind of like b
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: et y'all said, say, BT, oh, cut that check, baby, BT.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: Why don't you have a food co op?
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: Very very good question.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: Uh Uh, They're gonna they're gonna fund your agriculture piece
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna buy our produce and our meat from you.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: And so see.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: That ecosystem E y L Farms sounds good. That sounds good.
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: In me a second.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: There you go. And and because that that's key, Like
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: we have our motto is we want people to be seen,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: to feel safe, and to be heard. One of the
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: key things for us at the grocery store. People know
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: many many times throughout the week, throughout the day, I'm
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: at the front door as the greeter, and so they know, AJ,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Want that brand of chicken.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, well if I buy the other brand and bring
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: it in here, you better buy it every week. The
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: next week we order it so that the community partnership
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: that's there. We now have a massive vegan isle. I
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: didn't even know I had that many black vegans in
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: North Tulsa, but we have a massive because the people say,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: aja aj wee, you listen to.
• 46:03
  Speaker 5: Us, right?
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, how can I serve you? We're gonna get this. Okay,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: that's gonna cost me money. Baby, You're gonna be here
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: every Thursday when that truck comes in. I'm gonna be
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: here and they show up.
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: Do you feel I mean, obviously from the standpoint of education,
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: do you feel the responsibility Obviously, the vegan option is
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: you know a lot of times more healthy.
• 46:22
  Speaker 7: Than the processed food. So, I mean the process foods.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: Is what's gonna sell, right, do you feel like the
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: responsibility to educate number one and then make sure that
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: they have those opportunities?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Now, now you're getting into my love language, baby. So
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: we just rolled out this program called double Up, Duo,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Double Up Oklahoma. And there is a federal program. This
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: is this is a federal program that so sixty percent
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: of our customers are on food stamps. There's a federal
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: program that will match dollar for dollar up to twenty
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: dollars per day if you're on food stamps, and that
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: dollar for dollar match can only be spent on fresh
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: produce and fresh vegetables. So the eleven year life expectancy
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: rate in North Tulsa, you're expected to they're expect we
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: are expected to die eleven years shorter than any other
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: community in Tulsa. Eleven year shorter. So if your wife
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: is in South Tulsa, your wife is in North Tulsa,
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: your and babies are born on the same day, your baby,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: by zip code is expected to die eleven years shorter
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: because of the health inequities, the health disparities, wealth, all
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: of social all of the challenges ecosystems that are not there.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: So we are the first black.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Owned grocery store in the state of Oklahoma to have
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: the double up program. So everybody that's on food stamps
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: first ten to fifteen, what's popping that Oasis fresh Mark
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: because at EBT Day it hits. But so we have
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: two kind of stores with it.
• 47:51
  Speaker 7: Sign it's EBT EBT Baby.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: So we got we have music in the store.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: So from from eight to twelve we play we play
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: gospel from from twelve on what Oasis nightclub and this thing.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: But that's the center at community. You grabbing chicken, somebody like,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: hey girl, I'm coming to your house tonight. Like it's
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: the community vibe within the grocery store. But so that
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: that federal program dollar for dollar match is how we
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: teach people healthier options, healthy living. So, yeah, you got
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: your your food stamp dollars. Okay, So don't use your
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: food stamp dollars to buy fresh produce and fresh vegetables
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: because when you use your EBT card, you're gonna get
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: more money that can only be spent on fresh pros
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: and fresh veggies. And then on top of that, we
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: got a literacy course teaching you how to live healthy.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Oh by the way, if you come tomorrow, we're gonna
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: have thirteen different type of medical evaluations that you can get.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: For free, so you can live better, you can feel better.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: Talk about the course, talk about that educating people because
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: they might not even know that they even have that op.
• 48:55
  Speaker 5: So education is important, like financial literacy is important, but
• 48:58
  Speaker 5: health education is important as well. So talk about that
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: as far as like you know, teaching people because they
• 49:03
  Speaker 5: might not even understand why it's important to eat organic
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: and healthy and different things that I need you.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's a lot of things are connected
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: to our guts, as we know, and so we we
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: we're getting ready to roll out uh a probiotic mixed
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: drink that somebody can put in their water and it
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: gives them all of the essential and it tastes good.
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: All of the essential.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Nutrients and vitamins that that they need that we need there,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: it is right there that we need for sustainability. That
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: you got to put my name on the first though.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: We're working on that. But but even in the in
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: the in the mental health world, Alzheimer's and dementia blacks
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: lead that. But if we actually study it, it's because
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: it's connected to the small and large and tested in
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: the gut, and so it affects the way we think,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: it affects the way we live. So so that that
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: that literacy peach and teaching people, hey, you gotta eat
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: this because I mean it's gonna help calm your baby down.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: You don't even know. For example, we had it, we
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: had a mom on the non prophet side. She was
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: coming to the grocery store. We had a mom that
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: was giving her baby juice. I'm gonna get emotional, but
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: she was. She was raped and she grew up without
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: a mom, and so she didn't know. And so I
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: see her coming to the store one day and I'm like, sweetie,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: what what what you're giving your baby? She said, I'm
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: just giving them juice. I got three daughters, and I
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: grew up in saying plahoma, I got two older sisters.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I said. I pulled her eyes as sweet you can't
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: you can't give that baby, no, no juice. She said,
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I don't know. And so we have we have caseworkers
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: that that that walk with her, and so we were
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: teaching her how to live. That's how you change a community.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Here's here's a a young black girl that got raped
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: and she, thank god she it was her decision. She
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: kept the baby. But she she didn't know that you're
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: actually hurting the baby because she was never shown that.
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: She was never taught there is a baby juice that's
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: out there. She was giving them adult baby juice.
• 51:17
  Speaker 10: Was like cool, well, yeah, yeah, just what it was
• 51:25
  Speaker 10: you out there giving you a baby six months or
• 51:27
  Speaker 10: less juice?
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Stop it e y L foods coming soon.
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: We're gonna teach you for red Yeah, great drink, it's
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: a sweet one.
• 51:38
  Speaker 11: No, But the education is important. The education is important because,
• 51:47
  Speaker 11: like you said, sometimes you just don't know, and you know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 11: when you know better than you're in position to do better.
• 51:54
  Speaker 11: And a lot of times people think, like you know,
• 51:58
  Speaker 11: they think that eating healthy is less tasty. Yeah, honestly,
• 52:04
  Speaker 11: a lot of times it's to reverse, like because even
• 52:06
  Speaker 11: for me, like when I used to eat regular peanut butter,
• 52:08
  Speaker 11: g like regular peanut butter like Jiff. Yeah, and then
• 52:11
  Speaker 11: when I when I got to like prep school, when
• 52:13
  Speaker 11: I got a little older, I started eating organic peanut butter,
• 52:16
  Speaker 11: like with the.
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: Oil on top. Yeah, mix it up, And what I
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: realized is that it tastes way better than Jiff, like
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: processed or like I never ate white bread my whole life,
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: but regular bread, whole wheat bread and wheat.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: You never ate white bread your whole life?
• 52:32
  Speaker 5: No, dang, yeah, but gratefully, but it tastes way better
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: than white bread. Like, Yeah, most of the healthy options
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: actually end up tasting better, yeah than the non healthy.
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: It's just that we just we're just uneducated and we
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: just think that this tastes better, but in all reality,
• 52:51
  Speaker 5: it usually doesn't.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't eat white bread to this day,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: but I learned the difference.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: So you got it. Like for me, you know, my mom,
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: So doctor sabe before he got kicked out of America,
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: you know, he used to be in Brooklyn and he
• 53:08
  Speaker 5: actually had like a storefront in Brooklyn where he actually
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: was like bringing and there was like people that was
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: coming in. He was actually educating people. So my mom
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: actually she was there. So my mom been vegetarian for
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: like thirty years. And so like doctor Sabie is crazy,
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: like he became so famous like recently, but she I
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: remember like in like the early nineties and she was
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: started to go to him and she was telling me
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: about him like twenty five years ago. So she always crazy. Yeah,
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: So she was always like on that health kick. She
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: didn't really push it, but she was like real big
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: on like that kind of stuff, like you know what
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: I mean. Like that was something that was real big
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: for me in my household. Like even going to school,
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: like I always she always packed lunch for me, and
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: it was crazy because it's like every every other one
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: of my friends getting in school lunch yeah, So it's
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: almost like you kind of embarrassed, like because you're not,
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: but look and back on it. That's a blessing that
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: she even even cared enough to even do that, Like,
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Because it's that you said he had a back lunch
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: every day brown bag or he had a lunch box.
• 54:13
  Speaker 7: You bring out the aluminum foil. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 54:15
  Speaker 7: and you knew shot that was the same with.
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: Hey, that's power though plastic back Yeah yeah, no, this
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: and it's like, you know, you appreciate some things you
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: don't appreciate in the moment, but you appreciate it later on.
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: And what happens as as a child sticks with you.
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: So like even like you're eating habits, it's very important
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: because most of the time it's hard to break bad
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: habits that you develop when you're young. So it's like
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: if you have bad eating habits when you're young, nine
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: times at ten, you're going to have bad eating habits
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: for the rest of your life.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: And that's why when we do our First Saturdays or
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: our outreaches, we have black chefs that come in and
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: that are cooking healthy food to taste people for people
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: to taste. So the nonprofit covers the costs that he
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: taste this at this different option, so that way, it's
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: when you know it's in the store. This this is
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: how you make it. And we call it balling on
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: a budget. So we're going to teach you how to
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: ball on a budget with and eat and eat healthier
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: and oh, by the way, taste this mug while you're here,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: and you're gonna like it.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: But those habits are key.
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: You just had the keywords ball on a budget, right,
• 55:16
  Speaker 6: And so that's another part of what's happening in America
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: right inflation and so obviously grocery prices are going up.
• 55:23
  Speaker 6: So are you how you combat that? Is that part
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: of the financial literacy is like, yeah, we're going to
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: walk you through it. Because prices go up, that affects you, yeah,
• 55:31
  Speaker 6: but it also affects the consumers.
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: So yeah, right now, inflation is you know in the
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: grocery spaces is twelve to eighteen percent up. Yeah, yeah,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: And so but here my customer level is the same.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: You know, we see four to four to six hundred
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: people to come through our doors every day. And so
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: what I have to do is I have to I'm
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: I'm in a race against inflation. So as inflation comes down,
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: I better I better shift and be on the right
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: side of that or else. The economy is a scale.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: If I'm not careful, I will end up inflating and
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: ballooning myself, which then balloons the community, which then goes,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: oh shoot that one of three profit margin. Last month,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: we may have made X number thousand dollars. Oh shoot,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: now we into this no commas, no, So we are
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: intentional about making sure that we are combating because inflation
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: is gonna come down. It may take a while, but
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: as of right now is one grocery store we are
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: already planning for when inflation comes down. Our money is
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: not based off of inflation, like the profit is not
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: based off of inflation. And so it's it's it's that tension.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: You got you fight. You gotta fight that. That that
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: tension for sure.
• 56:42
  Speaker 5: So let's talk about this food does it situation, because
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: like I said, actually when I was I used to
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: live in Baltimore. There's a live in a lot of places.
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: So I used to live in Baltimore. Notice with the
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: bag lunch maybe, yeah, I went to school in Baltimore,
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: so I did. It was called handles, Like I forgot
• 57:02
  Speaker 5: what an acronym stand for. But it was a research
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: and I had to go around and it was it
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: was an eye opening experience for me because you don't
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: think about it, like nobody ever thinks about stuff. You
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: just live. But then when you actually think about it,
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: and I'm going to all these different neighborhoods and I'm
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: going to the like bodegas and like taking inventory of
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: what they have in the bodegas. And I had to
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: go through this whole research project and that's the first
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: time that I really got educated on food deserts and
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: why there are food deserts and how dangerous it is
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: for food desert And so your name is oasis? Does
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: that have anything to do with a food desert? Because
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: an oasis obviously is a is a water in the
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: middle of a desert.
• 57:42
  Speaker 7: So is that place of refuge?
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: Ah? So so so so, how we even got the name.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: I was working I was still working at my my
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: my other job at the time, and I was in
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: a role with the city where I was helping them
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: to build it, like like design.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: This is like paper design. I'm not even structure.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: And I remember they were trying to find a name
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: and so I was in my home office one night
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: and this company had sent all these suggested names, and
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, man, these names is trash. I get halfway
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: through the list, like seventy seven names. I'm halfway through
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: the list. I'm tired. It's like eleven forty something. And
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: I remember to this day, I closed my laptop and
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: I said, man, if I was physically in the desert.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: What what I feel?
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, So if I was in the Sahara desert, I
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: would feel hot. Of course I would want water, I
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: would want food, I would want shade man. And we've
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: seen in movies people start going out of their minds,
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: so you see hallucinations. So I was like, man, if
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: I had started seeing hallucinations, what I see? And I
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: saw this picture of Hawaii. I've not been to Hawaii yet,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: but Oasis on your Leisure coming to Hawaii facts, and
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: so I remember saying I would if I had hallucinations,
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: I would see Hawaii. And I said Oasis. And I
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: remember open on my laptop and A googled Oasis. And
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: there's obviously various different ones, but each one of the
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: three different ones that I found, one had refuge uh,
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: one had sheltered, one has safe place. I said, that's it.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: North Tulsa Blacks haven't had a refuge. We haven't had
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: a safe place, and we haven't had a refuge. The
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: name is Oasis, where you can come to be seen,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: to feel safe, and to be her. And that's our
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: communities have gone through so much. I think about the
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: story of a single parent mom who a few weeks
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: ago her baby died in a fire. She came to
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: the grocery store. She has an eight year old daughter.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: She came to the grocery store because we have a
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: utilities and rent assistance program that somebody in her apartment
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: complex knew that she was behind on her bills and
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: said go to Oasis because they can help you pay
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: your bills. She came to Oasis. She got the information
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: the first time. My sister, who works on staff, talk
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: to her and say, hey, this is what's going on.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: She took the paperwork, she left. She came back the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: next day to get more information. My sister talked to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: her again. She breaks down and start not my sister.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: This woman breaks down and starts crying. And she said,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: when I came in yesterday, I was preparing to commit
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: suicide because my daughter died in the fire, and it's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: my fault. Everybody's blaming me. I have an eight year
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: old daughter who is severely handicapped. The pressure's too much.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure my bills were paid before,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: like what. So now we have a team that got
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: her connected to mental health services and got her the
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: help that she needs for her baby who's handicap and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: we're helping her to redo her apartment because her landlord
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: is a slum lord. So we're going to pay for
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: everything in her apartment, the walls to get redone floors
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: and all that, and we're gonna walk this course with you.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Does that take a lot of effort and energy. Absolutely,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: But in order to change the community, you got to
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: start with the one. And so at a grocery store,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: you help people that were gonna commit, not even knowing
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: that that was the case. But we just serving people.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: So it doesn't like and we hear stories like that
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: all the time, and I'm like, I can't stop like
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: the days that that's hard. It's grocery world is hard. People.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: Business is hard, and some days you're an adult babysitter,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: you the plumber, you're the electrician.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: You the architect, Like I tell.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: People, you don't want to be an entrepreneur. You don't
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: want that because you got a YouTube. Dang, I better
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: YouTube how to fix this toilet because I don't want
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: to call no plumber because it's gonna be on my
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be al this month and so one time
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: and Vlad has got recorded my toilet got stopped up.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: I'm no handyman. I don't know a dang thing. I
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: had to call somebody to help me put together my
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: baby crib when I had my first baby because I
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: didn't know. So I'm getting this thing. What's that thing
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: you put in a toll on you? What's called get
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: the snape? The poop explodes. I die for a second.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 7: I died, I.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: Screamed. The security guard is running to the bathroom because
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: she thinks something happened to me. Help me, I scream
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: because I'm like I'm dying.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: I'm dying.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: It's on me right now, like right now, helping me
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: literally literally like I die. I die. I became a
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: new man after a shower and so but those are
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: like people say, man, I want to I want to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: be an entrepreneur. You don't want that business. You don't,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: you don't. It's easier to work for someone else. Now
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: being on the other side, it's easier to work for
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: someone else. But I'll never go back because the freedom
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: that you have to be your own it's a game changer.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: And and even Steve Harvey and Tyler Perry talked about ownership.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Ownership is a game changer. I don't.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, let me ask you this. As far as
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: on that thing you employ, you said forty people forty
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: one people, So how how has that been.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: On the for profit and nine on the nonprofit?
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: Okay? How has that been? As far as employing people
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: in this store, I'm assuming a lot of young people.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe a lot of young people afternoon.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: Okay, so you got young people. How is it? How
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: is the more row? How has there been issues? Is
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: it difficult to manage that amount of people? Customer service jobs,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: you know, grocery store, that's that's something that you know,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: used to hands on experience, whether it's working in you know,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: the aisles or you know, checking people out, and it's
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: not an easy job. And it's not something that people
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 5: might not necessarily be too enthusiastic about, especially if they're young.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: They're kind of just doing it because it's like, you know,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 5: something to do for the summer. It's not like a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 5: career that they're going to do. So how has that
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: been for you?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: People are messy. This shit is hard, Like it is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: hard to be an owner and an adult babysitter. Like
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't know I was running a daycare because because
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: people can be catty. Okay, let's come together, come on,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: come on, come on. Look we're oasis. So we have
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: ten core values and so when there's a challenge, we
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: go back to a core value and we teach people.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: We call it HIT, honesty, integrity, transparency. So we train
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: our staff when you have a disagreement with someone, because
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: we know were gonna have disagreements, you're to frame the
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: conversation with hey, I need to have a HIT conversation
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: with you, so that disarms that you're supposed to be
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: disarmed to know that hey, I need to I'm a
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: little nervous, but I need to have this conversation with you.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: And even our staff managers we train them, hey, this
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: is how how we will handle situations. So we created
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: a a detailed step by step to take the thinking out.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: If you were to come to the grocery store. Right now,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: you would be able to go to page such and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: such for any issue, and it will tell you by
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: detail what you should say, how to communicate, how to
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: tie back to a core value, how you should position
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: your body language, all of that because we wanted to
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: take the thinking out of serving people so you can
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: focus on We're in a service industry base, so I
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: need you to be the best version of you. But
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: you live in a world back in your home where
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: your habits talk about the other staff. I don't know
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: what world you come from, so I have to retrain you.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't say I. Our culture is man. We want
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: to retrain you. You may have been taught to yell back
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: at somebody. No no, no, not at refuge, say play shelter.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Somebody goes to a ten, You want to go to
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: a twelve. No no, no, no, no, not an oasis.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: Because we're a refuge to say play shelter when people
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: walk in the doors. We want people to feel oasis.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: We train our staff everyone says welcome to oasis. You
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: come anytime in the day, that lead cashier and that
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: greeter is gonna say welcome to oasis. And how do
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: we do that. We pay better wages. Then there's a
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: there's a big gas chain Quick Trip UH in North
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Tulsa other than them. We pay our people better than
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: anyone else. And that was a decision we made, and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: that comes out of L four for my wife and
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: I like, if I want to be a regular owner,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: were gonna take you off the top first? No? No,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: We're gonna give to our community first. Because if I can,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: if I can influence you and pay you well, make
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: sure your family is good, then that what people don't
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: talk about is that intrinsic reward, that trust that we have. Man, girl,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: you better come work at Oasis. It's a good place
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: to be because I need, I need us to build
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: our own community. So if I, if we treat you well,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: my wife, and if we serve you well and make
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: sure that your personal needs are taken care of, you're
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: gonna be the greatest brand ambassadors for US m H.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: And that's the case.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: Like we have great employees, we have great staff morale.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: We have a team huddle every morning at nine thirty
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: where I say, everybody lift your left hand, lift you're right,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: and we clap it up and customers some customers come.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: They call it their oasis church. They said, man, I
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: come for AJ's fifteen minute church. This ain't no church.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: But they feel seen, safe and her. So it's a movement.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: I love it. I love it.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: So you said something important earlier. You said they can't
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: just be one. So let's talk about the vision going forward.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 6: Because there's plenty of food does this obviously in au Tulsa.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 6: But I mean it's a lot of communities people who
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: look like us experienced food does this.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: So what's the vision for scale.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: We right now?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Actually this morning, matter of fact, my leg is shaking
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: because I'm like, man, but I had an opportunity to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: take venture money early on in month three, and I
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: just I felt at the time, if y'all are coming
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: at me this early, there's something to this. Now. Mind
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: you all was taking no salary, and you get I
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: think we have two or three different offers at the
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: time with commas in that thing, and I'm thinking, oh, shoot, son,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: I need that money right there. And I studied a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: book called Venture Deals and learned the ins and outs,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: and I said, let me just push pause. If y'all
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: coming at me with this money right now, there's something
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: to this, and I.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: Don't know nothing about groceries. That's the crazy thing.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: I own grocery stores, but I really am not in
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: the way like I'm not a grocery expert. But we
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: have people on our team and consultants that are amongst
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: the best in the US that are advising and coaching us.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: And I'm grateful that we didn't at the time take
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: that venture money because we would have had to come
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: up with ways to get that back and we would
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: have to scale too fast. Well, now I can get
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: my systems right, get my culture right, and scale out
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: of pace. So right now we've been opened sixteen months,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: fifteen months, and we've already were in design for our
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: third store. We just bought a building on our second
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: one that's going to open spring of twenty twenty three.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: What I got all in Tulsa, All in Tulsa.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: You can have three stores in Tulsa, three.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: Stores in Tulsa, all in food deserts. Our mission is
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: to eradicate food desert. So what's to come. Earn your
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: leisure farms, earn your leisure foods, and we will go
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: into the black eighty percent of the food deserts.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: Fifty three point six million people live in food desert
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: in the US. Eighty percent of those are black and
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: brown communities.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: We all know every city y'all go to, you got
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: food deserts.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: This will be the model that will that that that
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: is in place to show people public private partnerships, for profit, nonprofit,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: wrap around services all under one umbrella is how you
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: change food deserts.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: So what's the future.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: We will be in as many food deserts in America
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: and beyond and we're going to do it together.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: Were you able to get grants for that one as
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: well for the other two?
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: Or yes, sir?
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 5: So that's that. So what's the grant. It's it's a
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 5: it's a grant from the state off from the federal government.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: So there's there's two different routes. So there's there's always
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: federal money. So right now President Biden is getting ready
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: to hold the first food desert conference in fifty years
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: at the White House. We I mean, by God's grace,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: we we we we'll be able to be at that
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: and have already started some literary conversations with their with
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: their office on what is it that we're doing and
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: how can they leverage that as the model, and so
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, as you pass bills, we're gonna do
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: this model with the money that y'all set aside. And
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: every state has an allocation of money, every county has
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: an allocation of money, but it's up to those decision
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: makers for how they spend that money. So that's why
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: relationships are key, because as we go into these different cities,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: everybody's got their own pot. Okay, we just gonna We're
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: gonna leverage that and create jobs, create sustainability, earn your leisure,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: food farms, agriculture.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: See, we keep coming back.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: You see there's a theme here, and all of a sudden,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: there's this massive ecosystem. As we grow, y'all are going
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: into places every week, every day just about where there.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: Is a lack of food access.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: And by the way, the nonprofit just bought a brand
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: new fifteen passenger van and we're gonna start going home
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: by home picking up people three times a week to
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: bring them to the grocery store those that don't have transportation.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: Who does that? Because it's about people. It's about serving people.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: So where they see a need and meet it, find
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: a hurt and heal it. Our communities are broken, but
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: we can heal our communities.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: I get rev up.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 5: Relationship is very important.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: I was gonna ask about Soulful Sundays.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: I keep seeing it Soulful Sundays at Oasis.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I watched the videos. I want you
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 6: to tell me what it's all about. It gets me
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: pumped up.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 7: Listen to it.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: So just you ain't watch no Soulful Sunday cos I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: wouldn't bring it up. So Soulful Sundays is a matter
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: of the heart for me and finding a way to
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: motivate that. It's so funny some customers say that they
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: shop on Sundays, but they wait until the Soulful Sunday's
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: posted because they say that's pastor aj people really say Oasis.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: As day church.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: I'm like, we ain't no church. But it's a movement,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: like you get like our our our pages aren't really
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: talking about buy two apples, get one free.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: You go to our Instagram or mine.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: It's it's the stories of people like so Soulful Sundays
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: is a motivational minute really and and it's and it's
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: the thought through sometimes it's not.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: It's what's the word in my heart, and.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: We look at the camera and we say, soulful Sunday's
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: at oasis.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: Let's see what was the last one? Oh, it was fertilizer.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: You know what, Every garden knees dirt. But but you
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: know what, every garden also needs fertilize. What's fertilizer? Fertilizer
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: is shit? Got him? Okay? But but we all want
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: to grow, right, You want to grow. I want to grow,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: but we don't want to go through the ship. But
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: the ship on a garden is necessary for growth in
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: your life.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 7: You will walk through shit.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: Keep growing. Soulful Sunday, you're seeing safe and heard? Why
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: on your leaves? Look at that whall man, even the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: camera man is about to take a lap around this thing.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: But it's about serving people.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: It's about serving people, and we are passionate about being
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: the answer to serve people. It's still tough, y'all. Better
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: come on, we're gonna change the work. We are changing
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: the world and it starts with us.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm glad you did that one because that's the
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 7: last one I watched.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Facts.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: Come on there, you have it all right. My last
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 5: question is, so what's the what's the ten year plan?
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 5: For this, is it gonna be in cities all across America?
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 5: How do you envision Oasis UH scaling You're already scaling locally,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: UH in your neighborhood in Oklahoma, TUSA. Where do you
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: see this going?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: Oasis hospitals, Oasis boys homes, Oasis girl those homes, Oasis manufacturing,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: Oasis logistics, Oasis schools, Oasis apparel, and all of this
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: is not about the Oasis brand. It's about connecting people.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: So Oasis is not is not just a grocery store.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: We have another model. We say we're more than just
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: groceries equipping you for life. We want to equip you
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: for life. How do I do that? How do we
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: do that? Food, medical, education, literacy training, workforce development, housing, transportation,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: e commerce, Oasis technology, Oasis media. And it's not that
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: it has to be the brand Oasis, But the next
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: two years, five years, ten years, a movement of teaching
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: boys and girls and kids and senior citizens and blacks
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: and whites and Asians and rich and poor about about
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: access to food and the importance of serving people. That's
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: the next one to ten years and beyond, not just
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: in Oklahoma, but in food deserts across America.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, very powerful ASA.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 5: Thank you, brother Johnson. We gotta pass operate. We gotta
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 5: collaborate on a few different things, for sure. But I'm
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: definitely interested in that farm idea.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: Let's go Aren't your Leisure Food LLC. It'll be up
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: in a few weeks. Oh you know what I want
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: to do though? Straight up today, the vegan lady that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: was on.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: The Stageldy Vegan Slutty Vegan put.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: Yo, when I was in the audience listening to her
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: at invest Fest, I said, the month of October, we're
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: gonna do a thirty day AJ gonna go vegan for
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: thirty days, all products, detergents, food. And I had that
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: idea sitting in the audience, and I mean, I don't
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: know how I'm gonna do it, but I basically told
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: my team, I said, let's see, let's send her a
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: message to see if she can just send us because
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: you know, dudes, deodorant. I'm i gonna go to gym
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: smell like a dang onion and you know. But but
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: we're gonna and we're gonna document everything to show people, Hey,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: here are the options of healthy living.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: Guess what I'm the I'll show you. I'll do it.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna submit. I love me some chicken, but
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna submit to be a vegan and we'll document
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: it and show our our audience. Hey, these are options,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: and we'll show you the budget. So people are like, oh,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: well you can you can do that because you got
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: no I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna live like a vegan,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: full blown vegan like you was going to the school
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: with my foil at work, and we're gonna teach people
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: and show them.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: So tell us slut vegan.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: We she need to post more content so we can
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: because I'm trying to figure out how to and I'm nervous.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: To be honest, I'm gonna be a vegan for thirty days.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but I'm gonna show people so that
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: way people know there is a there is a different way.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, a healthier way. Very important. I think it's
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 5: not that difficult. It's like you said, it becomes difficult
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 5: when you start getting to the technicalities of it, like
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: the deodorant two pace yeah.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, shamboo yeah. But we're gonna We're
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: gonna do it.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 7: We're gonna figure it out.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: Leaves your foods coming farms. A they just bought the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: LLC right now, yep, that that you just have tell
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Steve Harvey you look, he goes, that's your next investment
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: right there.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 5: Get it. Get a tractor like Rick Ross.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: He he got a tractor.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got a couple of them.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: But he's he have a farm.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: He has animals that he's just got a couple of cows.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 5: You got chickens. So he's developing a farm on on livestock.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: He got like one hundred and eighty acre or something
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 5: like that. So he's developing.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: And if he could supply his own chicken for all
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: his wingstops, that's a that's a game changer.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: There you go, what limon pepper wings.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: With the soda on the side. In abundance, there is abundance.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing Black people we got to understand.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: There is abundance in the world. Gay but there is
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: abundance someone else winning doesn't mean that you lose.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: Black people.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: We have to not self destruct like we we the
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: power that lies within us as a community. There is there,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: there should be. There is now a new Black Wall
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: Street evolving, and not just in tuls A. Black Wall
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: Street is not a physical location. Black Wall Street is
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: a mindset of excellence, of health, of options, of education,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: and and we we must recreate that together. And now
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: is that and we're doing it. It's already happening.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 3: E wilde.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: Do y'all have like it just hit me, like on
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: your different platforms, on your website, do you have like, hey,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: this is housing, this is food, like all of the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: people that you know in your your influence world that reference.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no we don't, but it's a good idea
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 5: we get from kind of organized it like that.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: It just popped in my head, like y'all people go
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: to y'all, Like I was telling I was telling Troy,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't sell my rental property because I saw like
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: I needed money. I didn't sell my rental property because
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: y'all posted something one morning. You know, you do your thing,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: you got the thing in the back, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: yeah yeah. I didn't sell my rental property because I
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: saw a one minute nugget and I was like, dang,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: and I actually needed that. I was telling him, I
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: thought I needed that. That's collateral the money from my
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: second store ended up getting the grant and didn't even
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: need the bank and didn't and I still got my
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: rental property, but I almost sold it.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 7: Power information You never know.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: Y'all are a reference point. Y'all are a university, a
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: global university.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, eyol university, much higher learning. Appreciate you, brother, Thank
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 5: you for the energy, man, Thank you for the energy. Informational,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 5: definitely transformative situation and very important too, because like I said,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 5: we're talking about money, and money is important, but finances
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 5: is only as good as your health. So health is
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 5: wealth and you have to be able to even be
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: healthy to enjoy your finances. So health is extremely extremely important,
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 5: something that we all should take serious and what we
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: put in our bodies is ultimately probably the most important thing.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 5: So yeah, thank you, keep up the great work.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 7: Thank you for your vision. Thank you for your passion.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 6: Man, Come on, yeah, man, some important right, Like you
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 6: were giving a vision and it was you walked into
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 6: the footsteps that were left you. That's the most important thing.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 6: Like the bill has been passed, like you said, but
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: it was waiting for you to come do it. So
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 6: we appreciate you all for everything you're doing.
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: It's important, vast fast October London, be there.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 5: Halloween.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: Were great for honor to be with you. Guys.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your work, Thank you for your consistency,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: your dedication, because it is impacting North Tulsa residents that
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: you may never meet, that you may never know, but
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: your information as it impacts me and I literally walk
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: that out. It impacts District one in North Tulsa.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you. Busen Troy how uh yeah.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 6: Man, Shout to everybody on Aerial Lusia University, all our
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 6: earners everywhere, worldwide.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 7: Global.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 6: Like you said, it's not an American thing, it's a
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 6: global thing. So shout there all our earners. Shout to
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 6: all the people behind the scenes that are making the
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 6: trend go. Man, we appreciate everybody. Shout everybody that's supporting
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 6: the merg We love y'all as well. And again, man,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 6: thank you AJ for coming and blessing us. This is
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 6: this was an important episode. It was it was a
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 6: good one. So we thank you for all the work
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 6: you're doing and for everything that everybody's doing in Tulsa. Right,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 6: like you said, it's not a physical place, it's a
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 6: mindset and so that mission, that vision, that passion for
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 6: economic freedom, lives to us and we all got to
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 6: roll to play.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 7: So shout everybody that to on that part.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 5: Thank you got rocking on to see you next week.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: Peace, peace, my graduates from my school being forced bad
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 4: drop bag drop my drop bad drop back drop.
• 1:23:29
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