Latest / Black Fridays: Business Growth for Entrepreneurs, Creators & Professionals / Detroit Nonprofit Founder Turned Waste Into Community Impact - Ep. 190 w/ Eradajere Oleita

Transcript

Detroit Nonprofit Founder Turned Waste Into Community Impact - Ep. 190 w/ Eradajere Oleita · Black Fridays: Business Growth for Entrepreneurs, Creators & Professionals

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I invented this sleeping bag out of chip bags, but one of the biggest hassles and hurdles for me, I don't eat chips.
0:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like chips.
0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
0:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
0:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I was able to make my first sleeping bag and I gave that out, tested it out.
0:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And from there, I gave it to someone who was on how to see so many people who are on how to sleep and outside every single winter.
0:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Like roughly, I think, 1,300 at that time.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to dream the impossible, build the impossible around it.
0:51
[SPEAKER_00]: work in professionals, creators, entrepreneurs, I need you out of tap the enter.
0:55
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1:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Now let's go ahead and get back into the episode.
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: With up build Black Friday family, welcome back to another installment of Black Friday's podcast.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into today's episode, need you to hit the like button, subscribe, drop a comment, send some videos to family friends and loved ones so that we keep this thing going.
1:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that I got that out of the way, we have a very special guest in the building.
1:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody who is not only a humanitarian,
1:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also being able to, actually, I'm sorry, not only making the world a better place and more sustainable, but it's also a phenomenal humanitarian and person overall misarrata.
2:06
[SPEAKER_00]: How you doing today?
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, what up, the fam man?
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
2:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything and everything.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything and nothing at the same time?
2:12
[SPEAKER_02]: No, everything and everything.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything and everything.
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is a lot as ever.
2:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything is great.
2:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think everything is...
2:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to get super philosophical, but everything is everything.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll keep it like that.
2:24
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: How's your team?
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, great for the how you're on the podcast.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got a chance to meet through our connection through Change Collective.
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, shout out to Change Collective.
2:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Shout out to Change Collective.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: 2020, 6th, fellow.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, remember.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost out the finish line.
2:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Almost.
2:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So we excited about it.
2:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
2:42
[SPEAKER_00]: By my fact, when this comes out, we may be, we may have completed it.
2:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it might be like the day before our last day.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so great for the half the connection, but I actually been following the tipback project for years and like your story for a couple of years and I had no idea didn't put the person to, I was talking to you in a change collective and then when I found out about what you did, I'm like, oh, I'm like, that's the same person who been doing this don't work in the city for so long.
3:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so happy.
3:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love the podcast listening to episodes, love all the guests you've had thus far.
3:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like, oh my god, I feel so honored that you have me here.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
3:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing a very important work.
3:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the Chip Bad Project and what you do as far as your philanthropy in that regard, I want to be able to start root the story in your duality of being from the motherland, from Nigeria, and then also being a di-hard Detroit girlie.
3:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to first root the story in
3:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell us what it was like because I believe I heard that you came for a group in Nigeria until about the age of 13 and then came over to the states, what was that upbringing like living in Nigeria and having that firm foundation before you came over to the states, and when you got to the states, what did Detroit immediately or Michigan or did you kind of move around before you landed in the city?
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, first love that, you know, I love when people do research.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah, I'm boring in Lake US Nigeria.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, I feel, I tell people all the time I'm a neat Nigerian detrator.
4:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, one because I'm Nigerian, first time I'm boring.
4:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Nigeria is one of those countries that,
4:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It not only shapes you, but it shapes the way you think the way you look at the world, like your hustle, your drive, and then in Detroit, Detroit is like one of those places that you have to go out and get it like you have to, I say Detroit, everyone's a celebrity, you know, like it's just kind of like one of those cities that reminds you that you are special and being Nigerian, especially within the self because one where the largest group of black people in the entire world,
4:48
[SPEAKER_02]: and also like we are in every single continent in the entire world and we have so much hustle we have so much drive and when I came to Detroit that's exactly what I saw and I feel the most at home when I'm in the city.
5:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I moved to America when I was 13 I first lived in New York and from New York I moved to Texas and Houston Texas to be specific and then from there I found my way to Detroit and I've been here.
5:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's going on
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
5:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry.
5:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, my parents not me.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and then from there, I went to Wayne State and I've been in the city since 2014.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm truly living here.
5:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I've lived in every single part of the city.
5:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've moved from downtown to the east side, you know, shout out to Reson, Connor and Grashit.
5:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you can't even me like, really, really, really.
5:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, really, really in the city.
5:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I moved to the west side of
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a cool craft in the way.
5:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Grigfield.
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my hood.
5:49
[SPEAKER_02]: You're for your kids.
5:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You can always say, I try, I try to tell people that much is possible.
5:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I wasn't, you know, too, too, too, too, too, too, through with how I wanted to live in the city.
5:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I really want to see experience what the city is.
5:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be able to say it, I'm a deterreder is something that I didn't want to say passively.
6:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say, I actually lived worked within the city grounds, too, as well.
6:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been here.
6:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it here.
6:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm always getting called to leave the city, but there's something about this place that is deeply rooted into who I am as a person and again, I feel the most connected to who I am Deep down inside in Detroit and I've had the pleasure of going back to Nigeria living there for about a year and I was like, okay, this is amazing.
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: This is great, but you know, I mean, I wear the buff sack like you really like the colony like
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's really, really interesting to go back home as an adult and see what that experience was like being around those people, eating the food here in the music.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: If you ever have the ability, the privilege, and there's a privilege to be able to go to Nigeria and experience Lagus nightlife and experience Lagus daylight.
7:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's fire.
7:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, baby.
7:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just say it was a night, me and my friend took me to a random wedding and from the wedding we went to a party.
7:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like three o'clock and we're going to another party and it's like five a.m. We're going to another, and I'm like, we're leaving the club.
7:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Why people were just coming in at seven o'clock in the morning.
7:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like, so...
7:23
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't got jobs.
7:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't got things when to do.
7:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, cool.
7:26
[SPEAKER_02]: The party goes on.
7:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's one of those cities.
7:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very, it's very busy.
7:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
7:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's busy in a way that is deeply rooted in joy and it's deeply rooted in self identity and self actualization and hustle and grind.
7:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you come to Detroit.
7:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You see the same thing whether it's people hustling on the sidewalks or you know, you see aren't every single place You see people just being able to connect with them food culture fashion like this city in Nigeria or Not opposite and whatsoever.
8:02
[SPEAKER_02]: They are so deeply connected in ways that I won't think it a lot of people even know That's dope.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: That's dope.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you and
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to see if I could make a bridge in a correlation of what I'm going to ask you next.
8:15
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm going to ask that question first.
8:17
[SPEAKER_00]: In terms of, so your work went in humanitarian through the Chipback project.
8:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And if I'm correct, start it in the pandemic.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We're using side and you weren't trying to go outside because I grew up with asthma.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You still have still do with asthma.
8:32
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, you have asthma.
8:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So you weren't trying to be mixling and mingling.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's when the inception of the,
8:40
[SPEAKER_00]: organization started, but could you tell us more about the Chebeck project and how you're out here better in the world?
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Chebeck project started because I used to be part of a AmeriCorps which is a national service organization and with a AmeriCorps I was placed in an organization called EcoWorks Youth Energy Squad where I was able to start green schools within different school programs in Detroit.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: and within the green school program one of the things that we always wanted to do is place-based education so making sure that we are doing civic action based on the environment that we're currently in not the environment that we want to be in.
9:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things that I always didn't my school was
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We did equal work, so where we were figure I will walk maybe like a mile around the school and figure out what are the environmental hazards and issues that are happening within this specific neighborhood and how could we create a project with these young people that directly correlates and addresses these projects.
9:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that we always worked with was plastic.
9:40
[SPEAKER_02]: and every single school it never fails.
9:43
[SPEAKER_02]: My students would be like, Mr. Rada, like we don't all this thing with plastic waste, what are we going to do with the trip bags?
9:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I used to be like, hey, when I was a kid, we used to make rings out of them and wallets out of them.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, let's, you know, do something crafting.
9:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember when the pandemic hit and I decided to leave that organization because doing the work virtually just, it wasn't connecting for me and it was feeling very draining.
10:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I sat down and I asked God and I was like, I don't want to, I want to do something.
10:13
[SPEAKER_02]: My birthday is coming up and about to be 25.
10:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do something that feels
10:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Not just like me, but I want to feel something that moves people in the way that feels authentic to who they are.
10:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do something that bridges through all economic backgrounds, racial backgrounds, everything I want a connector.
10:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And I promise you, me and God have a very tight connection.
10:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm very, very faith-based and everything that I do.
10:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, probably like a day or two later, I was scrolling, you know, as we were doing the paper, I was just scrolling there from.
10:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And I saw this woman, I can't remember her name, but she was in England, and she was making blankets out of crisp packets, which are our chip bags in England.
11:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, yo, that is dope.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, she didn't really show how she was doing, but I'm like, yo, I gotta figure that out, but being the place-based educator, now how do I take that blanket and make it into something that's very applicable to the environment that I'm currently living in, right?
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And Detroit, we know that I guess very cold is very wet.
11:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, we see so many people who are on house that are asleep, but now aside, every single winter.
11:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, roughly, I think, 1,300 at that time.
11:29
[SPEAKER_02]: and the pandemic even made it worse right.
11:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So I invented this sleeping bag out of chip bags, but the one of the biggest hassles and hurdles for me, I don't eat chips.
11:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like chips.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
11:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
11:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I look.
11:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So you ain't open in a bag of better mates is what you're trying to tell me.
11:49
[SPEAKER_02]: What I'm telling you is you couldn't pay me to eat chips.
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's just not your thing.
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it something that what's your thing you gave it up with?
11:56
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's never been my thing.
11:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't like snacks for like now.
12:00
[SPEAKER_02]: What you can't get me in is I'm a plantain addict.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go on my Instagram, I got a tattoo of plantains.
12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I can do a plantain chip anytime, any day, anywhere.
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
12:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but I didn't eat chips at all.
12:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, and so I put out a call on Instagram and Facebook.
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I'm a Facebook person.
12:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Hell, the guys.
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to do this project that really need your shit bags.
12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I put it up one day.
12:25
[SPEAKER_02]: People were like, hey, I got chips for you.
12:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I got chips to you.
12:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I put my number out there.
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Wrong idea.
12:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and people started calling me and somebody was like, hey, I just bought a sandwich shop.
12:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I walked into the sand with shopping is all these bags of chips.
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all like expired and I want to throw them away, but I would love to donate it to your project.
12:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's how I was able to get my first 1500 bags.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds like okay, but we got it.
12:50
[SPEAKER_02]: We got our let's start figuring out how to make this this sleeping bag again.
12:57
[SPEAKER_02]: No clue on how to do it.
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't really show instructions.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, okay, it's gonna be a lot of experimenting.
13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's figure it out.
13:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I called my best friend shout out to Uncle Tay.
13:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And every time I have an idea, this little minus segue, I call a Tay.
13:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Tay is the person that I know that.
13:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't really matter when what he's doing if I got an idea best friend is on it.
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You should shout to Ted.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: You know shout out to Ted.
13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So take pulled up my friend at the time, bring in, pulled up to and they were like, okay, let's listen.
13:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you tapped in with the whole again.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you feel me.
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's my family.
13:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like locked in locked in and so everybody put you know pulled up and we start opening all these bags of chips.
13:36
[SPEAKER_02]: My house smelled like
13:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And we opened them up.
13:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, okay, so what do I do next?
13:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Have to wash them.
13:43
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you wash them?
13:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, non-degrees are soap.
13:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So we start the process of washing it.
13:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I had to now figure out how do you melt this?
13:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Or how do you bind this to make it into first the blanket?
13:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And then how do we now make this blanket into a sleeping bag?
13:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It took me a couple of weeks, but within that week's channel five came to my house, CNN reached out to me.
14:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We had all these people reaching out to me.
14:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to make an Instagram.
14:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to get a PO box because I put my house address out there.
14:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So I just have people sending me random things.
14:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So in the process of me trying to figure out how to make a sleeping bag, I was also receiving so many ship bags that it just became a movement during the pandemic.
14:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So many people around the world wanted to give back in the way.
14:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was something that everybody was saying now eating.
14:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, you all eating chips.
14:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like, it was a very easy ask.
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: To tell people, hey, bring this over to me, I'm going to have several drop off locations and I think before the end of December, which my birthday is December 29, so it was like a birthday present to the city, I was able to make my first sleeping bag and I give that out.
14:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I gave it to someone.
14:53
[SPEAKER_02]: First, I tried it out myself in very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, cold and snowy weather, tested it out, and from there, I gave it to someone who was on how to, you know, me and him kept connections, it gave him a number of my hate, tested it out for me.
15:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me know what you think, give me your ideas, let me know what's going on, and from there, we've been able to change the sleeping bag at least three times thus far, based off of trial and error and giving it out to people who haven't tested out and letting you know what they think about it, what they want me to fix.
15:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And are you like, what's the process to develop in these bags?
15:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like are you in the lab with the sewing machine?
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm in the lab cooking it up.
15:34
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so you got to think about it.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you touch a chip bag, that print in layer is plastic.
15:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And the best way to fuse plastic together is to melt it.
15:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So we literally just melt a bunch of chipbacks to get it to make one giant sheet.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And from there, we combine it.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we combine it.
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: We put them trying to give all my secrets away.
15:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's okay.
15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I post all of this on Instagram.
15:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we, um, we worked with a couple of companies that gave us insulation for the insights and making it cushions.
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And then from there.
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So our sleeping bag is 100% sustainable made from recycled material down to our insulation, down to the take that we use everything.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's upcycling what they call it, right?
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Upcycling.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the term fire.
16:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: foundation that you had growing up in Nigeria and even when you landed in Michigan and playing at your flag here, how did that shape you to develop what the trip back project became to be?
16:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like were you always someone looking to get back it seems like it based on what you said about given out or looking to be able to find a way to get back for your birthday and having that be in the tradition for you, but even prior to that growing up was that something that was
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: a part of like your family make up or your community.
16:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think for me, I grew up very privileged is how I would describe a privilege for Nigerian standards.
16:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And my parents have always been people who just, like my parents have the biggest heart.
17:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never met people like them in my entire life and I pray to be just half the people that they are, because they've just opened our home to so many different people in, I've been able to, since my birthday is so close to Christmas,
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: who just makes so much food.
17:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And my mom would be like, okay, go give this, give this out to, you know, that person outside, go give this out to this person, give this out.
17:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So on my birthday, it would just be like, it is a tradition in Nigeria is like, when you have a party, you don't send out invitations, anyone that sees the party is just supposed to come right.
17:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the culture that I've grown up with where it all is welcome.
17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: and you are supposed to create and provide for any and everyone, a blasphemy, a Nigerian culture is running out of food, right?
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And running out of things to give people running out of space for them to be in.
17:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So we always, you will budget for, you will budget for a thousand, knowing that maybe you have 20 people in your family, but you know that once one person tells one person, one person tells one person, so I've grown up in that kind of a culture.
18:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I came to America,
18:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I had this idea and this mentality that this was a land of milk and honey.
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I would see no poverty.
18:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I would see no suffering when I came to this country.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: So imagine me coming out from the guardier airport and being hit.
18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: with one the craziest smell who I don't get started on that smell was was going crazy okay and then also just my uncle driving this around and I'm seeing home like people who are on house outside yeah blew my mind I I felt like my whole work like and I told my mom I was like
18:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is that person sitting there?
18:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is that, my mom was like, oh, my mom was, I don't know, my mom was confused, my mom was again.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: These, these people are, he used the word homeless, and I, I try not to use that language too because before I even,
19:07
[SPEAKER_02]: words have power, right, and when we blanket people who are going through economic situations like that, that doesn't provide them with the adequate need that they actually have.
19:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So I long, even though it's a long word, I say nomadic or displaced, like most of the time, because you have people who are choosing to be outside and you have people who are displaced from their original home, right.
19:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So my uncle was like, yeah, these people are homeless.
19:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, in America.
19:35
[SPEAKER_02]: in America, and when I lived in Houston, I lived through Hurricane Katrina when so many people were coming from New Orleans to live in Houston, and we had so many people in our school that didn't have clothes, that didn't have food, didn't have anything.
19:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember my teacher used to be like, if you guys have any extra clothes, any extra things, and now I was telling you earlier, I love I love clothes.
20:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So I used to just bring all my clothes, like clothes or tags on, whatever.
20:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've always been this kind of person that feels, I won't say the word is guilt, but I feel this burden of sharing what I have.
20:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I feel it as a responsibility of being a human being is to do as much as I can to help my next fellow man regardless of the inconvenience of it.
20:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's just how I've always grown up in every year from my birthday.
20:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it's me going outside in the middle of the night and passing out food buying hotels for people.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Paying a lot of people school fees back home.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Making sure that I'm always of service because what I don't give God will take away.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That's love right there.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to take a pause and action to introduce my favorite part of Black Friday, which is freestyle Friday.
20:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got an audience here, shout out to my interns, Farron, and Jasmine, that's helping us out today.
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So since we got an audience, you might as well just give us some bars.
21:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You might as well start for us, yeah, just give me, just start wrapping, how have you been able to take four, six, eight, whatever you get.
21:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a free style.
21:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so I'm a poet, I would do poetry.
21:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, if you got a poem, I got a poem.
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll do my intro.
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So my name is Eradad, Nadiradic, Nadiradic, please do not over-sexualize in which your words are not the object of your affection.
21:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a queen, no crown either when I walk in a room or I stop and stare because I have that winged glow, that cool shine.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome to a little piece about more.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Make safe coming soon.
21:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You really mean me.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm poor.
21:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You make state drop.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not saying.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You mean me.
21:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Drop in December.
21:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not saying.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you for that.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for sharing some poetry with us.
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you don't mind, I'll just ask you a few questions, wrap it up for your questions.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Since you gave us some of your artistry.
22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's get it.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So first I got to ask you.
22:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What would you say is most Nigerian thing about you?
22:07
[SPEAKER_02]: everything.
22:09
[SPEAKER_02]: The way I talk, my mannerisms, the way I cook, yeah, I throw it down.
22:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, I throw it down.
22:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And also music.
22:21
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
22:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
22:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Put us up on who would you say is your top three?
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: that I listen to.
22:31
[SPEAKER_00]: That's your listen to.
22:32
[SPEAKER_02]: My number one is always going to be at a collage old.
22:39
[SPEAKER_02]: If you listen to any, I always talk about him.
22:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think he's a phenomenal just musicality.
22:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he's just amazing.
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, at a cool day, go to my number one.
22:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I love my piano music.
22:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Despite the the issues right now happening South Africa with Nigerians, I'm still a huge fan of my piano music.
23:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I love it.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: TNC is a great introduction to it, but also like very, I have a piano playlist on Apple Music, I'm a piano to the world if you want to listen to it.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, I think close to like a hundred plus hours of straight, I'm a piano music.
23:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, wait to my soul, wait to my heart.
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And third, because, let me see, this is actually very hard.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I'll say at a clay's wife, Simey, Simey is amazing.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Simey's voice is, and then I also love Bella, like Bella is very old school Afro beat.
23:47
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a difference between Afro beats and Afro beat.
23:49
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a father of Afro beat, and his music is arts shaking.
23:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So you gave me some new people to tap away for a new sound.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
24:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm missing, I'm missing.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm thinking I'm doing something.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Listening to Burner Boyd.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's the intro.
24:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Burner Boyd is cool.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't get me wrong.
24:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Glove Burner Boyd.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just the testers.
24:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the testers.
24:11
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, if you want to want to get into it, it's like someone says, um, I want to listen to, you know, real Detroit music and the first thing you say, skillet baby.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, yes, still.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But he'd probably become more commercial.
24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You get what I'm saying.
24:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a different.
24:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I will always go, you know, Don't worry, cash out.
24:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to listen good, you know.
24:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
24:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
24:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of like that.
24:37
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I kind of describe how Afro beats is right now.
24:40
[SPEAKER_00]: for show.
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And then family, friends, community, back home in Nigeria or Lagos, they come to Detroit.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You got 24 hours to show them around getting them 40, 30 experience, what you're doing with her.
24:51
[SPEAKER_02]: First thing we're doing, I take everyone at Bellau.
24:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, got to do Bellau for at least like an hour.
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, either we're right in our bike, we're walking around.
25:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm showing you Bellau.
25:02
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the first thing.
25:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I really love Bible fair.
25:11
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of my favorite places.
25:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to Mamba and Adia.
25:17
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of my favorite places in the city.
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I tell you, me and my wife go there, like, religiously.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Three times a month, yeah, like we, yeah.
25:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my family, like love them down.
25:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Cannot wait for the new location.
25:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Coming at Easter Market very soon.
25:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And, um, next up, we'll definitely go to deliver noise going to fashion district, got to see history there, then we'll, depending on if my family's real bougie, right, we'll come downtown, we'll do some stake restaurants, you know, the new little free free ones, yeah.
25:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, if they really want to experience um something they've never experienced before, I'll take him to a county, I'm not going to tell you which one because I'm not getting into it.
25:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not getting out of the fuse.
25:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's humor us.
26:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot humor because I'm going to be doing it myself.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, because once I'm I said, um, I like El George, right?
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
26:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the thing, I thought they all was the same too, because I got to the one on Twin Miffy Evergreen.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
26:22
[SPEAKER_00]: People like know you got to go on six miles.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to six miles.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to relax.
26:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Six miles.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Coney.
26:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Coney.
26:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Like to me, not all Coney's are made alike, but you feel me like, you know, I'm still going to the math to work so hard.
26:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You can really don't matter to me personally, but please please don't come for me.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And then after that, we'll definitely, let's see what else.
26:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I like Northern Lights right now is making a resurgence coming back.
26:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll also take them to Motown so they can see that because that's the best piece of history.
27:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll also go to Art is Village on the west side because that's to me is another piece of history that is not talked about enough in the city and then I will just do like a nice tour shopping wise.
27:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, how to hit up the lip bar, love the lip bar, um, because, you know, make up in what's not.
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I'm trying to think, I'm trying to hold again studio because, you know, my feet push out as a telling each other, oh, no.
27:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And, trying to think what else, huh, oh, we're going to revoke.
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, yeah, you know.
27:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I do like all the little quintessential things that I feel like very touristy, um, and
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I want Detroit to have better nightlife.
27:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That is one of my dreams.
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to new dawn.
27:52
[SPEAKER_02]: There, you know, young boys just started up doing really great things in my life.
27:58
[SPEAKER_02]: But we need more nightlife in the city like it's...
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's missing.
28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And for different, different brackets, like a word you had and like what you're trying to do.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know what I'm saying?
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So definitely like, we need more nightlife in the city even though, you know, Jesus is my Lord of Saviour and I stay in the church.
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I stay in my church, honestly, all the time, I still do believe that dualities necessary.
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And we do need to have spaces where people can just experience joy unhebited.
28:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: or you can dance till 2 o'clock in the morning through talking the morning and you can feel dance and not dance like no one's watching because you'll sweat coming down your body like jidden is great.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Detroit house music but having more spaces to be able to experience that in this city is definitely needed.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Down the percent.
29:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And last but not least, I got to get the coney order.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: What's coney order?
29:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely come in, chilly cheese fries, um, sliced, not squeezed, there you go.
29:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just me, um, with a chilly cheese dog.
29:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, now, I'm very, I love me a county breakfast.
29:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so now my breakfast order, talk to you.
29:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing French toast.
29:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You feel me?
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I was asked the French toast, I went to butter melted.
29:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the butter they put on down and actually melted on the French toast.
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: With the syrup, when we went up a little bit, so it was a little warm.
29:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I won my eggs.
29:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I won my, I am a sunny side up girl, but for Coney, I definitely won my eggs scrambled, soft with a little bit of cheese, you know, sliced cheese, sliced American.
29:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And then give me some wheat toast, put some hash browns in that bad boy.
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: good to go.
29:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know I'm good.
29:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm straight in it.
29:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Some sausages.
30:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm straight.
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The county breakfast is undefeated undefeated undefeated.
30:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm undefeated.
30:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Your stomach's gonna be defeated.
30:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
30:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's undefeated.
30:09
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where you get to where you need to go.
30:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
30:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for partaking the freestyle Friday.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where you definitely appreciate it.
30:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now I wanted to get back into your journey in terms of the chip back project and how you are not only
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: being able to like provide a physical solution to a larger scale problem but being able to do it in your own way.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to be able to understand at the founder of a organization of such magnitude to been doing it for is it six years this year.
30:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, no, oh yeah, it's going to be six years this year.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, doing it for six years, I'm curious as to what your journey has been like along the way, because when I was listening to the story about Chip, I probably started in a pandemic.
30:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I think about parallel it to my own journey, this podcast started in a pandemic and this ground live and is growing into like what it is now and us being able to have the conversation right now.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So love to hear like what has been your pathway since starting that journey and the things that you've learned along the way.
31:11
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things which hit back project, it's a story of resilience and growth and it's also a story of immense confusion.
31:22
[SPEAKER_02]: When we started in a pandemic, we started with a goal of only existing for six months.
31:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, okay, we're going to do this for six months.
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: where six years in.
31:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was something that in from inception, if I knew that I wanted to grow larger, there were so many things that I would have done differently in the beginning.
31:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And there were so many structural things I would have done in the beginning that I wish, you know, could have would have, could have what I should have, that's the thing.
32:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, but we start off in the pandemic with this goal of only existing and then I think six months and two of it.
32:07
[SPEAKER_02]: We had a million pounds collected from all around the world, so we collect as far as Singapore.
32:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did not for the life of me think it would be this.
32:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's the story for so many people who are founders who have something that's very special.
32:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Like chin back project is you never planned for the success, but you also never planned for the things that you never planned for.
32:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And
32:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not know what I needed to do structurally to make this a sustainable venture for myself.
32:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm very honest with you by project is like right now, where I would say barely in operation one because I've had to take off the last year to just stop everything in restructure.
32:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when I realized, at first, we got our nonprofit status last year, shout out to Jared Epps, which is now my co-director.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We got out our thing last year, did not realize that I needed to become a nonprofit.
33:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It didn't really want to be a nonprofit.
33:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I don't want the ties of that, right?
33:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But it was a very intentional thing to become a nonprofit, because I realized that if I was to become a for-profit, the goal of one day eradicating chibbacks from existing in the capacity they're existing,
33:27
[SPEAKER_02]: would never be accomplished, because so much of our existence, our livelihood would be tied to this product, right?
33:35
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that I realize with a lot of people who started non-profits is that they are
33:42
[SPEAKER_02]: There's whole existence is so tied to the problem that the solution keeps running away from them.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you are in this space where you are running away from the solution, but saying in screaming us up over here that you're finding the solution, you become a contradiction in yourself.
33:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've never wanted to be a contradiction.
34:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we started, we started with this goal.
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to a million pounds.
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, I was like,
34:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what you want me to do with this, but I need direction and that was about year two because we were just going, I was doing interviews, I have so many interviews so many documentaries, so many awards that I started to have an ego complex, right?
34:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, I'm like, I'm that girl, like, what, I invented something, you know,
34:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I remember, I was like, hey, I got no money, I'm, I'm self-funding this.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, this is literally all me, right?
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And I did not realize that I was creating a monster with the self, not for the organization of myself, because I thought I knew it all.
34:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I was like, cause I invented this thing, I was the only person who can run it.
34:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember when God humbled me in a way that,
35:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still painful to talk about and I had to sit down and say my ego was killing my organization and that was a year three and in year three I sat down with my friend Jared and I was like, Jared, I'm begging you.
35:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I need you.
35:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I know you have never done this before.
35:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You're an engineer.
35:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You're you're you've never done this world before, but for some reason every single time I pray, you're facing your name keeps coming up.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know how I'm supposed to have you be part of us by need you here, because I'm killing this.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And when he joined Shib back project, we were now about close to 2 million pounds collected.
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you do with 2 million pounds is one person?
35:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if you've ever touched a chip back before, it's light as a feather.
35:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So imagine what 2 million pounds weightwise looks like.
35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And feels like, right?
35:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I was surrounded and chip bags again as a person.
36:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I would probably never eat chips again because of this thing, right?
36:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You can even try it to get me to do it because I'm like a scar, I almost, right?
36:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And when Jerry came in, I was like, you have one go, I just need you for one go.
36:14
[SPEAKER_02]: get all these chip bags out of here like we got to figure out what to do with it and a trash cannot be part of that like we have to figure out what is the process of that year five and a half now this month is where we're actually finally figured out what to do with our chip bags which
36:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Who can also do other things because what what I was scared of was like am I gonna be a liar like I told people I'm like collecting these trip bags that makes sleeping back.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They interested me while this stuff I don't want to sell it off.
36:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to like throw the way god of my like losing my mission and then I remember Claire is there I was in Nigeria when this happened to me
36:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I'm like, God, I'm losing it.
36:58
[SPEAKER_02]: God was like, oh, you lost it when you lost yourself.
37:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really, really clear, right?
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had been applying for this program with the state of Michigan for about three years.
37:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kept on getting denied.
37:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, to God, I was like, okay, if you remove everything in my path right now that is stopping me from being who I'm supposed to be.
37:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I will give you everything.
37:24
[SPEAKER_02]: All of me.
37:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Literally lost everything, the next day.
37:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Money, everything.
37:29
[SPEAKER_02]: But I got into that program.
37:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They called me personally, I was Nigerian.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I was screaming in the middle of the night, I was like, okay.
37:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Look my God, this is all great God, let's just do it.
37:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got into this program, and me and Jared got into the program, that's a fly up from Nigeria and come back to America to do this.
37:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where we are right now, where we have figured out how to make a business out of this, but make a business out of it and still keep it as a nonprofit.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very, very, very difficult to do.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But one of the goals of chipback project is to work also out of existence very soon.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have built, how I have built this new structure is that in a couple of years, by the grace of God, maybe in the next 20 years, 30 years, you will never see chipbacks.
38:17
[SPEAKER_02]: in your hood, just floating around like a piece of tumbleweed, right?
38:20
[SPEAKER_02]: You will not see it on your shelves because aluminum is an amazing, mylar is an amazing product, but it's constantly being misused because nobody thinks about the end-life product of it.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So we want to be that organization.
38:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've had to think about so many ways that shit back could be.
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So now we are not only a collector,
38:40
[SPEAKER_02]: which we've had to stop because again, 2.5 million pounds too much, so at the stop collecting, what we've started to school programs, we start consulting, we've started to be
38:54
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of like a team building activity for companies.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: What have you had to think about?
38:58
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we make sure back into everything so that when we can spread this gospel, but also we can, it gives an opportunity to keep our head above water financially.
39:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So to ask your question and in so many words, but in a little bit of words,
39:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Chib back project right now is everything, and everything, all that runs.
39:21
[SPEAKER_00]: On the scale of 1 to 10, how hard was it for you being the founder and being who you are to ask for help and support?
39:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, are you a type of person like, look, I got this idea?
39:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be far fast, but I need you to roll with me or do your community see that you got that fire in your
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I told you, my best friend, been down on me.
39:45
[SPEAKER_02]: He's still here.
39:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He's one of the one people that has been with me since the beginning that is still here.
39:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I can call him, like, my friend, we got a bit, you know, I pull up.
39:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So I have, I have people in my life that do that for me, but I've also had to stop my ego to not.
40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's easy to ask for help.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: People think it's hard.
40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's easy to ask for help, but it's very difficult to accept help.
40:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I was asking everyone for help and it was like, how do you need me to help?
40:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just like the way I got it, I forget it out.
40:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had to like be in the season to receiving and that from scale of 1 to 10, 10, it was incredibly difficult.
40:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I said, I know the anxiety I'm feeling like I couldn't sleep.
40:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I could not sleep.
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I lost so much weight when I see go back and look at pictures in myself.
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone was like, oh my god, I ride it like you're so fit.
40:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, guys, I am not eating.
40:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I am not sleeping.
40:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I am literally dying like this is this is this is bad.
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This is really really bad.
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had to realize that I had to receive the help that I was asking for to as well.
40:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was very difficult for me and it still is very difficult for me because I don't want to put the burden and I'm feeling on other people and I just pray that I will get to a place that I can be the kind of leader that I dream about.
41:06
[SPEAKER_00]: and was it like, or was it like now having the team to be able to like work with and support the mission because they say being a leader like you don't always get everybody might not buy in as much as you because it's your baby or service but even getting people if you can get somebody close to where you are like you you hit a home run so like what has that been like being able to have a team that supports you now?
41:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have a team that supports me.
41:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still looking for the person that is as close to who I am, even better, and but I know it will come, but the people that I have believe in me, right?
41:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's all I care about right now.
41:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And it feels really good.
41:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, but I'm still in that season where I have to let them shine and let them come in and do what they're supposed to do.
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're still shot to a Olivia person,
41:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Olivia, I love you so much.
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I tell you that all the time, but I do, I love you so much because she is just like
42:08
[SPEAKER_02]: have been.
42:09
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, have been and been part of the team and in the absent flows of life.
42:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to all my board members, shout out to Dr. Serrita Darby for being my voice and sounding board for all of my ideas.
42:21
[SPEAKER_02]: All of these people that I've mentioned are people who did not have to be part of this, but are part of this right now because it's very necessary for them to have that help.
42:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, yeah, I'll stop like there.
42:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I was gonna say I wish I would have known sooner that you was all taking chip back donation.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, chips I eat, I could have predicated two million pounds myself.
42:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need something.
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need something.
42:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need something.
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was so for you.
42:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, one day we'll open back up.
42:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope, flee once we get rid of our inventory right now.
42:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to start collecting, but collecting with infrastructure, not just collecting like- Just do.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we got so much.
43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: How many people have you have been able to support so far through the chip bad project?
43:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Thousands.
43:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So what we do is not just chip back.
43:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So every winter we do something called our warm kit drive where we pass our hot food.
43:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We create warming zones.
43:17
[SPEAKER_02]: We give people blankets, hotel rooms, socks, whatever.
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll be able to help thousands with just like all the initiatives that we do without sleeping bags.
43:30
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the word?
43:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm more guarded with how I give those out because I want to feel very comfortable with giving out the product.
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be able to try it out, like right now we're in an irradiation of it that I wanted to be something that's more transportable and more, what's the word I'm thinking of?
43:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't think of the word.
43:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wanted to be something that people can put things into and open up and do other things.
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So like more time faster than I am.
44:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, more time faster than I am.
44:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to be something like that.
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're still figuring out how to.
44:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But hopefully by the end of 2027, by the grace of God and a lot of creativity, we should be able to say like we've given out hundreds of trip back this year.
44:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I pray we get there.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: you actually dive into the world of business consulting and work with different businesses organizations and being able to help them with their business and their brand.
44:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would love to learn more about that and how did you start doing that type of work?
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm loud and I'm also very observant so like I'm I think I was telling you really I love shooting my shot at people like that's one of my favorite things is going into people's DMs or just telling someone like, hey, I want to help you do something and I feel like that's why I'm in this world is to be a service and I
44:56
[SPEAKER_02]: saw so many businesses that I'm like oh you could be doing this and this and this and this and this and this so I started to just like shoot my shot of people and they were like oh Can I but I don't shoot my shot for free like I shoot my shot, but you want to pay me if you because one thing I've realized is my entire my intellectual property is worth something as
45:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as a creative and as a black woman at times, I felt that because I want to be a helper, I put myself as a disservice in helping people.
45:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But I had someone sit there and tell me, like, how do you know all the things that you know?
45:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, research, doing this, like, oh, so you two, time out.
45:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, yeah, like, so that time, what could you have been doing?
45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, probably working, making money.
45:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So you lost money to learn about this now, so you're giving it not for free.
45:46
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing wrong with helping the community, but at the same time, you have to also know that an empty cup cannot fit, you know, fee anybody else.
45:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So in business consulting, I really just saw businesses that needed help.
45:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also worked for a consulting firm, a marketing firm at one point too as well.
46:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was just like, how I got that job was, I was like, hey,
46:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen your client portfolio and who you've been working with and these are the ways that I think I can comment and help improve the businesses that you're working with.
46:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I've sent out rough drafts of people people.
46:22
[SPEAKER_02]: pay me to audit their businesses like what what is going wrong and what's not going wrong.
46:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I really need to push that more to as well because I get clients sometimes and I'm like, how did you find me?
46:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't advertise this, but word of mouth because I honestly am really good at what I do.
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I have such an observance period, I've also done a lot of stuff in psychology.
46:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm able to notice psychology of why people do the things that they do, and also how humans would interact with what you're putting out there.
46:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So for businesses and I predominantly work with black businesses and small black businesses,
47:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to make sure that I'm doing it in a way in the capacity that is helpful, not harmful.
47:05
[SPEAKER_02]: There are so many people that they give advice with no leeway on how to get there.
47:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So how I do my consulting is I'm going to audit you, tell you the things that need to be improved.
47:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And from there I'll give you a step-by-step plan to make this better.
47:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll work within a six-month plan because it does take a while to actually see the results that of whatever you're working in and we come back and get in that six months and we're able to
47:30
[SPEAKER_02]: see the things that are working.
47:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I've also done a little bit of how I say company culture, so I was like a cultural auditor.
47:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll come into companies and we'll do grievance circles and we'll figure out what are the things that are now working, working culture-wise, and how is that actually effecting the output of the products that you're doing?
47:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been doing that on and off now for over 10 years.
47:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've made a nice amount of money from me.
48:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a whole year that I was like, dang, wow, a bag, a bag, a bag, a bag, yeah.
48:08
[SPEAKER_00]: for sure.
48:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And what's some things that you notice that even in your work with Chip Bad Project or any other experiences that you had in the business consultant, that these, especially in our community, black organizations, black businesses that they are getting wrong in terms of their approach to business, because always think about how people can be proficient in the thing that they've built the business around, but may not necessarily always have the business acumen.
48:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, whatever some things that you notice that they typically approach the wrong
48:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, one of the first things I've noticed people do really wrong is they don't think about the end plan or the end game of whatever they're working in.
48:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if you have a restaurant, what will happen if your restaurant fails and what will make your restaurant fail and work backwards?
48:54
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of people that only look at that.
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, I'm so successful right now.
48:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I've sold five products.
48:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But how do you get five to five thousand?
49:01
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you get five thousand to five million?
49:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what is that actual goal and how do you get there and there's some people that don't write things down I am one of those people with my business, but I advise people to write every single thing now like Whether it's you're doing a voice note or whatever, but you need to be able to have a plan on how you're getting from point A to point B because it's very
49:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very easy to just keep moving.
49:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say, for example, right with your podcast, I'm pretty sure you wrote things down after a while.
49:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You said, um, I want these kind of guests.
49:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I want this kind of direction.
49:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I want this, but I will write notice with our community is that we are only thinking of the people in our immediate vicinity and I think about all the other people outside of our vicinity.
49:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And we get into this culture of all my people or not.
49:59
[SPEAKER_02]: My friends are not supporting me.
50:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't market to my friends.
50:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Chibber project has never been marketed to any of my friends.
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't even, I don't, I think for a very long time, none of my friends ever even came to our volunteer event.
50:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you know, like, I don't, I don't market to them.
50:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm marketing to people outside of them because that's how you craziness sustainable, right?
50:22
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are only marketing to the people in your close vicinity with people who are like one degree separated from you, you're not going to be sustainable.
50:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, I,
50:34
[SPEAKER_02]: tell people to imagine realistically a lot of us dream and imagine these worlds that don't really exist or will never exist because we don't have the systems to build that.
50:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you want to dream the impossible, build the impossible around it but build it in a way that feels realistic and those are the issues that I see predominantly in our community is like people like
51:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have the inventory right um you know you're doing you're doing pre-orders and you're selling your shirts for because you like I want to make it affordable For 20 dollars I'm doing this $20 shirt, but it cost you 25 to make you get what I'm saying like we did a couple of years ago We launched a chip back tote bag It was a hundred dollars
51:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody in my media vicinity was ever going to afford $100 till back made out of plastic waste.
51:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in marketing to them.
51:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I was marketing to people outside of my, and I was able to sell four of them, right?
51:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone was like, just put it at $25, put that $25, put it in $25, put it in $25.
51:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like $25, do you know how long it would take me to make $400?
51:50
[SPEAKER_02]: But I sold four.
51:52
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I really needed was to make, I just need to test the water is to see if I can get a couple of people to bite and then from there were able to now say, okay.
52:04
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we scale this out?
52:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
52:07
[SPEAKER_00]: facts.
52:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
52:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So please tell us what's on the horizon for you for the Chip Bad Project.
52:13
[SPEAKER_00]: If you got any cool things that you're working on or consultant, please let us know like what's in your crystal ball or things that you see and want to want to see in the fruition.
52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to do more consultant, sustainable consulting so I want to let me let me audit your business.
52:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Please let me audit your business.
52:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking about
52:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not trying to be there, but I really want to audit people's businesses and just show them ways they can make it better.
52:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Another thing that I am working on for Chibbad projects where we really want to grow the next generation of green leaders.
52:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And we want to do it in a way that is responsible, sustainable, and also we're guiding people not just releasing them, doing like a catch and release, right?
52:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have our school program, we have tested out already in a couple of schools, teachers help us write this.
53:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is not just something that, you know, I sat down and I wrote it myself, but I took it.
53:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an teaches on the K, this is makes sense.
53:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's our goal is to have the school program.
53:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And next year we're going to be having a really big Earth Day event for Earth Week.
53:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm where it's going to be just multiple days of community engagement in so many different ways.
53:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're really, really excited about that.
53:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I graduate next year and I'm really excited about that too as well.
53:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll have my degree in sustainability because I will
53:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I what I realize is it's not that many of of us that look like me that are in corporate sustainability and not just from talking about an environment to justice, like a lot of us environment to justice, but not a lot of us in the corporate side of what it means to be sustainable and not only do my want to be a leader in sustainability, I wanted to be a voice of action in sustainability and like I want to be able to do
54:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, gee, audits.
54:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And when all these people are using fancy words around me, I want to be like, yeah, I don't know what that means.
54:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I can explain this to you.
54:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I got I got I got people that you put down.
54:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's that's where we're going into and that's where I'm personally going into again, let me audit your business.
54:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me audit your business.
54:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me audit your business.
54:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me audit your business.
54:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I just love doing that.
54:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I love helping people grow and I have a lot of successful clients and businesses.
54:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to shot them up, but you all know who you are.
54:38
[SPEAKER_02]: If you see this and you want to tell people about the work I've done for you, please do.
54:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But I love doing that work.
54:44
[SPEAKER_00]: fire.
54:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a lot of free game, a lot of wisdom share, so Professor Orata, can you tell us where the people can tap in with you?
54:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I might like to solve that.
54:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my new life.
54:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my Instagram is around a 34 that that's in chip back project is chip back project on all social platforms are Instagram are social platforms are going to begin a nice rebranding so please stay tuned for that and our website is also chip back project.org and you can find us everywhere.
55:18
[SPEAKER_00]: dope.
55:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And as I mentioned at the top of the interview, if I wanted to work for the last few years and it's great to finally put the person with the work and then getting the story behind it in the journey and just appreciate your transparency and terms of your journey, your business, not only on this platform of other platforms and just being able to provide a pathway to help us live a more sustainable life, be more sustainable community and put us in positions to win.
55:48
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have plastic water bottles and you use plastic water bottles before you recycle them, take the top buff and take the plastic wrapping off before you put them in a recycling bin.
55:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a little pro tip.
55:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you because I've been recycling wrong for it.
56:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you.
56:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you too.
56:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
56:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
56:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate that.
56:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate that to a bit.
56:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Appreciate you pulling up on the podcast.
56:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, what update tray is nice talking to y'all.
56:13
[SPEAKER_00]: What up though, and nearby watching listening, we're gonna tap in with y'all soon.
56:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Peace.
56:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Peace.