Schmooze with Suze

How Do We Harness the Power of Community To Amplify Purpose? My Guests: Adam Chaskin and Eric Mann - Together Against Hate: Unity in Our Community

August 30, 2023 Suzie Becker Season 3 Episode 2
How Do We Harness the Power of Community To Amplify Purpose? My Guests: Adam Chaskin and Eric Mann - Together Against Hate: Unity in Our Community
Schmooze with Suze
More Info
Schmooze with Suze
How Do We Harness the Power of Community To Amplify Purpose? My Guests: Adam Chaskin and Eric Mann - Together Against Hate: Unity in Our Community
Aug 30, 2023 Season 3 Episode 2
Suzie Becker

Culturally, I used to be tzemisht- which is one way in Yiddish to say confused. Born in this country, but English wasn’t my first, or even my second, language. 

My family was confident that I would learn to speak it the old-fashioned way, by watching Sesame Street and General Hospital… And by going to “programs in the Y.” In my childhood neighborhood, the center of Jewish life was the Boro Park Y.  By high school I had gotten certified as a lifeguard and my first referral was to the Bensonhurst J.

 And when I went anywhere, I looked for a Y OR a J. And while I no longer felt  tzemisht as in confused- I became an alternate definition for tzemisht, COMBINED.

So, why is combining communities to exponentially grow our platform as global citizens necessary in making a difference?
And that’s what we are going to tackle today…

I sit down with Adam Chaskin, CEO of the Jewish Community Alliance and  Eric Mann, CEO and President of the First Coast YMCA  as they share their personal journeys, revealing how their paths led them to these significant roles. They also talk about why they work relentlessly to build communities and provide life-enhancing opportunities like Together Against Hate: Promoting Unity in Our Community-  an initiative designed to actively educate and inspire our neighbors to build a more inclusive Northeast Florida.

Together Against Hate: Promoting Unity in Our Community is a speaker series that will address topics impacting our area including prejudices in faith, race, antisemitism, ethnicity, LGBTQ+, gender, and diverse abilities. Starting in September, influential speakers from 904Ward, JASMYN, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), The Arc Jacksonville, The LJD Jewish Family & Community Services, OneJax, and Interfaith Center, will empower the community with the knowledge needed to have a voice in taking a stance against bias.

As a visual representation of this partnership and the efforts made to unify the community, the series will culminate with the first-ever Racing Against Hate 5K Run/Walk at the Winston Family YMCA on Sunday, February 25, 2024, at 1 pm.

Click here to learn more about the Together Against Hate speaker series and the first-ever Racing Against Hate 5K Run/Walk in February 2024.

The educational speaker series begins on Thursday, September 14 and continues through January 2024. 
 

Do you have some feedback, thoughts or questions?

Want to be a guest on my show or have an Honorable Mensch to nominate?

Connect on Instagram @SchmoozewithSuze

Subscribe to the Schmooze with Suze Podcast for your dose of #Culture, #Values and #GlobalCitizenship... with a side of #chutzpah...

Don’t forget to leave a review if you enjoyed this episode.
Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and SHARE.
Thank you for helping us grow!

Show Notes Transcript

Culturally, I used to be tzemisht- which is one way in Yiddish to say confused. Born in this country, but English wasn’t my first, or even my second, language. 

My family was confident that I would learn to speak it the old-fashioned way, by watching Sesame Street and General Hospital… And by going to “programs in the Y.” In my childhood neighborhood, the center of Jewish life was the Boro Park Y.  By high school I had gotten certified as a lifeguard and my first referral was to the Bensonhurst J.

 And when I went anywhere, I looked for a Y OR a J. And while I no longer felt  tzemisht as in confused- I became an alternate definition for tzemisht, COMBINED.

So, why is combining communities to exponentially grow our platform as global citizens necessary in making a difference?
And that’s what we are going to tackle today…

I sit down with Adam Chaskin, CEO of the Jewish Community Alliance and  Eric Mann, CEO and President of the First Coast YMCA  as they share their personal journeys, revealing how their paths led them to these significant roles. They also talk about why they work relentlessly to build communities and provide life-enhancing opportunities like Together Against Hate: Promoting Unity in Our Community-  an initiative designed to actively educate and inspire our neighbors to build a more inclusive Northeast Florida.

Together Against Hate: Promoting Unity in Our Community is a speaker series that will address topics impacting our area including prejudices in faith, race, antisemitism, ethnicity, LGBTQ+, gender, and diverse abilities. Starting in September, influential speakers from 904Ward, JASMYN, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), The Arc Jacksonville, The LJD Jewish Family & Community Services, OneJax, and Interfaith Center, will empower the community with the knowledge needed to have a voice in taking a stance against bias.

As a visual representation of this partnership and the efforts made to unify the community, the series will culminate with the first-ever Racing Against Hate 5K Run/Walk at the Winston Family YMCA on Sunday, February 25, 2024, at 1 pm.

Click here to learn more about the Together Against Hate speaker series and the first-ever Racing Against Hate 5K Run/Walk in February 2024.

The educational speaker series begins on Thursday, September 14 and continues through January 2024. 
 

Do you have some feedback, thoughts or questions?

Want to be a guest on my show or have an Honorable Mensch to nominate?

Connect on Instagram @SchmoozewithSuze

Subscribe to the Schmooze with Suze Podcast for your dose of #Culture, #Values and #GlobalCitizenship... with a side of #chutzpah...

Don’t forget to leave a review if you enjoyed this episode.
Please LIKE, SUBSCRIBE and SHARE.
Thank you for helping us grow!

Speaker 1:

Culturally I used to be submisht, which is one way in Yiddish to say confused, born in this country, but English wasn't my first or even my second language. My family was confident that I would learn to speak at the old-fashioned way by watching Sesame Street and General Hospital and by going to programs in the Vaj. In my childhood neighborhood the center of Jewish life was the borough park YMYWHA. I took swimming lessons, attended karate, art, sewing and ballet classes and spent each summer on a bus to the Y-Day Camp Campus. On inclement weather days we didn't cross the Verrazano Ridge, rather we went to the gym at the? Y. I loved the familiarity of the building and that it was a hub for all kinds. I would see schoolmates, cousins, seniors and even my Bobby took swimming lessons there in her late 70s. By high school I had gotten certified as a lifeguard and my first referral was to the Jewish Center, the Y. I said no, the J. My friend responded the. What the? J? The JCC, jewish Community Center. Clearly this person was confused. I thought Remember submisht? Okay, we call it the Jewish Center amongst ourselves, but it's really the borough park Y. So we took a ride and she was right. The JCC of Bensonhurst was an entirely different building and where I had my first after-school job. So when I went anywhere, I looked for a Y or a J, or a J for a Y, and while I no longer felt submisht confused, I became an alternate definition for submisht combined. So why is combining communities to exponentially grow our platform as global citizens necessary in making a difference, and that's what we are going to tackle today.

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Sue's here with your weekly dose of culture, values and identity and where we tackle those topics others may consider, off limits, a little about me. I'm a busy Gen X mom who, quite frankly, wanted to grow up like the Brady Bunch, but how could I be raised in the shadow of Schindler's List. So this means I've spent a lifetime navigating these mixed messages we get hit with daily. You know those conversations where we wonder if it's safe to speak our minds. Can we share our experiences, voice our fears and concerns, or should we just keep our mouths shut? Well, too bad. I need to know and I'm no expert, so I'm going to schmooze the experts and get their thoughts why? So when we engage with our kids, colleagues or the countless committees we interact with, we can do it with competence, kindness, confidence and maybe a bit of humor If this sounds like your cup of coffee, welcome to Schmooze with Sue's.

Speaker 1:

This season is entitled Personal Story to Public Impact and I can't think of any place that shaped mine more than the Y that was a J or the J that was a Y. For quite literally my entire life I have had a membership as a child, family, single and now as a family again at one of these locations. I have attended programs, volunteered my time, talent and treasure and supported the initiatives of both the J and the Y. So when I heard that Adam.

Speaker 1:

Chaskin, ceo of the JCA, and Eric Mann, CEO and president of the First Coast YMCA, teamed up for Together Against Hate, promoting unity in our community, in the city where I'm raising my kids. I had to have this conversation, hello, gentlemen.

Speaker 3:

Good afternoon, I see how are you today.

Speaker 1:

I'm good. Thank you for coming on. So let's start with some background. Everybody gets to a community agency by way of something personal arts, culture, sports. What's your background? What part of the community brought you to the Y or the J? Let's start with you, eric.

Speaker 2:

Well, I didn't grow up with a Y. I grew up in North Georgia. We didn't have a Y. I was a Parkes and Rec athletics high school. I got through to Marlis Hill University out of Asheville and had to do an internship and luckily the Y was one of the organizations that said of course, I want free labor force to make up.

Speaker 1:

We call that time, talent and treasure.

Speaker 2:

today that's true, and so I did a semester at a Y in Asheville, north Carolina, and when I graduated they offered me a youth worker job for five bucks an hour. And I did that for about a year and a half because I love working with kids and kind of the mission, but I wasn't saying, oh, I want to be whatever for 50 years.

Speaker 1:

A career wiser? No no that wasn't.

Speaker 2:

And then I moved to New Haven, connecticut. I moved around a little bit but probably after about eight years I was like this Y thing is not bad and, as I said earlier, I'm very fortunate I get to marry my personal vocation with my professional vocation, and that is I believe. I was put on this earth to help people and the Y has been a perfect vehicle for me to do that and meet great people and also make a living at it.

Speaker 1:

So that's pretty lucky. What about you, Adam?

Speaker 3:

It was sports that brought me to the J world, the JCC McCobby games to be specific. I had never even been to a JCC in my life and then, as a late teen, starting off college, I was introduced to the JCC McCobby games, which are operated by JCCs across the country, and 20 plus years of my early professional career in athletics as a college basketball coach and then, when I decided it was time to make a change, the J became a great option for me to go to. It was just another way, as Eric just said, to take my goal of helping young men, which was what I did in basketball to have a chance to having a better life, to now have a much broader audience that I was hoping that I could have an impact to help have a better chance of a successful life and a happy life.

Speaker 1:

It's unbelievable. I've always been very fortunate that when I enter the environment of a Y or a J, you feel this instant sense of community. From the front desk where you check in, the person who smiles, and to the leaving and they politely ask you to return your towel, there's always a sense that somebody remembers my name, they call me by name. It could just be that it flashes on the screen behind them, but to have the presence of mind to say hi, suzy, thanks for coming back again today. This is something that helps to shape the culture and values where we spend our time. So in the time that you've been here, have you personally partnered for any other events before?

Speaker 2:

Well, we have, we do a lot of partnerships because we are we cover five counties we really want to be part of the community, so partnering, whether it's after school or sports or backpacks for kids so we we don't believe we're the only ones that can do things, so we we try to partner with other organizations that have a similar mission in terms of helping the community and seeing if we can spread our opportunities. So partnering at a certain level, so it might be an inch deep. And then we've had some partners who were two or three years deep, and so I think what Adam and I kind of happened on is started out as a personal relationship of just talking and seeing how we could help each other and CEOs in a new city.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds to me like you spend a lot of time collaborating within your own communities. Whatever space that your YMCA location out of JCA is, the surrounding neighborhoods are your first point of contact, right. Those are the people that attend your facilities.

Speaker 3:

Without a doubt. I mean, we're only going to get better as an organization and helping the community by partnering with other people. None of us can do it on our own, and there's so many. We're fortunate to have so many great other organizations here in Jacksonville to work with, whether it's at the J we have a monthly membership, a Mitzvah project that sits in our lobby, that we partner with another nonprofit every month, and it could be raising school supplies, which were earlier this summer for one of the many organizations that are supporting and giving school supplies to students in need. It could be food pantries, a wide variety of things that we do Because, like I said, together we can accomplish so much more.

Speaker 3:

And that's kind of how this whole project that we're here to talk about came together. There was the unfortunate incident at the Georgia Florida football game of the hateful messages, and Eric and I were talking to each other at the vigil and just casually were like we should think about doing something together, and then a little bit later, we got on the phone with each other and said you know what we really do need to do this, and we got each other's programming staffs together, because I'll speak at least just for myself. I know I have far more creative people than myself Trust me.

Speaker 2:

As I say, I'm the pretty face of the organization. We got plenty of people to work with. Even say on that.

Speaker 3:

But you know, I called Eric and said, hey, let's get our programming staff together and then get their better, more creative minds in the room with us, and we kind of laid out a general framework of what we were hoping to accomplish and then we let them run with it, which is what you know we now have is a series of programs that will be kicking off here in September.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So to distill the points down, it started off with each of you seeing what your individual community necessities are and addressing those needs, and then you said that's not enough. We're going to come together and we're going to hit this from a macro level. We can't heal what we don't feel, so we have to say those things out loud. We have to alert the population to what's happening in our community so they can say this is not Jacksonville, this is not our brave, bold city. And you formed together against hate, promoting unity in our community, which is a speaker series that will address topics impacting our area, including prejudices in faith, race, anti-Semitism, ethnicity, LGTB, TQ plus gender and diverse abilities. So it started off with the backpacks, with the clothing closets, with the food pantries, and you said that's just scraping the surface of people's Maslow's hierarchy of need. We need to target their safety. We need them to feel safe and heard and like we care about them.

Speaker 2:

So one one, one piece to this, though, is Adam and I. Adam moving into town. We've developed a relationship, and that relationship built into trust. Yeah, so he can trust. He called me, I can call him, and so that's the basis of having this other conversation was that we know each other, we trust each other. Therefore, you can be a little bit more vulnerable, you can talk about what's going on, and so that's, I think, for us that started this whole dialogue, is we trust each other, so we feel like we can talk about whatever.

Speaker 1:

So then, I'm going to say that I see this as a an example of other executives, executives, c level, members of our community trusting each other and saying these thought leaders, these stakeholders, let's see what your thoughts are, where do you see the future of Jacksonville going? And you weren't scared to address these issues. So in the past, people have often hidden or buried away things that were uncomfortable like that. Have either one of you either experienced racism or anti-semitism personally?

Speaker 2:

What? What time of year? What? Time of day Right yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's the question.

Speaker 3:

And I'll be quite honest and for your audience, I am a white male, you know, since we're on the radio here. But I mentioned I was a college basketball coach and so the majority of young men that I had the fortune to coach were African-American. So I've actually can say I've experienced more instance of racism than I have anti-semitism, Not that I haven't experienced both, but I mean I've been in restaurants where the hillbillies pulled up with the shotguns because we were in there eating, and you know, and I've been, you know, been in those situations Not. So, you know, I have a small window to look into to what people experience every day and that. And then, of course, being Jewish, I directly get to also sometimes experience the, the, the hate that comes from anti-semitism.

Speaker 3:

But my personal feeling is that a lot of these forms of hate come from a lack of experience, a lack of knowledge from people, and how we started this conversation off was let's use each other's platforms together to broaden the platform, to help educate more people.

Speaker 3:

I firmly believe that if you grew up in whatever situation you grew up in and you're not, you don't have the experience with other groups that the first time you have interaction with those groups. There's a natural human hesitancy because you have no experience with that. Sometimes that hesitancy turns into a little fear because you don't know, and negative comments come out of that and then it grows to other people who haven't had this experience. So let's break down those barriers. Let's start educating people. That's why it was so important that we were able to include not just anti-Semitism which is what kicked off this whole conversation after the Florida Georgia game but the other forms of hate that are out there. And let's do attempt to do a better job educating people and break down those barriers so that people realize you know, I'm Jewish and I don't have horns, you know.

Speaker 1:

They're just irreversible, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And you know, there's so many other stereotypes that are out there that for people who have never don't know that they ever met someone who's Jewish, they might believe a stereotype that was told to them. And it applies to the other forms of hate that are out there as well.

Speaker 1:

Eric.

Speaker 2:

You're looking at me, well, you know, it's something as I joke with people. I've been black all 64 years.

Speaker 1:

Have you been black your whole life, my whole life. So it's-. See why people tune in for this kind of fact.

Speaker 2:

It's, but in terms of racism it has nothing to do with status. Mm-mm, I've been profiled, not wear a suit tie and people still lock their door when I walk by or they move over when I sit down and I counter it, and so it's not as often, but it's in different ways.

Speaker 2:

Now it's in different ways and so understanding how to observe it and, you know, not necessarily react how some people are expected, and so it's just a part of life. It's less than, but still prevalent in different ways. Right, it's not as blatant, but it's where you are welcome, to, what side of the town you're welcome in, and the look of where are you here, those kinds of things, as well as just stereotypes of individuals that you see it still happens.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it still happens, and so to ignore it and not acknowledge it doesn't help in the chain, right Right, it doesn't help, and so it's how you go about bringing it to people's attention, and a lot of times people are just not aware.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm a call it out kind of person, as Adam can tell you. I'm a stand up, speak out kind of girl, right? What happened? What had happened was that a couple of years ago someone said you know, there's stuff happening that's uncomfortable here and I think that we should be less obvious. And somehow that impacted me. All four of my grandparents are Holocaust survivors. So when I start to feel or sniff a little mis marginalization, little racism, a little discrimination, everything comes out, comes out and I feel like I need to get louder, not just for myself but on behalf of everybody who maybe doesn't feel the confidence that they should speak up on behalf of themselves.

Speaker 1:

So, in an effort to educate and to enlighten, you've taken this activity, this one event together against hate, promoting unity in our community. You've broken it down into a number of speaker engagements Starting in September. Influential speakers from 904, by the way, I'm a 904 race cards facilitator, jasmine, the Anti-Defamation League, the ARC Jacksonville, the LJD, jewish Family and Community Services. One Jackson Interfaith Center will empower our neighbors with the knowledge needed to have a voice in taking a stance against bias. So I'm going to list a couple of the events that are upcoming and I want to share that. What's so dynamic is that none of these things are exclusively in one of your locations or the other. You've spread this out all over Jacksonville. Is there a reason for it?

Speaker 2:

Well from our standpoint, the wise standpoint. While they're not exclusively, they are inclusive in our wise, everybody that comes in our why a lot of people that come in a Y would probably fit into all of those. And so for us it's how do we continue to demonstrate that inclusive nature of our organization and respect the individuals that come into our organization? So for us it's not as much about, because I don't know who's X, y, z, but we're going to treat. We're going to treat you like we treat everyone else with that respect with those values and so the individual groups.

Speaker 2:

We partner with them, whether with some of the special events and some of the events that they have, but in terms of what we're trying to do is say, look, we're for all and that for all means for all. And how do we demonstrate that?

Speaker 2:

in caring and respect and responsibility and honesty and being a part and saying that's who we are and so that's really why you know, we want to be a part of this conversation, Because there's really hate is just because you are different or just because you don't agree. There's no reason to hate someone.

Speaker 2:

Hate someone, you know, because there's not and for me that that part of it is hate is a strong word Use a lot of energy. You talk about you hate someone just because you don't know them. That that, in a sense, we have to do better. We have to allow to get to know someone, to go from best because you don't know that I hate them. That that's not. That's a huge leap.

Speaker 1:

That's a huge so for most organizations that the goal is to bring people into the building right. Usually that would be the case. The idea that you guys are taking it out of your buildings says to me that you're you're the vehicle, you're the community, you're the resource. Where that takes place is not as important as who is giving it over, and so I can't speak enough to these venues. I'm going to read off some of it. Go ahead If I could just, you know, echo everything Eric said in an ad.

Speaker 3:

you know this is an education effort and we need to be in different parts of the city. We live in the geographically largest city in the continental United States, so we need to move these programs around to try, because geography is a limiting factor sometime on how people can get from one side of town to the other. So that it's also as an education platform we want to be in different parts of town so that hopefully different people can have the opportunity to attend the programs.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and these are programs that are kicking off on September 14th and they continue through January 2024. So they will be in the show notes with the registration links. Mark your calendars for the following events. Nine oh forward will commence the speaker series with LJDJFCS's resisting hate repairing the world's panel discussion, moderated by Hope McMath at the Frisch Family Holocaust Memorial Gallery, 7 pm on Thursday, september 14th. At the initial together against hate event, jfcs will also feature we Could Not Be Silent a gallery exhibit that commemorates the remarkable act of solidarity at a critical moment of civil rights history, right here in St Augustine, when a group of rabbis were jailed for supporting Dr Martin Luther King Jr and local Black activists working to desegregate St Augustine, florida. On October 10th at 7 pm, timothy Jefferson, director of team and family initiatives at Jasmine, will lead a panel discussion and share information about LGBTQ plus rights and advocacy at Friday Music Hall.

Speaker 1:

The Anti-Defamation League Florida Regional Director, sarah Emmons, will be at the JCA on Tuesday, november 7th at 7 pm to discuss the rise of anti-semitism and what is being done to initiate change. Also addressing the audience at the JCA on November 7th, rabbi Diana Firsko, author of we Need to Talk About Anti-Semitism, promoting and protecting the human rights of people with diverse abilities. The ARC Jacksonville will host an evening of advocacy and education at 7 pm on Tuesday, december 5th at the Jesse Ball DuPont Center and, as the finale of our speaker series, local Faith Leaders, one Jax and the Interfaith Center of Northeast Florida will host a panel discussion at 7 pm on Thursday, january 18th in the Maine Library Branch, downtown Jacksonville at 303 North Laura Street. If you miss any one of those speakers, they will be recorded.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about the culmination, which is my favorite part. Okay, so we're together, uniting against hate. Now we're doing it quickly, right, because we're going to race. We're going to race against hate, and I want to talk about the race against hate which will take place on February 25th at 1 pm outside the Winston family YMCA. The Together Against Hate partnership is a community-wide 5K run walk and I want to know have you ever done this before? Have you done a 5K?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I mean I've been involved in other runs.

Speaker 1:

I don't mean you, I mean your agency has your agency done one before.

Speaker 3:

But there's a reason we put slash walk so that I can make sure I can participate this time. Yes, me too.

Speaker 1:

But I wanna talk about that?

Speaker 3:

Have you done that before?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, yes, we have.

Speaker 1:

For what?

Speaker 2:

effort, oh, from raising awareness around our veterans' work.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Or raising awareness around our diabetes prevention, our lip-strong cancer prevention program.

Speaker 1:

So with other agencies, you've partnered with other and you've collaborated with other things.

Speaker 1:

Is this the first time that you're taking on an initiative on behalf of our city, the fourth fastest growing city in the country?

Speaker 1:

And just for the record, because culture, values and global citizenship is my purpose, I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening here and if you don't know this, the arc of history in the United States is typically judged un-Jacksonville. We are one of the first stops that people in the political sphere look at to see what it looks like in the rest of the world. So when there was an uptick of anti-Semitism in Jacksonville, even if every place else in the world said we don't feel it, when it hit Jacksonville, they said no, it's real, they're not kidding. And the same time, when you two collaborate on such an initiative of this magnitude in the fourth fastest growing city, in the largest space-wise city in the country, you're really making a stand in engaging our community to stand up and speak out. Was this something that was difficult to do or was this organic? Did you say we have to do it? Did you have board members who were like I don't know? Do we wanna tell the truth here?

Speaker 3:

Well, the truth is, it was actually my wife's idea so I wanna give her credit.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and at the first meeting where our staffs got together I shared my wife's idea and it was in the Y Thank you, regina and the Y staff grabbed onto it right away. They have, as Eric just mentioned, a lot of experience successfully running many runs, and I was very happy that they grabbed onto that idea very well because, to quite frankly, the J has not done many runs, and so we're very appreciative of part of the partnership to the Y's taking the leadership on this element of it, because I do think it can be one of the most widely seen expressions of what we're trying to accomplish, where we hopefully will have thousands of people downtown running that day and February what we were talking about.

Speaker 2:

so just to back up before, adam and I had the conversation internally. We were talking about a civility campaign and we had over the last year talking about how do we promote more civility in our community, and we, the Y, said so we literally had shirts and buttons about civility? It's not. It didn't cost you anything to be nice to somebody and we were talking about 5K during hard month cause February is hard month, so we started talking about this, it was like hard month and it's hate and love and all these things came together.

Speaker 2:

So it was meant to be from that perspective.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, and now that we've had that Mayor Donateagin, who's all about love, that really amplifies this as a direction that we as a city, as a community, intend to go forward in that path. So we've talked about the different speakers on the series, we talked about the run on the panel discussions. I have two questions. One have you all started training?

Speaker 3:

I do a lot of walking.

Speaker 2:

I'm okay. I'm a cyclist, but I'm pretty sure I can do it Okay.

Speaker 1:

And Second question I'm going to challenge you, like I'm challenging everyone that I meet now. How many of your C level friends are you going to be challenging to lace up and join you so that they can promote their staff, their employees, their communities by being the change, by being the face of the change?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, personally, I think there's a lot of my colleagues around the city who they will encourage their companies to get engaged.

Speaker 3:

That's my thought. Yeah, we've already had. Since the press release went out not too long ago, several fellow C-suite people, as you said, have reached out and plan on sharing this information once the registration information is actually out, so their companies and themselves can participate.

Speaker 1:

Very exciting. Are there any sponsorship opportunities or is this really a friend razor?

Speaker 2:

We would love to have sponsors for it, because, the more we were talking about that is, we both have causes that need support, right, and so we'll figure out how we put that together.

Speaker 1:

We're building the plane while we're flying it.

Speaker 2:

Well, but we didn't start it as a fundraiser. No, we didn't. We didn't start it as a fundraiser. We started it as a cause and a way to come together with purpose. And if we with now, I'm not sure I'll do a tattoo on my but you could be.

Speaker 1:

Inspired to it's my driving hands, because I drive with purpose.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, so you know, if we get sponsors, that mean we can do more, whether it's figure out a cause to support or have a nice t-shirt or something.

Speaker 1:

Unbelievable. So I'm going to say, although you keep writing, it's the first ever, I'm calling it the inaugural. I'm calling it the inaugural because I would like to believe that this is something that we will always be racing against hate here in Jacksonville and here for our entire lives. So I want to thank both of you for coming on and sharing your thoughts and sharing your passion for our community. It's greatly appreciated.

Speaker 3:

Susie, thank you so much for inviting us on, and thank you very much for everything that you do through this platform and the others. Again, we're all just trying to make the community just a little bit better, and so thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about the program.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 1:

The privilege is all mine, and now it's time for our honorable mention. Mench is the Yiddish word for a person of integrity and honor, with a sense of what is right and responsible. Hope McMath is a cultural leader, educator, artist and activist whose knowledge of and passion for the arts is only matched by her strong commitment to social justice and generating positive change in our community. She amplifies community needs, including education, accessibility, the environment, wellness, inclusion and diversity. Hope is a printmaker with a passion for combining images, words and social comment to create works of art as a means to process the world around her and engage others in conversations around human rights, anti-racism, the importance of women's voices, environmental justice and civic engagement. Hope is also my handler as a third generation Holocaust speaker. She's the holder of safe and brave spaces in Jacksonville and one more piece of what makes this the bold city I am enthralled by.

Speaker 1:

If you know of someone who is the kind of MENCH who should get an honorable mention, send me a note at schmoozewithsuesorg or drop mea line on Instagram. That's going to do it for us today. Thanks for sticking around. Make sure to subscribe to schmoozewithsues on YouTube and follow me on Instagram to get your daily dose of chutzpah, I'm Sue's, your well-informed smart ass who's not afraid to stand up and speak out. Because what's an envelope if not for pushing? Hey, stay inspired and inspiring.