Stop & Talk

Singer 0:00
Stop, talk tome

Emily Young 0:11
hello and welcome everyone. I'm Emily young, and I'm here with my wonderful colleague, Chris Sichel, and we're co VPs of programs here at Prebys. And first and foremost, congratulations to all of our sparks awardees. We were so excited to see who was among those who were selected, and are just so honored to have this opportunity to celebrate all of you today. So thank you. Yeah, and I also wanted to say that we are very excited to have seen such a strong response to this call for proposals, and the amazing set of ideas and all the innovative and creative submissions that we received, it was really a reflection of how much good there is in the community, how many leaders that are out there that are really visionary and innovative and really looking at many different ways to tap into the natural assets that we have in our community, both in the outdoors and in our incredibly vibrant arts and culture community. And since the founding of previs just a few short years back, we have been very keenly focused on young people and really looking at their overall health, and more particularly, at issues of behavioral health, and we have been really interested in supporting different ways of approaching behavioral health concerns among young people in San Diego County, and certainly we've supported a lot of clinical approaches to that, and we were excited with sparks and other things that we're doing to support non clinical approaches. We also know that this is a really challenging time, and it has been over the last several years for young people, and we think that this is a really great opportunity to think about the local things that we can do and the ways that we can come together and take more action and tap into the leadership we have here, that entrepreneurial spirit and the amazing assets that we have.

Chris Sichel 2:30
Well, good morning, everybody. So wonderful to gather. I think we forgot how to gather when COVID came and COVID went, and we continued on our zoom but this is so much better than a Zoom meeting. So as you know, Prebys focuses on on four main areas for our grant making, arts and culture, Youth Success, which we have defined as workforce development and behavioral health, medical research, as well as health and well-being. And this is one of those wonderful initiatives that kind of ties so many of those things together. So as Emily said, it's not business as usual in the nonprofit and health sectors, and we know that for many of you, things are uncertain, and for many folks who have had limited access to care in the community and around healthful activities, things aren't exactly getting better for them either. So those trends only make our work more important, and the work that you all are doing needs to be celebrated and it needs to be expanded. So we proudly support efforts that address long standing inequities, and when we talk about engaging young people and and all those throughout the community in healthy activities, things that they can do in school, out of school, in their communities that address their well being and that don't rely on a formal medical system. It really benefits. And as an old recreation therapist, this is music to my ears to see so many innovative ideas coming up to address the whole person. Let me hand back to Emily.

Emily Young 4:10
One of the amazing things about San Diego is that we have world class amazing weather, and that's long been a great attraction people looking for more healthful lifestyle. We have a great outdoors, we have world class parks, but we also have an amazing array of wild and special places, both on land and in the water, that people can tap into and they are free, or the programs that you can access around them are fairly low cost. And likewise, we are incredibly vibrant culturally. When you think of our population in San Diego and the immense array of offerings that we have, whether you're talking about museums or other kinds of cultural venues, that those are things that we can tap into as assets that, as Chris said. That can also be used for promoting healing through arts and nature, and when we look at the impact of that and strengthening our connections to one another and helping to reduce stress and contribute to other kinds of emotional well being and physical well being and social well being, that's something that we can really take advantage of here in San Diego County, and spark sought to invite creative and innovative and scalable approaches to help everyone in our region experience that greater sense of well Being.

Chris Sichel 5:36
Having spent many years in the field, I know how challenging it can be, and I think all of us at Prebys understand how challenging your work can be, and so we want to celebrate you today, but we also let me encourage you to care for yourselves and to make sure that you last, because the work that you're doing in the community, the work that you're doing for children and throughout this region really, really matters. So take care of yourselves. Take your own medicine, the medicine that we administer to others. Please be sure to care for yourselves and keep up the great work you're doing, because our region really needs you to keep doing what you're doing without further ado, I'd like to bring up our president and CEO, who's going to who's going to take it from here. Grant Oliphant,

Grant Oliphant 6:38
morning, everybody, this is an extraordinary collection of people, and I am just so delighted to see who's gathered here. You know there are a lot of feelings going on in the nonprofit sector and in community generally right now, and as you puzzle through how you're navigating this and how we're going to get through it, just look around this room and look at the energy in this room, and you have the answer to the question, amazing, amazing people. And I just want to thank you for being here. We're going to do this in two parts. One is, I want to just say a few quick words about this program and what it represents to us and the role that all of you, I think, are playing in this extraordinary community. And then we're going to talk about the work itself, and because crystal never wastes an opportunity to turn that into a sharing with the rest of community, we're going to do it as a podcast, so we're going to actually engage in a conversation about for our podcast with the recipients of the awards. And it's going to be exciting and terrific. So let me just quickly say about about this, about Prebys Sparks, and a little bit about why we did it, price philanthropy. This was our first foray into price philanthropy. And price philanthropy is kind of a contested space in our world, because you're asking people to do a lot of work for one or a handful of winners to emerge. And the question is, why? And the answer is, because you tend to get a different type of response and an engagement around really big, bold ideas that is a different window on philanthropy. So we wanted to try it, and we wanted to see how San Diego responded to it. So we got over 70 submissions, extraordinary submissions, and I can tell you from having spoken with the jurors who were involved, and having been on the selection committee at the end, myself, this was probably the hardest choice that many of us had ever had to make in terms of looking at the caliber of of submissions that came in. We had to help us make this, this hard choice more than 60 judges, and if you were a judge, I'd ask you just to raise your hand and be applauded for a moment.

Grant Oliphant 9:32
And because we did not want to do a second rate version of this, we thought San Diego deserved the best. We went to the very best firm in the world, which may not have it has the most curious name too. It's called carrot. But we went to this firm called carrot to guide us on how to do one of these competitions. Exceptionally well, they designed it from the front to the back. Back for us and did an exceptional job, and Jason and your team, if you would just raise your hands, I'd like us to applaud you as well.

Grant Oliphant 10:14
I also want to acknowledge the Prebys board. You know, one of the things they they have supported since the day I've arrived here is a willingness to innovate and try new things. San Diego is blessedly early in its large scale philanthropy journey, and has the opportunity to push the envelope in how we think about philanthropy, not just in San Diego, but around the country, and they've asked us, the team here, to be thoughtful and innovative in our approach. And I just want to ask the board members who are here to please raise your hands, and I want to thank you for your willingness to support innovation in San Diego. Appiah, and then finally, I want to thank the team here at the prebus Foundation, we have an extraordinary staff who are engaged and dedicated all the time and always looking for ways to make things better. In particular on this program. Responsibility for launching and designing this program fell to Julie, Edgar and Novi on our team. And I think Edgar and Novi are here. Let's thank let's thank them. Julie is unfortunately homesick, and so we send our thoughts to her, and as you know, but let's take a moment to just officially acknowledge this as a group so that we can celebrate for real. We say we're going to celebrate, so let's actually do that. The grand prize awardee is the VAPA Foundation.

Grant Oliphant 12:04
And then we had four honorable mentions, each incredibly excellent as well A Reason to Survive or ARTS

Grant Oliphant 12:26
Coastal Roots Farm for their seed to table program, the United Women of East Africa support team and Youth Creating Change. All right, so Emily and Chris said a bit about why we chose the subject that we did, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time repeating it. Really do want to understand as we thought about, okay San Diego is to have a large scale prize philanthropy competition connected to our work, what would be the logical space for it? And the thing that kept coming up for us was this intersection between youth, well being and the extraordinary set of natural and artistic and creative assets that we have in this community. What we were seeing after our initial year and a half of grant making working in the youth mental health space in particular, was that we do not have enough dollars, nor are there enough clinicians to be able to address the crises and need that we see in the community, and the research was telling us over and over again that one of the ways to get at this differently was to think about the prevention side of the equation. What prevention looks like is honoring young people by giving them a sense of agency, a sense of possibility, respecting their drawing that voice out of them, letting them connect with other people, letting them see each other, letting them discover themselves. And we actually know from 1000s of years of forgotten human history, but now we're rediscovering it anew, going for a walk or taking time to create something transforms our reality in magical ways. So we wanted to see what our community could do with that, and what our community could do with that knocked our socks off. It is extraordinary the creative energy that is happening in this community. And so we we were really delighted by the opportunity to make that the focus. Of this first Prebys Sparks competition. And I just want to say again that what emerged through the process of preva Sparks was yes, one grand prize winner. And I want to, I want to completely honor VAPA for emerging victorious. But I also want to say this community is full of really dedicated people creating amazing opportunities to connect young people with these new ways of seeing themselves and living their lives. And for me, one of the greatest takeaways from this process, aside from the extraordinary winner and honorable mentions, is how much inventiveness and innovation and dedication is happening here in San Diego, and what all of you represent and are here to celebrate is actually a community that is its own change agent. So if we can have a moment to celebrate that and applaud that, I would appreciate it.

Grant Oliphant 16:14
There are a lot more words on my paper, but I think I've said what I came to say in terms of that. So I'm going to transition now to the interview, because I think we're going to cover a lot of this ground in the course of the conversation that we're about to have. All right, I would like to invite Caitlin Woodside, Executive Director of the VAPA Foundation, to join me. So I had, I had the privilege of calling Caitlin a couple of weeks back out of the blue, and what did I say to you? Do you remember?

Grant Oliphant 17:00
So what I said was, I told her who I was, and then I said, Well, I have good news. And the good news was that you had won this competition. And I just want to say about you. You, you may not remember, but you were stunningly composed in your response.

Katelyn Woodside 17:20
It did not feel that way.

Grant Oliphant 17:24
Well, I should, well, rather than my saying anything about VAPA, would you quickly just describe for everyone what VAPA does

Katelyn Woodside 17:32
sure VAPA- VAPAFoundation was established in 2017 after a group of parents and community members, and many of them are here with us today, Doreen and Phyllis and John thank you for being here. Saw a need for more arts education program in their schools. They recognized that their kids really grow and thrive through the arts, and they wanted to make a bigger impact. And so our work is to bring arts education programs into schools where kids wouldn't otherwise have those opportunities.

Grant Oliphant 18:05
Good figures that I would start off by mispronouncing VAPA, but it's VAPA. Is that right?

Katelyn Woodside 18:10
Visual and Performing Arts, and so you know

Grant Oliphant 18:13
you're being nice to me, all right? So you have this extraordinary background that has brought you through the nonprofit sector business, you've you've worked in various art forms. What attracted you to this work,

Katelyn Woodside 18:31
the work here at the VAPA foundation? Yes, it was just a really beautiful blending of my background. So I'm a violinist, a classically trained violinist, and spent over 15 years as an educator. So I had a private studio in Poway, and I worked as a teaching artist in schools, and I made the transition into the nonprofit sector through the arts, and so for the past 10 years, working in the arts, and then the VAPA Foundation was just this really incredible blending of both of my backgrounds in a really unique and interesting way. And so when I saw the posting, and I talked to John and Russ, wanted to, wanted to take the dive jump in.

Grant Oliphant 19:10
Well, when the when the judges were talking about your project, some themes emerged in their in their comments about that attracted them to it, and one was just how it used the arts to engage youth. It was also another theme that emerged was how many youth you managed to reach and how you engaged other community members in that process. Can you give us really the broader view of this system that you've put together,

Katelyn Woodside 19:41
sure. So I work very closely with Russ Sperling at the San Diego Unified so he's the director of Visual Performing Arts. He couldn't be here today. He's traveling. But we work closely for the last 18 months that I've been at the foundation to really narrow in and identify The impact that the foundation can make and the close work that we can do together at this at the school district and so Russ and I worked very closely together to identify schools that are really missing those arts experiences, the students that really could benefit from having all of these incredible arts experiences brought to So Sandy unified and Russ Burley in particular, is my main, key, primary partner. And so in thinking about the sparks challenge, I wanted to be very intentional on how we could put together a very community informed and community driven program to make a big difference for the students of San Diego. And so I had to let it percolate a bit at the call to the challenge, I didn't quite have the idea instantly. It was one of those concepts that had to, I had to think, think on it. And I think I made a comment to one of my board members in a board meeting, Doreen, I think you were the one that said you should talk to the Expressive Arts folks. And I said, Oh, specs of Arts. I know these. I've heard of this. I know these people. I don't know them, but I've heard of them. So I reached out and I talked to Elizabeth Tobias, and I said, I have this concept, but I don't have it solidified yet. And so we just started talking, and she had some great ideas. And I kept saying, that's that's not quite right. How do we how do we figure this out? And she made a comment, and she said, Well, we can't really do expressive arts in schools unless people are trained in how to do expressive arts. And I said, That's it. Like, wait a minute, could we train teaching artists how to do expressive arts? And she said, I think we can. And so that spurred us into this whole evolution of this concept, and it grew very quickly. And so as soon as we decided that Elizabeth and Judith could put together a teaching artist training program. Then I said, Okay, who, like, who are my partners? And I wanted to be really intentional with the partners that I reached out to, because I wanted to have partners that had a really deep connection to the teaching artists community. And I wanted to have also programs that were organizations that had programs in the schools already, so they already knew how to work in the schools. They already had the residency programs established, and how we could support the teaching artists community in deepening their work that they already do incredibly well. And so that was the evolution of how this all kind of came about through conversations. And, yeah, it was. It was an evolution, for sure. It wasn't like a spark moment. It was. It was a really like,

Grant Oliphant 22:53
come on, you're destroying the name.

Katelyn Woodside 22:55
It was a, it was an evolution to to get to the spark.

Grant Oliphant 23:00
You know what's amazing is when I called her out of the blue to say, Guess what, your idea won. She was exactly this way, exactly this composed. So you clearly have spent a lot of time in internalizing this program. Part of what stands out in what you just shared is that the way in which you're approaching young people also engages artists, and that you've thought a lot about how to bring in teaching artists and other community partners to help you do that. How many partners do you have?

Katelyn Woodside 23:38
15 so Expressive Arts Institute is my key partner to do the teaching artist training program, and then 14 other community arts partners.

Grant Oliphant 23:47
And the broader vision here, ultimately is, how many kids are you trying to or young people are you trying to reach now? And where do you see this potentially leading? So

Katelyn Woodside 23:58
we've identified 25 schools, and our goal is 135 classrooms across those 25 schools with an estimated 45 to 4700 plus students at the initial onset of the program for this next school year. But I think really the magic in this concept is that it that's not where it stops. And so the teaching artists and the organizations that I've partnered with work in their communities all throughout the county, and so the teaching artists that are trained in this program will be able to take what they've learned and continue the work in all of the other communities that they serve and in the their schools that they work in. I mean, we have ranging from North County all the way down to, you know, South Bay, East County, all the way throughout. So I think the really exciting part for me in this, how this concept has evolved, is the ripple effect. So this is not just that one time investment for this school year. This is investing in our. Organizations and our communities and our teaching artists to continue this work in the years to come.

Grant Oliphant 25:07
Why do you think it is, or do you think it is that school systems and society in general underestimate the power of the arts to help young people in the ways that you're using them.

Katelyn Woodside 25:25
I think all of us here in the room understand the power of the arts, and I don't know if it's so much that society underestimates the power of the arts, but I wonder if it's they don't see the impact firsthand, or they're not the they or they see it, or they're not quite sure how to find it. One of the things that has really struck out, stood out to me, as I've been in this position here, is the realization that the school district can't do it alone, just like the VA can't do it alone for veterans, you have veteran service organization is a multi million dollar sector. I worked at Wounded Warrior Project for a handful of years, and so I know firsthand the incredible program supported by the nonprofit and the philanthropic community the VA can't do it alone, just like the city can't do it alone for homeless, just like so many other sectors, and so the school district can't do this work alone. And so having the philanthropic community and the nonprofit community and all the partners that we've created to make incredible programs for these kids, I think that's also a really special piece of this. And I hope in the long run, we'll have parents and family families involved in the communities and the philanthropic community realize that we can all work together to make these incredible things happen in schools for kids, and it will only better our communities as a whole.

Grant Oliphant 27:00
I love that answer, and I love that you mentioned veterans, because actually, what we know from the research is that working with veterans, we've learned that art and nature have power there too in helping veterans deal with PTSD and other mental health traumas that they've encountered through their military service. So let's make this real for people. And let me ask you for an example of where you have seen the power of what you're about to do work in a young person's life. How do you when you talk to the broader community about why this matters? What examples do you give?

Katelyn Woodside 27:39
First? Um, first one I have, I at the risk of calling out one of my partners. I am so sorry at Carlos. I think when we first had the conversation, you told me a bit about your background with theater and how you were really able to find your voice and just really grow and thrive. And so I thought that was such an incredible story from a partner who had experienced that as a child and then now works in theater and is giving back to the community and providing those experiences that he was able to have. And so that really stuck with me. So that was one just sitting here, off the top of my head.

Katelyn Woodside 28:24
I was an educator for over 15 years, and I worked with across the board, from three year olds to retirees. And I saw in every age group, in every you know, walk of life, every background and experience, just the joy of accomplishing something and the joy of learning something, and the self expression and the newfound confidence, you know, the teaching Twinkle, twinkle, little star endlessly for years and years. Do you think it might get boring, but it didn't. It was amazing. You know, I saw the little kids light up, and they loved being like as soon as they got it. It clicked. And so watching that through my own experience, hearing the testimonies of my arts partners and and then, of course, working with the school district and Russ and his staff, I hear it all the time, that it's just makes such an incredible difference. It's things that we can't quite always quantify, but we know that it's there, you know, beautiful.

Grant Oliphant 29:26
So this is a moment where you have a bigger platform. I mean, not just this gathering in this podcast, but receiving an award like this and the recognition that comes with it should, in theory, give you greater currency in the idea flow of the world. And what do you want our community to know that maybe they haven't realized before?

Katelyn Woodside 29:54
I think we're better, stronger together. I think collaboration is. Is the key. I think, if there is one thing that I hope that this project can demonstrate, is that we can bring cross sectors together. We can bring the school district, we can bring the expressive arts. We can bring teaching artists in our nonprofit community and the philanthropic community together, unite under one goal and create better programs for our students and for our communities and for our kids, and we can't do it in silos, one like I the VAPA Foundation, could not do this program without the collaboration of the my partners that I've convened, and the philanthropic funding from the Prebys Foundation, and the incredible work of the expressive art. So I think that's, that's my big message to us all, is that I we're stronger together, and we can collaborate, and when we can think big together, we can make incredible things happen.

Grant Oliphant 31:00
Well, your proposal certainly embodied that. I think it's extraordinary to put together the type of coalition collaboration that you did. I guess my final question to you would be, can you pull it off?

Katelyn Woodside 31:16
Absolutely,

Grant Oliphant 31:17
high stakes. Nobody's paying attention.

Katelyn Woodside 31:20
Absolutely

Katelyn Woodside 31:21
so I would love to recognize all the partners that I have in the room here, if you'd like to raise your hand or stand up with the incredible people that we have in the room here, that I am confident that we can make incredible things happen together. Yes, yes. We have 14 Community Arts partners, the Expressive Arts Institute, and together, I am confident that we can reach these students in these schools and hit our goals that we've stated. I know we can do it well.

Grant Oliphant 31:52
I just I want to put an underscoring under your comment about how we're stronger together and better through these collaborations. One of the things that I'm always struck by in community work is that there are two tensions constantly fighting each other. And one is to believe that it's too complex and it's too hard and it's too difficult to change the very real social dynamics that we see on the ground at any one time. And then the other is to believe that actually we can do that, and we can do it together. And I just want to say on behalf of everybody involved in this process, thank you to you and your partners for what you're attempting to do.

Katelyn Woodside 32:37
Thank you. Thank you.

Grant Oliphant 32:38
Thank you.

Grant Oliphant 32:47
Now we are going to welcome up Lucy Eagleson, executive director of A Reason to Survive, Javier Guerrero, President and CEO of Coastal Roots Farm.

Grant Oliphant 33:07
Eden Mengistu, Program Specialist United women of East Africa support team. And Stan Collins, founder and suicide prevention specialist with Youth Creating Change.

Grant Oliphant 33:31
What an extraordinary collection to be sitting in the middle of. And I, you know, as I was reading out the names and the organizations, it was just I was struck again by the breadth of work being done in this community. So I'm going to start going down this way Eden by turning to you and just asking you to say a few words about your project and what you were working on.

Eden Mengistu 33:56
Yeah, of course. So at the United women of East Africa support team. We were founded, actually, by our amazing Executive Director, Sarah Abdi in 2008 and she did an amazing job getting together with refugee immigrant women, and they really just needed a collaborative safe space for their children that we didn't have. And so I myself, as a youth growing up in city heights, we did not have spaces like this. So it was extremely difficult to be able to have a space where we were able to collect and gather together, to be able to discuss things, and to be able to go over just different things that the youth really needed. And so being able to work on this project is something that is so, so extremely valuable, and so we're so grateful to have this opportunity. And so being able to really work on different cultural aspects and just get together and be able to really work on our cultural identity is something that I think is really, really impactful. So I myself growing up, I. A first gen, you know, youth in the community, it's really difficult to have two different identities. You know, at school, I am able to reflect with my different community members and my my peers. But when I go home, you know, I'm going home to an Ethiopian household. It's very, very different compared to the people I see at school. So really, being able to combine those two and to be able to feel comfortable in my cultural identity with both of those and in combination with one another,

Grant Oliphant 35:32
fantastic. Thank you, and thank you for sharing the personal side of that too. Stan,

Stan Collins 35:38
what was the question?

Grant Oliphant 35:43
A little bit about, a little little bit about the the organization, and what, what you proposed in this competition? Yeah,

Stan Collins 35:50
so the organization called Youth creating change, and what we are is a mental health and suicide prevention curriculum that works with youth uses using the medium of art. So we started, initially as a film contest. Now we do all types of arts, from poetry to spoken word to paintings to photography, and

Stan Collins 36:07
the goal is to give youth an opportunity to explore what they're experiencing, as was mentioned earlier, all the whirlwind of the last few years, so from current events to what's happening in their communities, to process it so they instead of just going in and talking at youth, we give them the resources to learn, whether it's through lesson plans or, you know, online trainings or going into the classroom, but it going one step further then, and allowing them to build and create something that then it's part of your soul. So they're not only doing this, we're not just doing this so that they get the benefit of the information, but then they're creating these films and these pieces of art, photography and and beautiful paintings, because youth are always going to be better at communicating to youth than we will ever be, you know, once we, once you get that past that certain age, to have those authentic moments where youth can feel heard and seeing to process all that's going around, but also learning about the things that they can do.

Stan Collins 37:04
So, you know, growing up in San Diego, I think, you know, and actually doing some tremendous work with the organization. Like to go in and do trainings and seeing how we can use art and we can use these conversations to culture. Doesn't always need to be a bad word as it relates to mental health. And so we also give them a space around how to, how to may understand that context of, how does mental health work in my culture, how? What are, what? What are the complications? But also, what are some of the beautiful things? Is there stronger familial support, more gatherings, more social, you know, social pieces. So really, just trying to give youth a platform and to learn from them and to learn from each other. Beautiful.

Grant Oliphant 37:46
All right, Lucy, what about for you?

Lucy Eagleson 37:49
So at a reason to survive, we uplift young people through the power of creativity. And so what does that look like in the case of our sparks initiative concept is our community arts program where young people come to our space, and we invite them to be themselves, to be weird, to explore through the power of painting, sewing, music, wood, welding, all the things right, we invite them to explore these mediums, to figure out who They are, to tell that story, and we also recognize that we as arts can't be everything, and so we have a lot of community partners that we work with.

Lucy Eagleson 38:28
We also recognize it's a wild, wild world out there for our young people, and their needs are current, but also emergent. And so we're paying attention, we're listening, and we're connecting them to other resources, mental health, food insecurity, housing insecurity, so much more. And so we bring together our partners to connect our youth to other opportunities in the South Bay and beyond, so they can live their best life and realize the trajectories they see for themselves,

Grant Oliphant 38:55
beautiful. Thank you over here.

Javier Guerrero 38:59
Well, thank you so much for having us, and congratulations to everyone. This is all very exciting. Coastal roots farm, we talked about, our work is nourishing community, and there's a lot of ways that we do that so high level. You know, we're growing regeneratively, the most sustainable way to care for the planet, to grow the best, most nutrient dense food to our second initiative, which is food access. So we donate a majority of the food we grow. Third, environmental education and how we educate the youth, over 12,000 youth coming to the farm each year. And then the fourth, uplifted and guided by really powerful Jewish values like re which is mutual care, about how we care about each other, and Adam bada Ma, which is how we have this connection and caring between the Earth and us as people. And that's all is very much ties to our initiative that we proposed to this grant, which was my good friend over here, Adam Aribe with red earth movement. And. And we've been working over the last couple of years with tribal communities, indigenous communities in San Diego to see how we can uplift food growing the community, and how much that connects to tribal identity and culture and so on. And as something I've been working over the course of my career, it really took new heights, working along with Megan here as well on our team, got Christine over there. But when AB and I met, it was, you know, the values of red earth movement, and it's goes back to nourishing the land and nourishing the people. So we talked about nourishing community. And so with Adam's vision, with red earth movement, which is a big focus of our initiative, was, how can we uplift tribal communities in San Diego by creating that next generation of farmer of culture, bearers of wisdom, uplifted by our farm team, our education team, but really creating these paid workforce internship opportunities that is really going to steward the next generation? Not just of tribal leaders, of community leaders, but they're going to really know how to care for their community, and all the ways that we talk about nourishing community, and that's, you know, mind, body and spirit. So we're going to continue this work, and I just want to say we're investing 100% of our monies that we're receiving into this initiative because we feel it's so important and we're going to continue this work.

Grant Oliphant 41:26
Fantastic. So there's so many different questions I could ask here, but I think what I want to press all of you on to say a little bit more about is in this highly clinical age, the temptation is to say that the way we have to deal with the challenges that young people face is either to eliminate those challenges, good luck with that, or to find appropriate levels of treatment for them, and also good luck with that, given the shortage of clinicians and therapies available, but people are naturally resistant to the idea that art or nature is a valuable way of promoting healing. So I'd like you to say a little bit more about why it's important and specifically for the population that you're working with, we have a really interesting range of young people represented through the work that you're proposing in your various initiatives, indigenous youth and immigrant and refugee youth, and just youth in the general population facing significant challenges. So I would like you to talk a little bit about why this type of approach matters for the youth that you specifically work with who would like to go first. Stan, thank you for volunteering.

Stan Collins 43:02
Thanks. Great. Well, I think acknowledging the distressful situation, right though, you, like you said, we'll never have the army of social workers and clinicians. We'll never have the needs. I think it's, it's about embracing the small things.

Stan Collins 43:17
One of the things that when we work with our youth, sometimes they just want to feel seen and heard like that can be enough to improve their mental health in the moment. What can we do to soothe ourselves or soothe the people around us? And earlier, you were talking about prevention, you know, getting to these youth early, at young ages, to embrace and have not just, you know, understanding of mental health, but a competency in mental health, and what is mental health, and how does that tie in? So I think by working with with communities and across cultures, and you know, we have a component of our work called through the lens of culture, and I mentioned how we kind of tie that in, but one of the things we see from youth is exactly what you were talking about, depending on the hour of the day or what environment they're at and how that can impact them. So I really think by giving them these skill sets of, okay, I'm stressed out. You know, I heard one time, if you only give kids five words to describe their feelings, they're only ever going to feel those five feelings. So it's not just happy, sad, angry, you know, whatever. Oh, I'm anxious. I'm confused. I'm irritated, you know, so getting them to have this understanding of what they can do for themselves and do for their friends.

Stan Collins 44:26
And I, when I first got involved in this work, I got involved. I went through the the school district up in Poway. I lost a friend to suicide, and at the time we we brought a program to our school that really kind of freaked people out, because it was about youth embracing being willing to talk to other youth about suicide prevention, and people panic they didn't know what to do. But we know that the majority of youth are going to tell a friend before they tell anyone else. The problem is that most youth then don't go on to tell a trusted adult. So embracing them and make them less fearful of engaging with an adult and knowing when to do. Do that and trust in youth, empowering them to know when to do that at the appropriate time and the appropriate way. And instead of saying this is what you need to do to fix it, say, Where does it hurt? So I can understand the pain, and then we'll go from there.

Grant Oliphant 45:12
Beautiful love that do you want to go next?

Eden Mengistu 45:15
Yes, of course. So I think something really special about U-East and the way that we approach behavioral health is we really like this mentorship approach. So a lot of our youth that are our mentors today were participants in the program before. And so really being able to see that the youth are able to see themselves and their mentors, I think, is a really, really big thing for them.

Eden Mengistu 45:41
And another thing is also being able to have this intergenerational connection within our community, within the East African Community, mental health and behavioral health is a very taboo subject. It's something that's not often understood, or it's just completely just disregarded, and so it's something that we're able to work on and to have these conversations together. So for instance, having cooking classes where our mothers are the ones that are the ones coming in and leading these classes with our youth, they're able to have these conversations together. And we're able to learn about behavioral health and mental health and all of these topics all together without having this miscommunication on conversations discussing our emotions, and it's something that's really, really been impactful for our community members. It's bringing, it's brought so much awareness to to mental health and its importance. And it's really, really important to see, and really valuable to really see how impactful it's been, especially for our older generations as well, seeing how what has impacted them is trickled down to our youth as well. And so having this broad conversation all together has been so valuable for them to be able to work through it together. And I think that's something that's really, really special about UWEAST.

Grant Oliphant 47:01
Eden, I have to ask you, have you? Have you had to navigate push back in the current cultural environment where there is this idea that we shouldn't focus on individual cultures and identities?

Eden Mengistu 47:15
Yes, yes and yes and no. So it's it's been a bit challenging, because it's not an easy conversation. A lot of our older generations do not want to talk about it, and it's not something that they're very comfortable discussing. But once we're able to dissect and really break down how how easy it is to open up, and how the things that we're already doing is already been impacted. So regularly cooking with our families, that's something that we do every day. You know, right now, we actually just celebrated Eid, actually today. So being able to gather together, cook together as a family, as a community, things that we already do. It's able, we're able to reframe the state of mind that we're the thing of the things that we're doing. So that's been something that's been really impactful, just really changing the way that we look at what we're already doing in our culture.

Grant Oliphant 48:12
Fantastic. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 48:17
Javier, yeah, I'll take it.

Grant Oliphant 48:20
We'reboth looking at you.

Javier Guerrero 48:22
I was just going in order. Wow, keeping it brief, I can be wordy, but there's so much to talk about this as it pertains to the far No, really. But again, I would love that. You know, if Adam was up here with me, I'm going to try embody you a bit here as well, and Megan, but

Javier Guerrero 48:42
There's so much power in nature and healing and putting your hands in the soil. And it one of my favorite responses when people ask Adam, like, Hey, see the table initiative, and you're going to get tribal youth, and you're going to get them back connected with the land, and you know how you going to how you going to do this? Like, like, how, how will we know how to do this? And he's like, we've only been doing it for 1000s of years, right? Like, it's like, we're just going back, doing back, going back to the roots of what was. And I think regenerative farming, those practices and principles are the same. And getting the youth when you connect to nature, it has its healing benefits that I think we all can tap into and understand. But I think within this initiative and our collaboration with an indigenous led organization working directly with the youth, who are truly both challenged and encouraged to participate in a program over an extended period of time where they get to make their own connections and their own way to the land and through their own cultural healings, traditions, song, you name it. It's just exceptionally powerful. And I think there just needs to be more opportunities, not just within tribal, indigenous cultures, but like for everybody. I think we all need to connect better, and we will all be of better mind, body and spirit,

Javier Guerrero 50:02
and when you're talking about cooking, you know, one of the parts of this program is, you know, also at Coastal roots farm, growing the Three Sisters, corn, bean and squash. So it's both supporting growing in the community, but there's also growing that's happening at the farm, and bringing out tribal youth and communities and elders to see what's possible. You know, on this, you know, 18 acre farm in Encinitas and growing on a lunar cycle, it's so powerful, and I would invite you all to come out and experience it for yourself. And we're so excited to continue this program that we've been doing for a while now, and looking forward to working with our crew,

Grant Oliphant 50:40
excellent. Lucy,

Lucy Eagleson 50:42
I think what's beautiful and special for us is that we are place based and in community.

Lucy Eagleson 50:49
We consider ourselves a third space, and so our young people have their school environments and their home environments, and there's all the things that go with that, but we are able to meet needs in a really unique way in our third space. There's paint on the floors, there's fabrics everywhere. It's creative chaos at its finest. And so young people are able to come and explore and reimagine new possibility and a really, really emergent part of our work is our MSW internship program. So we have a lot of young people, SDSU, USC, University of Denver and beyond, who are from South Bay, who are pursuing careers in mental health. And so for us, a big part of the work is hosting them and co-creating parent workshops and other mental health programming that's culturally relevant and representative of community, and supporting the our young people from South Bay on their mental health professional journeys as well. And so doing that with students and co-creating that with our young people, has been magical, and something we're excited to continue, for sure.

Grant Oliphant 51:48
All right. Well, you know, one of the challenges of doing a discussion like this is that we run out of time before we have the opportunity, really, to go down the full length that we could. I want to thank our panelists for participating in this discussion. One of the joys of the work that we get to do at the Prebys Foundation is that we get to sit with folks like this, and we get to put them together in a room and figure out what might be possible for the sake of community, and it is always extraordinary. I'm struck in the course of this conversation, how many times I heard the word collaboration, how fundamental the idea of connection is not just to the work you're doing and to making it more effective and reaching more people, but actually to the work you're doing in changing lives for young people, how, by connecting them with the Earth, with their own creativity, with each other, there's just such immense power in that I'm also struck by, especially at this moment, the ways in which distinct culture and distinct identity also feed our mental well being, because we all come from different places, and we all have different histories, and knowing that and being able to express that is part of how we become who we are in the world. Otherwise we'd all be the same, and thank God we're not. So it's extra. You know, I was struck in listening to you all talk about about how many times that theme came up, not just when I pressed you, but just distinctly talking about what's important to the youth that you're working with. So I just want to say, on behalf of the Prebys Foundation. Thank you for to you the our panelists up here, and of course, our grand prize winner, VAPA Foundation, for being extraordinary on behalf of young people, and for doing the unconventional thing, which is leaning into how to collaborate, how to build community, and how to build the potential of individuals to become powerful contributors of the community that they're a part of. It's amazing. It's a joy to get to celebrate you, and let's have one more round of applause for them. I I will say that San Diego, I said this in my opening comments, San Diego is rich with extraordinary creative change makers, and that is also part of the joy of getting to do this work. And I think we will have many more conversations in the months to come with the people in this community who are really helping to move us forward. And I want to say thank you to all of you for being here to help us celebrate in the way that we have today. Thank you. Applause.

Grant Oliphant 55:07
This is a production of the Prebys Foundation,

Crystal Page 55:10
hosted by Grant Oliphant

Grant Oliphant 55:13
co hosted by Crystal page

Crystal Page 55:16
CO produced by Crystal page and Adam Greenfield,

Grant Oliphant 55:20
engineered by Adam Greenfield

Crystal Page 55:23
production coordination by Tess Karesky,

Grant Oliphant 55:26
video production by Edgar Ontiveros Medina,

Crystal Page 55:30
special thanks to the Prebys Foundation team.

Grant Oliphant 55:33
The stop and talk theme song was created by San Diego's own, Mr. Lyrical Groove.

Speaker 1 55:39
Download episodes at your favorite pod catcher, or visit us at prebysfdn.org.