Welcome to iHeartRadio Communities, a public affairs special focusing on the biggest issues impacting you this week, here's Ryan Gorman. Thanks so much for joining us here on iHeartRadio Communities. I'm Ryan Gorman, and we have a few very important conversations lined up for you. In just a few minutes, we'll check in with share our strength and organization working to end childhood hunger in the US by tackling its root causes. But first March is Red Cross Month, and this
Wednesday, March twenty seventh is Red Cross Giving Day. And this all comes as communities across the country prepare for what's expected to be a busy year for natural disasters. For more on all of this, let me bring in Jennifer Pippa, Vice president of American Red Cross Disaster Programs. You can learn more about the work they do and support that work at Redcross dot org. Jennifer,
thanks so much for coming on the show. There's so much the Red Cross does each year for so many Americans, but focusing on disaster relief specifically, tell us about your work in that area. So what we do is we actually respond to more than about sixty five thousand disasters every single year now. A majority of those are single family fires, right, So these are families that can't return home after a fire in the middle of the night and
they're left on their frontlawne and we provide that hope and help. We send out volunteers to take care of that family. We provide financial resources to them. But when folks think about the American Red Cross, they probably tend to think about those really really large disasters right all over the media. And so some of the additional things that we do on those is we open shelters, We provide folks a safe place to stay, We make sure that we have
hot meals so that folks have something to eat. And then we also provide emotional and physical health and care to families who've been impacted from disasters. And then alongside that, we actually do some financial assistance as well, past assistance that we put in the hands of families right after a disaster when they most desperately needed. Last year alone, we distributed more than one hundred and twenty
five million dollars. That's just in direct financial assistance. And what we are finding more and more is that families have less money in their savings, and when a disaster happens, they need those financial resources even to buy the most basic of necessities because they have simply lost everything because of the disaster. Before we get to the big disasters again, the ones that I think everybody immediately associates with the American Bread Cross, those single family home fires. Can you
step us through the process of how that works. When someone's home is destroyed in a fire and they have nowhere else to turn, maybe they're, like you just said, they don't have a lot saved up and they're one disaster away from falling under. Absolutely so. Unfortunately, when a fire happens, we have great relationships with our local to fire departments all across the US, and so we count on the fire department to usually do one us two things.
Either they call back to the nine one one line and then they call us and say we have a family here that's going to need Red Cross help, and we deploy out our volunteers that way. Or they may just ask the family while the firefighters are focused on putting out the fire, to go ahead and call the one eight hundred Red Cross number and they'll connect with folks. Those phone lines are staff twenty four hours a day, and then we
will get to the local chapter and get volunteers to deploy out. Once those folks arrive on your front yard, I want folks to remember they are volunteers. They are getting up in the middle of the night, driving to a
strange place to meet people at their most desperate hour. And we know that after a fire, most times folks are absolutely going to need Red Cross with help, regardless of the financial resources they might have available, because when a fire takes your home, it takes your wallet, it takes your keys, it takes your cell phone. These are all things that we need at two o'clock in the morning, even to go get a hotel room, to provide
a safe place for your family to stay tonight. So those volunteers show up in the middle of the night, they provide financial assistance to that family and they say, here's some money. You can use that to go stay in a hotel, or if you have friends and family, you can use this money to buy some additional clothes or replace medications. And they really talk the family through the next steps and make sure that they have a safe place to
stay that night and access to financial resources. And then after that we about forty eight hours later, call those folks back, see how they're doing, see if we can help connect them with other resources to help them continue on their recovery journey. And we do that hundreds of times a day across all the communities in the US. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Jennifer Pippa, Vice president of American Red Cross Disasters Programs. March is Red crossmont and this
Wednesday, March twenty seventh is Red Cross Giving Day. You can learn more and offer your support at Redcross dot org. So now let's get to the larger disasters that you deal with. And sadly, while we're on the topic of fires, there were some huge wildfires already in Texas earlier this year, and that's ahead of wildfire season, which we seem to see in growing numbers each year. How do you respond to those kinds of large scale disasters.
So when we have those large scale disasters, we know that it is going to be more than the community itself has the ability to recover from. So that's where not only are we engaging our local volunteers. So some folks on a disaster, if you look at them in their Red Cross volunteer may actually be your next door neighbors or fellow community members. So we also rally the troops across the US and we ask volunteers to give us two weeks of their
time. We put them on a plane, fly them out to the disaster area, and that way they can spend those two weeks absolutely dedicated to making sure that we are able to take care of those families at their greatest moment need. That may mean running a shelter and helping people find a safe place
to stay. It may mean providing mental health resources. It may mean getting in what we call our emergency response vehicles, which looks like really big box feeding trucks, and distributing hot meals or emergency supplies that people need after a disaster. And so we rally all of those troops together. And not only do we do that, but we understand that disaster is a team sport,
and so it's not just about the Red Cross. It's about us making space as a table for all of the nonprofits that are locally impacted, bringing them to the table to better understand how together, as a collaborative group, we can actually help this community recover from the devastating disaster. That's occurred. Looking ahead to spring and summer, what are we seeing in terms of weather predictions
for potential natural disasters. So twenty twenty four is unfortunately looking very similar to twenty twenty three, and we actually think it has the potential to actually be worse. You've got above normal temperatures across the Northern States. You have dryness coming into the West coast, which is going to heighten that wildfire risk. We've an above normal hurricane season that's predicted. And those are just the posts
that we're talking about. We are seeing more and more disasters in the middle of the US, things that are incredibly challenging to predict and prepare for. Things like straight line winds, splash flooding, brainforms that kind of set up out of nowhere and then just drop copious amounts of water. So as an organization, we have to really be looking at now just the risks that we've historically seen. I know we talked about like wildfire season. We are getting
to appointment the disaster relief organization. We don't have those seasons anymore. We think wildfire season may actually start sooner this year, hurting season may start seeing this year, and that's in addition to the current operations that we're still supporting. These still are supporting more than three thousand people out in Malli. Those are from wildfires back in August. Those are communities that need long term help, and the Red Cross is still there on the ground more than one hundred
volunteers taking care of those folks in Maui. Are there things that the Red Cross has had to begin to do differently because of the number of disasters you've had to respond to in recent years, especially in preparation for that period of the year, even though it seems to be extending farther and farther out that period of the year when they're more likely to occur than during other timeframes.
Yeah, there's absolutely we can't continue to do more and more and more and more and more, which is kind of the phase that we're in now. There's going to be more disasters, they're more extremes, they're going to impact more community and communities are going to take longer to recover because recovery is so complex. So we're looking at things like really empowering and challenging volunteers and communities to take preparedness actions now before a disaster happens, so that they can be
resilient on their own and available to help their own community recover. We are really looking at our volunteer cadre. We're doing some really huge volunteer recruitment efforts because we know in order to run multiple large scale, simultaneous disaster relief operations, we're going to need to make sure that we have enough volunteers. And that's part of why we're talking today as well. Right we need more financial resources. We need to be able to run multiple operations at the same time.
We rely on the generosity of the American public to support the delivery of the Red Cross mission. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Jennifer Pippa, Vice president of American Red Cross Disasters Programs. March is Red Cross Month. This Wednesday, March twenty seventh is Red Cross Giving Day. You can learn more and help support the work they do at Redcross dot org. What are some tips for all of us to begin to prepare for potential disasters before they hit?
Right before is really the keyword in that question. Right now is the time to take some preparedness actions. Three really really simple steps. Get a kicked, make a plan, and be informed, so you want to create an evacuation plan and plan. What you would have to do is you are separated from your family during an emergency and you have to evacuate. Now is the time to have those family discussions around the dinner table and make sure that
everybody's aware of what the plan is. The next building an emergency kit. The good news here is most of the stuff that goes in your emergency kit is probably already in your home, things like bottled water and nonperishable food, a flashlight, a battery powered radio. But here are some things that we see folks forget a lot of times during evacuations. In an emergency kit.
It's copies of important paper, insurance papers, far certificates, things that you're going to need to have access through after the disasters you begin your recovery journey. And medications. If you take medications on an ongoing basis, it's really
important to evacuate that you take those medications with you. But just a little post it note on your bag that says, don't forget the meds, so if you have to evacuate at the last minute, you remember those you can go get those out of your medicine cabinet and throw them in your kit. And the third is is know how to stay informed right understand what the most likely risks are in your community and the preparedness actions that you can take today.
And we have a Red Cross Emergency app. It is absolutely free to download on the App Store of Google Play, and this will help you identify what your most likely disasters could be, how to prepare for them. And it actually also has weather alerts so that if you are in an area and there is a severe weather, it will actually notify you through your phone so that you can better be further informed about what weather impacts may be occurrent.
And look, the best thing that could possibly happen is that you make these preparations and then you never have to use them. That means it was a good year and you didn't get here with the disaster. I absolutely hope folks make all of these kits and have these plans and never have to use them. But unfortunately, the forecast and what we have seen over the past couple
of years is it's more and more needed. Unfortunately. Tell us about Red Cross Giving Day coming up on Wednesday, the twenty seventh, and how people can help those in need absolutely so Red Crust Giving Days and national effort that happens on March twenty seventh. This allows us to support families affected by future disasters right help cannot wait, and financial donations are the quickest way to mobilize our organization to help those families in need. That helps us provide the shelter
and the food and the relief items. It also helps us provide the emergent and see cash assistance as well. But we can't wait for the disaster to happen to make sure that we are positioned and have enough volunteers and enough pots
and enough blanket to meet that need. And that's why we spend a day talking the community how you can prepare and help yourself and your family become more resilient, but at the same time, how you can invest in our organization and make sure that we are ready positioned and funded to deliver the Red Cross
mission wherever it is needed across the US at a moment's notice. And if you're contemplating whether or not to help the Red Cross on Red Cross Giving Day, just remember if it ends up being your community that's dealing with the disaster,
you're going to need that help. Your neighbors are going to need that help, and so the more of people who participate and offer their support, the better off will all be if something does happen here in twenty twenty four, Jennifer, any final takeaways, any final tips or thoughts for all of us ahead of Red Cross Giving Day and of course ahead of what's potentially to come this spring and summer. Absolutely, be prepared, right, take some
simple steps now, get you and your family ready. Obviously, financial support to our organization is greatly appreciated. No gift is too big, and no gift is too small when you are family standing on your lawn and you have nothing left. So not everybody can afford to support an organization financially. You can raise your hand. Go to red Cross dot org, put in your zip code, Go join your local chatter, get trained on how to be
a disaster responder. Who knows. Unfortunately, the first time you may be called to action is to help your own community that's been impacted by a disaster. So again, Redcross dot org is the website for everything. Tons of great information and resources there Redcross dot org. Jennifer Pippa, Vice President of American Red Cross Disaster programs with us as March is Red Cross Month and this
Wednesday, March twenty seventh is Red Cross Than Giving Day. Jennifer, thank you so much for a ticket a few minutes to come on the show, and of course for all the tremendous work you and your organization are doing for all of us. Thank you for helping us help prepare your communities across the US. All right, I'm Ryan Gorman here on iHeartRadio Communities, and now
let me bring in our next guest. We're joined by Lillian Singh, Senior vice president for Family Economic Mobility at Share Our Strength and Porsha Jackson, who participated in Share Our Strengths Jeremiah program, which we're going to discuss in just a bit. You can learn more about this organization and the work they do at Share our Strength dot org. That's Shareourstrength dot Org. Lillian Porsche,
thank you both so much for coming on the show. And Lillian, let me start with you give us an overview of the mission your organizations on. Thank you so much, Ryan for inviting us to the show. I'm so happy to be here with Porsche, who is a participant of Jeremiah program, who is partnering with us to do this great work to really advance economic mobility
for the primary caretakers, which we are focusing on a single mom. So Shares since has been around for over forty years and really been on the front lines of fighting hunger. We've done this with great work through the lens of our Not Hungry campaign and many others, really focusing in on children and the needs of supporting them with food in the classroom and as well as at the community level. And two years ago Scare Friends made a decision to really launch
a new body of work focused on full family economic mobility. So I'm super excited to share right in this new vision. What we've decreed as our mission is to really be an inviter right of a diverse community of inspire people who are sharing our strengths as an organization so that all children and all families live with our hunger. So we've expanded that mission to really focus on families as well. And of course for Women's History Months, it's a great time to
spotlight initiatives that uplift women, especially single mothers and their children. So Lily and tell us why there's such a focus on single mothers, tell us about the unique challenges they face and how they sometimes are particularly vulnerable to a cycle of generational poverty and hunger. Yes, so, right now, of the nearly eight point five million single moms in the US, sixty one percent of
them are considered low income. And the complexities of this is that, like, while many single moms work hard, many of them don't have the wages that are necessary to really afford like food and the basic neiques and necessities like for their kids. They're also the primary caregivers, right, And what does that mean for being the primary caregiver is that you also need to then think about how here which is one of the most expensive you know, commodities and
inconveniences, right that single moms need, they also need their incomes. So the work that we're doing is really trying to diagnose even further what those complexities are in partnership with organizations like Jeremiah Programs, so that we can then create what we are hoping to be the blueprint for the solutions to then provide the
pathway that's necessary for future opportunity gains for this population. So that's stuff what we're partnering to do for better learn and tests in the moment, but also using our sense as a national organization to elevate that to the national stage. And I'm just thinking about what's happened in recent years from the inflation issue to housing and rent costs, and of course you mentioned childcare costs. Those certainly haven't come down. That is probably and I'd love to get your thoughts on
this, and we'll get to you Porsche in a moment as well. That's probably putting an even greater strain on the mothers. I would say without questions that you know, one of the things that we saw and uh, you know last year with when we had you know, uh the passage of child uh low and time child tax credits at the federal level, it was one of the first times really you know, in my lifetime history where we saw
a majority of families lists just barely above the property level. So many families was with they out of property because of like that passage of that legislation during that season. So then they also still you know, so then that decreased food security challenges that you know, mothers found themself facing, but that did not necessarily address you know, the housing costs, the transportation costs, the childcare costs that it really is necessary so that a mother can just buy basic
things and to take care of the basic needs of their families. But I would love for a Portia who is a mom right who is grappling with the intersectionality of these issues, so it's not just one super bullet that's going to actually lift you know, this population or to really change the sycle generational property
and a hunger for you know, children and their mothers. There's a number of different issues right that you know, we are committed to elevating as the national organization, but then supporting organizations such as Jeremiah Program that are addressing them on the front line, Supporting beautiful mothers, beautiful strong women such as Porsches
so that taking better take care of their children. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined by Lillian Singh, Senior vice president for Family Economic Mobility at Share Our Strength and Porscha Jackson, who participated in the Jeremiah Program, which we're going to discuss in a moment. You can learn more about this organization and the work they do at Share Our Strength dot org. Again, that's Share our Strength dot org. One more quick question for you, Lillian, the Jeremiah program.
Can you give us kind of a broad overview of how this works and the grantees. Who are some of the grantees and why are they selected? Right now? What we've done over the last year is we identify twenty eight partners across the Countess Geremia being in twelb state, twenty of partners in twelve states, and our ultimate you know mission and identifying these partners is to create a portfolio that we believe we can demonstrate as investible bodies of work and as
investible best practices to do two things. Increase income and wages for single moms to support them in overcoming the unique barriers they face as the primary caretakers of their children, and too, reduce the cost burdens that these family space and
bringing nutritious foods into their homes. Oftentimes the same population with low incomes but with you know, have the desire and our you know, frankly over employee and underpay live in places where fuit assessing fresh food and affordable suit is one of the most hirable variable expenses. Stay safe as moms. So our goal is to bring in technological solutions and break corporate partners to really understand what those barriers are, but partner with them to create the solutions. Poor Schelle,
let me bring you into the conversation. Now, tell us how the support of the Jeremiah program benefited you specifically and your children. Yeah. So I just want to be very transparent that I graduated from Jeremiah twenty years ago, so well actually twenty one years ago now, But Jeremia at that time I had sushield and now I'll have five. But Jeremiah really put me on the
trajectory to like excel. So, you know, before I came there, I was homele with you know, I didn't really know what I wanted to do in life, and it just, you know, was a program that kind of helped me figure some of those things out, and it really gave me the foundation and stability to be able to go to school. So I was there for two and a half years, a little under two and a half years, and I earned my Associates and Science degree in Human services while
I was there, so I was able to leave with a degree. But you know, while there, I got to be you know, I was exposed to all kinds of different different things and resources in regards to emotional intelligence in regards to financial you know, learned about finance and things like that. And also just having the the ecosystem of having other women who were doing the same thing as me at the same time with small children. And you know
a lot of those women I'm still friends with twenty one years later. So it definitely helped out a lot with just knowing that there is a support system, that there are resources out there, if there's a place that really wants to succeed and excel, and not only yourself, what generation is after you. And you know, that really helped my family to do things that they
probably would not be able to do without Jeremiah. Right now, I have a master's degree and I'm a director at a local nonprofit, Twin City's Habitat for Humanity. And then my two older children, one of them is an entrepreneur and the other one that has secured her job at her workplace the last five years. So without that stability and that foundation, yeah, we might have been able to get there, but it probably would have taken longer and
maybe would we would not have gotten as far as we have. So, you know, I really give Jeremiah the kudos for helping us establish hopefully generations worth of prosperity and wealth. I'm Ryan Gorman, joined now by Lillian Singh, Senior Vice president for Family Economic Mobility and Share Our Strength and Porscha Jackson, who participated in Share Our Strengths Jeremiah program. You can learn more about this organization and the work they do is Share Our Strength dot org. So,
Porsie, how did you first come across the Jeremiah Program? How did you first get connected? Yeah, so I had a friend who actually lived there when it first opened, and I think Jeremiah started in nineteen ninety nine, so a couple of years before I became a participant, and you know, I was like, oh, this is great. There. You know, there's a housing like a housing opponent, so you you know, have a two or three risum party where it's subsidized and you're able to go to
school. That's the focus school, and then on by childcare. So then your children, if they're under five, they will be able to go to school right downstairs from where they lived. So, you know, at the time and I heard about it, I wasn't really in a good space. Again, I was homeless and not knowing what really I wanted to do with life. But I think that knowing that that that Jeremiah existed just gave me a little bit of a spark of you know, I actually can do this.
I actually can go and seek higher education, so then I can you know, do more in the workforce. So after about a year, I applied and there was a very rigorous application process, and we worked at it, and you know, we got in there and I worked very hard to make sure that I maintained you know, a good GPA, and then I was passing all my classes, so I was on track to graduate on time.
And I really got a lot of support not only from the people like my coach, I'm John Finberg, who you know, really pushed me, but like everybody who worked at Jeremiah, So from you know, the front desk staff to the uh worked in the talcaust and it was like it was a really great environment where everybody kind of knew what our goals were and they were very supportive of it. So yeah, it was just a very very
enriching and like love the environment that I was able to participate in. And I really you know, have always continued to volunteer and speak at different events and just be connected to Jeremiah because of where it got me. That support system. Was that something that you didn't have in your life for your family before you came across jeremiah program. No, yeah, I didn't have any
of that. You know, I'm the first person to graduate college in my family, so you know, I didn't really have anywhere to pool from in regards to any advice or any support because you know, I was a trail blazer. Nobody had done it before. So it's being an environment where education is one of the most important things and development as a person, as a
woman, as a mother was also very important. Was great, Like I don't I know, I could have done it, but it would have been much have you lived if it wasn't for Jeremiah and the Spoor system that again I found from the SAB but also for people that didn't have to even forward to me like they did. So I did not have that, and I'm so thankful that Jeremiah provided. Empty Lily, And let me turn back to you for one final question. What can everyone listening do to support the work
you do? A share our strength and this program which has helped Portia and so many others. So one of the things that we're looking for right now in this moment is support as we build out our communications society and our campaign to uplift the amazing assets of this population. And you also learn more about us on our website on how to actually doing our movement as we could change to actually support amazing programs such as Jeremiah program on the front lines, day
in the day out. Lily and Singh, senior vice president for Family Economic Mobility at Share Our Strength and Jackson who participated in Share Our Strengths Jeremiah program with us. You can learn more about the work this organization does and again support all of that work, including the Jeremiah program at Shareourstrength dot org. That's Shareourstrength dot Org. Lillian Porsche, I want to thank you both so much for the work you're doing and for coming on the show. We really
appreciate it. Thank you, Thank you. All right, and that's going to do it for this edition of iHeartRadio Communities. As we wrap things up, I want to offer a big thanks to all of our guests and of course to all of you for listening. If you want to hear previous episodes of this show, We're on your iHeartRadio app. Just search for iHeartRadio communities. I'm your host, Ryan Gorman. We'll talk to you again real soon.