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Episode 99: Looking back

It is incredible believe that we are on the precipice of 100 episodes of this podcast! Truly remarkable.  I mentioned at the beginning of the year Mel Robbins saying that we can not know where we are going unless we know where we have been. So this moment, before we step off into a new season seemed like that moment to reflect on so many incredible life lessons learned from 99 incredible guests!

Since 2020, the world has changed in ways none of us could have imagined. We’ve all lived through loss, fear, isolation, and uncertainty. And yet, during these years, something extraordinary happened here at Charity Matters … we kept meeting heroes.

Not superheroes.
Not people with perfect answers.

But ordinary humans who faced life’s hardest moments and chose love anyway.

Episode 99 is a pause. A breath. A moment to look back at the people who showed us what courage, compassion, community, and faith really look like. These are the stories that didn’t just inspire us….they changed us.

I’m so glad you’re here.

 Loss, Love, and Legacy 

“Some of the most powerful Charity Matters conversations begin with the unimaginable……the loss of a child.”

Episode 94: Kate Doerge  Penny’s Flight

Kate Doerge lost her daughter Penny to Neurofibromatosis. And yet, what stays with me most from that conversation was not just grief it was joy. Kate taught us that joy and sorrow are not opposites. They coexist.

Through Penny’s Flight, Kate searches for a cure for NF while keeping Penny’s spirit alive. She reminded us that love does not end when life does and choosing joy is not denial, it is bravery.

Lesson: Joy can be an act of defiance in the face of grief.

Episode 92: Rob Thorsen  Shoulder Check

Rob Thorsen lost his son to mental health struggles and instead of letting silence continue, he broke it. Shoulder Check is built on one life-saving idea: checking in.

Rob showed us that mental health conversations are not optional. Asking “Are you okay?” can be an act of love and sometimes, an act that saves a life.

Lesson: Love becomes legacy when it leads to action.

Episode 84:  Mary Fagnano Thrive N Joy

After a tragic surfing accident changed their son Nick’s life forever, his parents chose purpose. Thrive N Joy became a youth leadership organization rooted in resilience, character, and hope.

The Fagnano family reminded us that tragedy does not have to be the end of the story, it can become the mission.

Lesson: Resilience can be modeled, taught, and shared.

Episode 64: Ian Sandler Riley’s Way

When a father lost his nine-year-old daughter Riley at sleepaway camp, he created a movement of kind leaders in her name. Riley’s Way is about empathy, courage, and leading with heart.

Riley’s short life left a long legacy.

Lesson: Kindness is never small and leadership begins with compassion.

“None of these parents chose this path. But all of them chose what came next.”

Homelessness, Dignity, and Healing 

“Homelessness is not just about housing….it’s about dignity and being seen.”

Episode 90: Terry Grahl  Enchanted Makeovers

Terry Grahl knows homelessness and trauma personally. Through Enchanted Makeovers, she transforms shelters for women and children into spaces of beauty and calm.

These rooms say: You matter.

Terry taught us that dignity is not a luxury, it is the foundation of healing.

Lesson: Beauty can be a form of justice.

Episode 36: Kevin Adler  Miracle Messages

Kevin Adler showed us that connection can be the bridge back to life. Miracle Messages reconnects people experiencing homelessness with loved ones they’ve lost touch with….sometimes for decades.

Homelessness often begins with broken relationships. Healing begins with being remembered.

Lesson: Community heals what isolation breaks.

Community: How We Rise Together

“If there is one truth that echoes through nearly every Charity Matters episode, it is this: we are not meant to do life alone.”

Episode 71: Debbie Bial  The Posse Foundation

Debbie Bial believed that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not. By sending students to college together in “posses,” she created belonging and tens of thousands of college graduates.

Lesson: Belonging is a catalyst for success.

Episode 69: Rachel Doyle Glamour Gals

Teenagers doing nails with seniors might sound simple but it dissolves loneliness on both sides. GlamourGals reminded us that community doesn’t have to be complicated to be powerful.

Lesson: Small connections create big change.

Episode 46: Maggie Kane  A Place at the Table

Maggie Kane’s pay-what-you-can café invites everyone to the same table…..housed or unhoused. No labels. Just dignity.

Lesson: When we eat together, we humanize one another.

Faith: The Quiet Foundation 

“So many of these heroes didn’t set out to build nonprofits. They set out to live their faith.”

Episode 9: Brian Mavis America’s Kids Belong

Brian Mavis and his wife’s faith compelled  them to act for foster children turning belief into belonging for tens of thousands of kids.

Lesson: Faith becomes powerful when it moves us beyond ourselves.

Episode 24: Hal Hargrave  Be Perfect Foundation

After becoming a paraplegic, Hal Hargrave chose to see his setback as a calling. His faith helped him transform pain into purpose.

Lesson: Faith doesn’t remove obstacles—it gives them meaning.

 

Episode 58: Kurt Handler  410 Bridge

Kurt Kandler showed us faith in action through partnership, not handouts. Empowering communities to lift themselves up.

Lesson: True service creates possibility, not dependence.

“When I look back at all of these heroes, one thing is clear….none of them did this alone, and none of them did this without love.”

Episode 99 is not just a look back. It’s an invitation to belong, to believe, and to act.

Revisit these stories on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and www.charity-matters.com. Share the ones that moved you. And remember:

Every time you choose kindness, compassion, or service….you become part of this story too.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2026 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

 

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Episode 98: Caroline’s Cause

Nonprofit founders are some of the most inspiring entrepreneurs on the planet. They see a problem and create a solution. Today’s guest, Drew Long is no exception. Her first entrepreneurial journey was to create a shopping cart for her disabled daughter, Caroline. Drew is an Alabama mom with a big heart, a thick skin, and the kind of determination that changes systems. After solving that problem for millions of families she went on to solve another. Drew founded Caroline’s Cause, a scholarship nonprofit created for the typical siblings of children with special needs. In the middle of caregiving, life, and all the messy real-world logistics, Drew looked at those overlooked siblings and said, “We see you.” That simple sentence becomes a force in this conversation.

Drew is that she’s the real deal. She is equal parts tenderhearted and tough, honest about how hard this life can be, and hilarious in the way only someone who’s been through it can be.  In our chat, Drew shares the moment she realized there were scholarships for everything and yet nothing for students growing up with a special needs sibling. So she built it. Her dream is simple: no unfunded scholarship, ever. If you want a story about grit, love, community, and what it looks like to take a hard card in life and turn it into change for good….press play.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Caroline’s Cause does?

Drew Long:  Caroline’s Cause is a nonprofit that awards college scholarships to entering freshmen who have a special needs sibling. To qualify, students come from families like mine—families where there is one child with significant needs and other children who are “typical.” In those families, the dynamic is real and unavoidable: the special needs child requires more time, more attention, more resources. That doesn’t mean you love the other children less. It simply means the needs are different.

In our home, my daughter Caroline has seizures, she doesn’t walk, she wears a diaper, and she needs full-time care. My other children grew up knowing that Caroline needed more of Mama’s time. They stepped back quietly and selflessly. And there is almost nothing out there that recognizes those siblings….the ones who take the back seat without complaint. Caroline’s Cause was created to say, we see you. We want to thank you for being such a great brother or sister. We want to honor that sacrifice and that love.

Charity Matters: What experiences did you have as a child that influenced this work?

Drew Long: I grew up with a special needs aunt, my mom’s sister had cerebral palsy. Looking back, I really believe that was God’s way of softening my heart and preparing me for a life I had no idea was coming. I was always tender toward special needs families, even before I fully understood what that life meant.

And I’ll say something that took me a long time to admit: nobody wants a special needs child and that’s okay to say. That doesn’t mean you don’t love your child. It means that as parents, we all have hopes and dreams for our kids, and when you face a diagnosis like I did, those dreams crash and burn. My heart had been prepared early on, not through nonprofits or philanthropy, but through proximity through seeing special needs up close and watching families navigate it.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Caroline’s Causes?

Drew Long: The moment came when my oldest daughter was getting ready for college. Like every parent, we started looking for scholarships and we found everything under the sun. If you’re left-handed, there’s a scholarship. If you have a tiny percentage of Irish ancestry, there’s a scholarship.

So I said, “Surely there’s a scholarship for students who have a special needs sibling.” There wasn’t. Not one.

That’s when I knew. I told my husband, “I have a great idea,” and he practically shut me down, until I said, “It’s not a product. It’s a nonprofit.” I thought that would make it easier. It didn’t. But it was born out of a real need, this time for my typical daughter, and for families like ours everywhere.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Drew Long: Honestly, my biggest challenge has been my own naïveté and strangely, that’s also what’s sustained me. I truly believed both my business and this nonprofit would be easy. Had I known how hard either one would be, I might never have started.

With the business, my husband and I ended up funding it with our retirement something we never planned or intended. With the nonprofit, I assumed that because it wasn’t a product, everyone would love it as much as I did. That hasn’t been the case. If I had sat down early on with seasoned nonprofit leaders and heard everything that could go wrong, I probably wouldn’t have done it. So not knowing what was around the corner actually worked in my favor.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Drew Long: Award day. Every single time.

When I call the families and the moms are crying, telling me this was the only scholarship their child received…..that’s what fuels me. We don’t look at ACT scores. We require a 3.0 GPA and base everything on need. I lived the ACT nightmare with my own kids, and I don’t believe it’s a good measure of potential.

These kids often wouldn’t qualify for academic scholarships, but they are absolutely deserving. That moment when they realize, I got a scholarship, when they get to stand with their peers on awards day and that sense of pride is everything. It’s not just financial. It’s validation.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Drew Long: I know we’ve made a difference because I stay in touch with the families. Our first scholarship recipients are graduating this spring. Parents tell me that we lifted a burden during that first year and that initial push made college possible.

And it goes beyond money. It’s confidence. It’s pride. It’s knowing someone believed in them. One of our recipients went to welding school, and his mom told me she applied on a whim. We were proud to support that because trades matter. AI isn’t replacing welders or plumbers. We need to normalize that path again.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Drew Long: So far, we’ve awarded 13 scholarships and each one is $5,000. People told me that was too much, but I wanted to move the needle. College is expensive. Five thousand dollars can cover a year at junior college. It’s enough to matter.

The impact isn’t just the number. It’s the pride these students feel. It’s families who thought college wasn’t possible suddenly seeing a path forward. That’s success to me.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Drew Long: My dream is simple: to never have an unfunded scholarship. Last year, we had 78 unfunded applicants. That number still sits with me.

Caroline’s Cause is my give-back. I don’t take a salary. If someone gives $5,000, it goes in and goes right back out as a scholarship. I want donors to know exactly where their money goes. People work hard for their money, and transparency matters.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Drew Long: Do not take no from someone who can’t say yes. Corporate America turned me down when I pitched the idea for a special needs shopping cart. Had I not lived the daily reality of this community, that cart wouldn’t exist today.

You cannot be afraid of hard. You have to be willing to put it all on the line. It’s terrifying. It’s risky. I never thought I was a risk-taker but that’s what it took. You may be asked to walk a path you never imagined, and you have to say yes anyway.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Drew Long: You can’t go through years of financial and emotional uncertainty and come out unchanged. Being a special needs parent gives you thick skin. You learn to advocate. You learn to fight. That prepared me for business and for this nonprofit.

I’ve heard “no” more times than I can count and I’m still hearing it. But you keep going. Failure is part of the journey. Community is everything. Nothing I’ve done, neither business nor nonprofit, happened alone. It was people rallying together to solve a problem.

Caroline’s legacy lives through this work. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this: just keep going.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2026 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Episode 96: Mom’s Christmas Stocking

Some stories find us when we need them most. Wendy Strauss’s began with a slip of paper discovered in her late mother’s tidy little office. It was a simple note titled “Mom’s Christmas Stocking,” asking her children to keep filling a stocking for Mom by giving it to a woman who needed “a shot of love.” That tender request became a calling. What started as one timid lunch-hour drop-off blossomed into an annual community tradition that now fills hundreds of beautifully curated stockings for women in shelters, prisons, and recovery programs across New York City, each one a love letter, a reminder that someone sees you and you matter.

As we enter the Christmas season, Wendy’s story reminds us what the holiday is truly about….it’s not the gifts we buy, but the love we give. It’s about connection, kindness, and finding ways to bring light to those who need it most. Through Mom’s Christmas Stocking, Wendy has turned her grief into grace, transforming loss into a legacy of giving. Her journey captures the real spirit of Christmas: that joy multiplies when we share it. If you’ve ever wondered whether one small act can change a life…..or if you’ve needed a nudge to turn love into action, then Wendy’s story will fill your heart and remind you that the greatest gift we can give is love itself.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Mom’s Christmas Stocking does?

Wendy Strauss:  Each holiday season we fill hundreds of Christmas stockings and donate them to a group that distributes them around the five boroughs of Manhattan. Women, often in prisons, rehabs, or shelters receive these beautifully filled stockings to get a “shot of love” and a little holiday joy, women who might not otherwise receive that.

Charity Matters: What experiences did you have as a child that helped shape your giving?

Wendy Strauss:  I was the last of five, so I grew up almost like an only child. My mom had me later in life, and I tagged along as she did a lot of spiritual seeking….yoga and meditation before they were popular. She surrounded herself with younger people, almost mentoring these hippie-type kids who were chanting and meditating. That openness to people who weren’t “the norm” formed my childhood. We were vegetarians when it wasn’t really a thing. She was my role model…open, curious, ahead of the curve. It wasn’t about “giving back” yet; it was about discovery, but that spirit of openness and love was the seed.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Mom’s Christmas Stocking?

Wendy Strauss:  In 2007 my mom passed away unexpectedly in March. We already had a trip planned for June to see family. We stayed in her house, she’d fixed it up for us and it felt like she was welcoming us even though she wasn’t there. One morning I wandered into her very tidy little office. She was a wonderful writer—so many articles, Historical Society work, family tree research. I picked up a random file folder and a slip of paper fell to the floor. It was titled “Mom’s Christmas Stocking.” It said:

“Every Christmas you have always filled a stocking for Mom. I want you to continue to do so. Choose the very things I would love and those you love to give to me. Find someone to give this filled stocking to a woman in prison or in a drug rehab or a homeless center. This is the most precious gift I could receive or that you could give, sharing the love we know with someone who really needs a shot of love. And in this way, I will continue to share your Christmases and continue to be a part of my wonderful family.”

I made copies for my siblings. That Christmas I took it very seriously. I filled one stocking, Googled where to bring it, and found Women In Need. On my lunch hour I brought it over, explained why, tucked in a copy of Mom’s note, and they said they’d find someone to give it to. I went back to work and felt so good the rest of the day. At my evening workout my friends said, “Something’s up,” so I told them and they said, “Next year we’ll all fill stockings.” The following year we did eight. Then 75. It just grew. People wanted to donate more and know how it worked, and eventually I looked up how to become a nonprofit and did the paperwork myself.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Wendy Strauss: Starting anything is hard, and once I became a nonprofit the pandemic hit. I got my determination letter in 2020 and then everything closed. I was filling stockings by myself….Amazon donations came, but no gatherings. Funding is always a challenge. Spreading the word is a challenge. Space is a challenge. We host an annual stocking-stuffing event at the gym where it all began, Grassroots Fitness Project, and that’s a gift, but organizing, storing, keeping things moving when you’re doing it primarily alone is a lot. I’m good at admin, but the bigger we get, the more time those pieces take.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Wendy Strauss: Loss has been part of my story….after my mom passed, we lost my dad; my husband passed in 2014; my brother shortly after. Everyone we encounter has something going on. I know what makes me feel better. A dear friend, who had gone through something horrific, came to one of our events and said, “Wendy, giving is healing.” That became my motto. It is so healing. Yes, the recipients get something, but we get so much in return.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Wendy Strauss: The feedback is beautiful…..families who look forward to the event every year, friends who never miss. People who moved away now run their own stocking-stuffing gatherings; Massachusetts, Virginia, Maryland, Colorado, and now North Carolina. Local New York businesses and schools do their own events and ship stockings to me. That impact and seeing the seeds become their own gardens is how I know.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Wendy Strauss: I try to prioritize quality over quantity. I get pushed on numbers….“How many this year?” The need is so great that providers want to honor as many moms as possible. I do my best. But success, to me, is the community that’s grown around this. The families who plan their December around coming, the kids who love it, the businesses and schools who join in, the chapters springing up in new places. In one or two hours at our New York event we’ll fill 400 stockings and it goes so quickly because so many people show up. The impact is the joy and connection we create, the “shot of love” that keeps rippling.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Wendy Strauss: A solid team. A couple of “sugar donors,” I always joke. More space. My vision is a year-round space where the stocking operation is always set up and groups could come in any time to fill stockings, from small gatherings to big parties. People could take them to distribute wherever they’re needed. I love working with other organizations and donating to them when I can, collecting items so I’m ready when someone calls and says, “I need size 9 sneakers.” I like to manifest, so I’m putting this out there.

I’m also learning to ask for help. I’m a do-it-yourselfer, but when I finally asked a friend to help, she said, “I’m so happy you did. I love doing this for you.” I’d love a teenage intern to help with social media. A countdown to the event or the season and those little things make a big difference.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Wendy Strauss:  Discernment. Everybody has a story and we don’t know it at first glance. Being kind to the worker on the street, saying good morning—those small things matter. They also help me; they soften my shell. People say New Yorkers are tough, but kindness makes the shell flexible. I’ve also learned boundaries—soft ones and hard ones—to help me grow in my life and in the nonprofit. We can only give when our cup is full. The need is always greater than we can meet, so boundaries keep us going.

I’ve planted a lot of seeds. My mom was a wonderful gardener; I’m not, at least not with plants—this is how I garden. I’ve seen growth, and it’s meaningful for so many people that they want to help. That’s beautiful. And I’ve learned that we don’t need that much to be grateful. I’m grateful for the tiniest things now.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Wendy Strauss:  I’m not the same person I was in 2007…..I hope not. I want to keep growing. I take care of a lot, but I can do it. With focus, there’s more we can do than we expect and while staying within boundaries. My compassion has grown. I’m an empath, and landing in New York City amplified that, but compassion is universal. Once you open up to other people’s stories and to hearing them and serving them, your understanding deepens. That makes you want to keep helping. It gives you gratitude, and gratitude gives you joy.

Charity Matters: Any closing thoughts….

Wendy Strauss: Giving is healing. That’s the heart of this. My mom’s note was her way of comforting us and staying part of our Christmases. Every stocking is a love letter and something a mom would have loved, passed on to a woman who needs that “shot of love.” It began with one stocking, one note, one person. Now it’s families, schools, businesses, and chapters across the country. I’m grateful for every helper who shows up, every year-round donation, every kind word. Christmas should be all year and it can be, if we keep sharing love.

CHARITY MATTERS.

To Support Mom’s Christmas Stocking visit: momschristmasstocking.com

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2025 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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Episode 95: Uprising Yoga

 Pablo Picasso said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” That’s the thread running through this week’s episode with my dear friend Jill, founder of Uprising Yoga. Jill’s journey is a full-circle story. From an angry, hurting teenager to a joyful healer bringing trauma-informed yoga and life skills to youth in juvenile halls. She discovered a gift that first saved her own life: breath, presence, and the slow, steady return to self. And then she did the most beautiful thing….she gave that gift away, again and again, to kids who need it most.

In this conversation, Jill invites us into the processing units at juvenile hall, where resistance softens into resilience, where a single breath can become a lifeline, and where hope looks like one small practice done with love. If you’ve ever wondered how purpose finds us in the mess and the miracle of real life, you’ll feel it here. Come listen to how a $10, ten-day yoga pass became a mission, how community shows up when we “look for the helpers,” and how gifts once found…can ripple out to change the world.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Uprising Yoga does?

Jill Ippolito: At Uprising Yoga,the main thing we do is bring trauma-informed yoga life skills to those incarcerated and communities that need it most. That’s the mission. What we’re actually doing currently: we have trauma-informed yoga trainings that we have taught, but right now we have two classes at Los Padrinos in juvenile hall, in the processing units, where youth are taken and detained and moved through the system.

Charity Matters: What were some early memories of service or giving?

Jill Ippolito: I was an angry teenager. Resistance. Always getting in trouble. Defiant rebellion to authority. Refusal to be a part of volunteering. My mom insisted. I have a picture of me wearing a shirt called “Do Something,” and that was the name of one of the organizations she dragged me to. I had a frown on my face. I did not want to help anybody. And she just insisted that, you know what, wherever we are, we can reach out and help anybody in need. She made me do it. There are pictures of me…reluctant.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start  Uprising Yoga?

Jill Ippolito:  In 2001 I was dealing with my own addiction issues. I was in jails and institutions. I was told to go to a program for recovery. Shocking, daunting and defiant refusal again. When I tried to go into some of this recovery, the lights were really bright, the people were smiling, facial expressions hard. I signed up for $10 for 10 days to a hot yoga studio, and it helped me feel safe. It changed everything. I left the class feeling lighter, like my life could have purpose if I went to yoga every day. Just $10, 10 days…I wondered how many times can I go in those 10 days? That’s where something started to shift in my personal recovery.

Fast forward to 2006. I was dating my now husband, Nick. He went to a place called Challenger, a youth probation camp…basically prison camp….named after the astronauts. He came home with a look on his face: horror story. The conditions were so terrible there. I said, “Can I teach yoga there?” By then I had become a yoga teacher. It was a really long time, but we started our first class back in November of 2011.  This month Uprising Yoga turns 14 years.

I started volunteering in juvenile hall; there were a lot of hurdles to get there, but that’s when we aligned with LA County. I called my mom and said, “Hey, we’ve been volunteering in juvenile hall.” She said, “Is that the one I picked you up from when you were a kid?” I had been in juvenile hall as a youth without remembering it. I started to really study trauma and the effects, and how yoga gave me that sense of peace that I wanted to breathe and live life in a healthy way, instead of choosing the darkness I was trapped in at the time.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Jill Ippolito: I never wanted to be a yoga teacher. I fell into it by falling off buildings and landing in: I need this yoga; what do I do? And I never wanted to build a nonprofit. I was working at a yoga college, talking about volunteering, and a close friend said, “Why don’t you file for a nonprofit?” I said, “I don’t know how.” He goes, “You just fill out the paperwork, and if you do anything wrong, trust me, they’ll call you.” That put the seed in me.

I didn’t want to sit at the counter forever. I wasn’t really hireable. Working for someone else wasn’t my personality, so I thought I’d better build something I can run and do. I started playing with names, organization, building it from there, looking around at colleagues. People said, “I want to be a part of this. I want to teach.” They brought resources and education. We wrote a manual. We did a training. We basically became a pipeline to get yoga instructors to share their gifts.

The hurdles are heavy: child sex trafficking, foster youth, gangs. We brought in experts, integrated their knowledge into our trainings. There’s bureaucracy, red tape, security…just to get into prisons and juvenile halls. But we kept going.

photo: Robert Sturman

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Jill Ippolito: I know how much it helped me. It turned my life around, from the impossible to a beautiful life. That keeps me going. When the kids come up and say, “Miss, I could feel my heartbeat,” “I can breathe,” “What you taught me helped me sleep last night.” Watching the resistance like I had…being angry at the world and really believing there’s no one who’s going to help me… My main mission has been autonomy: go within. What is there? Find your resilience and trust yourself. Do some re-parenting if you’ve never had any self-love, self-care. It’s never about yoga. It’s all about mindfulness, meditation, self-care. The resilience of: how can I apply these skills directly in my life? If I sit, breathe, feel, connect then when I slow down, the urgency to react and resist softens.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Jill Ippolito: The stories and the notes the kids bring us. A kid saying, “You’re my hero….you’ve lived this life we’re living and you’ve had triumph.” The one-on-one communications: “How do I do this when I get out?” If I never see this kid again, I want them, in five minutes, to know they can inhale, hold it, and use a longer exhale to regulate their nervous system so they can think clearly. For example when they’re in court testifying against their abusers. Planting a seed: we care about you; there are people out there who care about you; and this is a five-minute thing you can do to calm down.

“Yoga is a gift. No one can take it from you.” Breathing is life. People may take and take; what is something nobody can take from you? Your breath. Your connection to your heart.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Jill Ippolito: The thousands of incarcerated youth and community members we’ve served. Bridging people together……working with Indigenous populations and other countries. I loved getting to work with Elmo on Sesame Street for Monster Yoga. My peers invited me to write a book with them called Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System. Collaboration with other nonprofits…all of that’s success to me.

I was on Roadtrip Nation with PBS; kids chose their heroes and brought a bus to my class. To have a kid say you’re my hero… just wow! Data matters too: from August to this month….22 classes; 144 kids; twice a week. I’m proud of career pathways: getting jobs for our youth taking our class. We recognize talent. I tell them, “Yoga really likes you.” They brighten up. We’ve helped youth become yoga teachers and then hired them. That’s a huge success.

And I’ll add my personal success: being true to myself and my artistry. I love doing stand-up comedy. I have a persona, “Jill So Chill.” I keep people to chill out, laugh, have fun. After heavy stories that feel like there aren’t solutions, my biggest skill is to laugh and be in the present moment.

Photo: Robert Sturman

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Jill Ippolito: A dedicated Uprising Yoga Center, where people can go: safe space for healing, nourishment, food. With food insecurity and SNAP issues, there’s more need for impact and fostering community. Partnering with other nonprofits.

One of my biggest dreams is to put our trauma-informed yoga training into a slick, interactive system….like the DMV: read something, take a test; read something, take a test; earn a certificate. We did three in-person trainings a year pre-pandemic in two days, 16 hours, certified. They’re online for purchase now but mostly videos. I want it more interactive trauma-informed community care throughout the system. I trained probation staff in yoga life skills. What if I train volunteers across other programs too?

I was part of something called the LA Model, transforming the whole probation institution into trauma-informed care: chefs, officers, everyone. That impact helped close one juvenile hall and build a Wellness Center. How do we change from punitive to restorative? Those are my big dreams.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Jill Ippolito: Learn what my teachers taught me. When I went to that $10 for 10 days in Silver Lake, I was not great at yoga, cussing in the mirror when I fell out of a posture. I had no balance. I’d fallen off three two-story buildings, broke my back, did physical therapy. No sense of groundedness. The yoga teachers said, “If you could just sit down….you don’t have to do every posture.” How do you begin to take care of yourself? How do you restore chaos and neglect? Go slow. Take the wins. Celebrate yourself. “Love yourself” is said a lot. What does that mean when I don’t understand it? Break it down so it’s tangible: stop fighting everybody and everything. Surrender.

I have spirituality, a God I connect to guiding me, that I trust. Not the punitive Catholic-school God I grew up with. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Stop the cycle of abuse. Don’t tolerate it. People-pleasing can interrupt healing. It’s messy. It’s not linear, two steps forward, four back. Be patient. Be gentle. This month we’re doing a 30-day self-care yoga challenge fundraiser. Supposed to do yoga every day for 30 days but it’s not fanaticism. If I don’t go that day, maybe I hug a tree. Maybe I write a love letter. Something kind that’s self-care. I need that still, today.

And one more: “Helping” isn’t the same as empowerment. I started seeing all the people wanting to help—and realized there’s a bridge between people who want to help and people who need help. How do I hook them together? That’s what our trainings do. I thought yoga was about me getting in shape, but when I do yoga, I help others in community. Healing community is heart-centered focus: get everybody on the same page and find solutions that work.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Jill Ippolito: My whole mindset changed. I didn’t know there are people who really want to help you. I thought other people were enemies. Don’t trust anybody, that’s how I grew up. It took a long time for this broken child in me to look around and go: there are people coming out of the woodwork who want to help….not just me, but others.

We work with a lot of CSEC survivors. At a symposium, an adult formerly trafficked stood up and said to the social workers and helpers: “I didn’t know there were people like you looking to help people like me.” I agreed. I thought the same. Look for the helpers because they really do show up.

So the momentum came from seeing them and then realizing: helping is not service; it’s not empowerment. We want to empower and lift up. I bridge the people who want to help with the people who need help. That’s the work: connect the yoga studio, the foster youth, the prisons, the activists. Blend everyone and offer: let’s find a solution that works. That’s healing community. That’s heart-centered focus.

And I’ll always tell the youth: yoga is a gift. No one can take it from you. You may not have a refrigerator to open. No one may be coming to pick you up. The system may be taking and taking. But you have your breath. You have your heart. In five minutes, you can inhale, hold it, exhale longer calm your nervous system and think clearly. If I never see you again, I want you to know that. That’s how I’ve changed: I trust that simple, powerful truth.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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Episode 93: PopDrop

Some stories grab you by the heart from the very first line. John Snyder’s begins on a first date with his wife, Nikki, when the two of them decided to do something radically simple: instead of sending candy to their toner customers, they’d use that money to feed people experiencing homelessness. That small act became Project Pop Drop. A monthly movement  that rallies “givefluencers” to bring meals, new socks and clothing, and joy-filled experiences to shelters across Los Angeles. Today, Pop Drop is more than a delivery….it’s Easter bunnies and race cars for kids, partners who show up with food and gift cards, and even tiny homes that help families move from encampments into dignity and safety.

What makes John’s story unforgettable is his families full circle story.  I had the privilege of meeting John and his wife Nikki last week and they are a power couple in the best sense of the term. This week’s episode is a shot of hope and action, packed with contagious energy, hard-won wisdom, and tangible ways to help. If you’ve been looking for a reason to believe that giving changes everything…and how you can be part of it…don’t miss this conversation with John Snyder of Project Pop Drop.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Pop Drop does?

John Snyder:  Project Pop Drop Foundation is something my wife, Nikki, and I founded on our very first date. We have a for-profit company…..Platinum International Products & Services…..and someone pitched us one of those “send chocolates and candies to every customer” programs, like Office Depot and Staples. We decided we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to save that money and buy food for people experiencing homelessness. What started as a simple program inside our toner business has blossomed into a nonprofit.

Since 2011, once a month, we go to a different homeless shelter and bring life-saving supplies and partners with us. Bombas donates socks. Whole Foods helps. Raising Cane’s is a big partner—they help feed people and share gift cards so folks can buy food later. Target’s a partner too. We call the people and companies who come with us givefluencers….we trademarked that……because they’re influencing the world by their giving actions.

Over time we’ve evolved. Nikki builds the days into experiences—Easter Bunny visits, race cars for kids living at the shelter, face paint, laser tag……so a hard season can include some joy and smiles. In the early years we’d just drop food. Now our customers and partners come with us, bring supplies, put Pop Drop boxes in their car dealerships and hotels, and give alongside us.

We’ve also grown into housing. We have seven Project Pop Drop tiny homes that are moving families from encampments into safety. Each has a door, a lock; on-site there are washers, dryers, showers, and games. All of this came from deciding not to send M&M’s to toner customers and, instead, to feed human beings.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start  Pop Drop?

John Snyder:  I’m an LA person, big Laker fan. As a kid, birthdays meant my dad took me to the Forum. Once, on the way, I mouthed off……I said something dumb like, “We don’t live that well.” He got mad, drove me to Skid Row, and showed me people sleeping in cardboard boxes. “Dad, people are living in those?” “Yeah. You’ve got it pretty good, don’t you, Johnny?” Right then I said, “When I grow up, I’m going to help those people somehow.”

Years later we did our first Pop Drop at Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row. I told my mom, “We’re going to give back every month” and she started crying. I asked why. She said, “Don’t say anything, but my father was homeless…..at Union Rescue Mission.” I never met him. He had a drinking problem and left when she was 12. I had no idea. We had started Pop Drop at the very place where my grandfather had been homeless. Full circle. That’s when I knew everything was connected and I was on the path I promised as a kid.

On our first date in Century City, Nikki and I said, “Let’s go every month.” Instead of customer gifts, we’d bring food and companies. She asked, “What’s the name?” I said, “I don’t want to show off.” She said, “If you want to expand and get people on board, make the giving pile bigger, you have to name it.” She pushed me. We named it, built donation boxes, and got them into our clients’ businesses. She said, “Make it an experience. You can’t just drop food and leave.” That’s how Pop Drop really began….organically and from the heart.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

John Snyder:  We’ve got four kids….triplets and our superstar daughter, Chloe….and we’ve brought them to shelters since they were six months old. In those early nonprofit years, we’d roll the triplets in this long “limousine stroller,” food piled around them, and meet other businesses bringing donations. We’ve been to Skid Row more times than I can count. I’ve had the car swarmed while delivering supplies, people yelling not-nice things through the window while my kids watched. We had to explain: “Don’t take it personally. This is about pain and survival. We’re here to help.”

COVID was the biggest challenge. LAUSD is a big partner; they run donation drives and have our boxes in schools. Suddenly the world shut down. People were told, “Don’t go to shelters.” Meanwhile, shelters are some of the cleanest places you’ll ever see. The whole distribution system, our nonprofit supply chain, broke. We pivoted to Zoom. Students made videos to get donations from families and parents’ workplaces. Wildly enough, during COVID we brought more donations doing it on Zoom than in person. So we kept going.

There was also the noise on social. “Oh, they’re still going to shelters.” “I saw them without a mask.” People were on their couch, and we were out making things happen with Zoom drives, deliveries, feeding people. That pushback actually fueled us. We weren’t going to stop helping people. Period.

Another challenge was resources. People kept saying, “Walmart put your Pop Drop boxes in their stores. Did you know they’ll give grants if you’re a nonprofit?” We became a 501(c)(3) in 2018/2019. That move helped when donations dropped everywhere; Walmart and Target support enabled us to buy more supplies and expand. We never had a grand plan. Things kept falling into place because we kept showing up every month.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

John Snyder: I like helping people. I like seeing faces when you help them. I like talking with people, giving hope and showing someone that somebody still cares. I’ve been in rough spots where people helped me, and I know what that means in the moment. It can be everything.

I love that we’re giving back and showing our kids…..and our kids are inspiring other kids. It’s contagious. I love when friends and business associates come with us and afterward say, “John, I’m so thankful we went. We’ve been looking for a way to give back.” People want to help; they just don’t always know how. We say, “Come with us.” That’s givefluencing…..bringing others into the act so the giving pile gets bigger.

And when people tell you to stop doing something you know you’re supposed to be doing? That fuels me too. If everyone had stopped during COVID because they were told to, a lot of people wouldn’t have eaten. We kept going. Educating others fuels me as well…..our online course, Giving While Making a Living, teaches businesses to pick a cause and create a simple monthly social responsibility system. Keep it turnkey: name it, pick the last Saturday at 12 o’clock, show up. If you don’t make it simple, you become a “Thanksgiving and Christmas philanthropist.” We’re about consistent, monthly giving.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

John Snyder:  When customers say, “We know we can buy toner cheaper on Amazon, but we choose you because of Pop Drop,” that’s impact. When companies ask, “How can we get involved?” and then start collecting donations, put boxes in their lobbies, and show up at shelters to make an impact. When a friend or client brings their team and says afterward, “We’ve been looking for this,” I know we made a difference.

I’ve watched kids inspire other kids. I’ve seen donations surge because a middle-schooler made a Zoom video. I’ve seen a day at a shelter turn from “drop and go” into an experience where kids in tough situations are laughing, gaming, and smiling. That’s difference you can feel.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

John Snyder: Since before we were a nonprofit and now as the Project Pop Drop Foundation, we’ve helped contribute to feeding over 90,000 meals per month to people experiencing homelessness. Every month. That’s a big highlight.

We’ve empowered thousands of businesses “our givefluencers” to give back with us. We’ve expanded partnerships: Bombas, Whole Foods, Raising Cane’s, Target, Dave & Buster’s, LAUSD, and Impact 13. We’ve built seven tiny homes to move families from encampments into safety with a lock, a shower, a washer and dryer, and dignity.

We’ve been recognized along the way. We received a Gold Medal which is the President’s Volunteer Service Award from the White House. We were invited to the Pentagon because they liked Pop Drop. Walmart put our boxes in stores. Each of those moments opened doors to expand the giving.

But the thing I’m proudest of is the evolution from dropping supplies to creating experiences that bring joy and connection. That’s Pop Drop.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

John Snyder:  My dream is to change the way the world does business. I want every company to start a program within their business…..like we did before Pop Drop was a nonprofit…..where every single month they give back. Do it for the cause that’s close to your heart, homelessness or anything else, but do it monthly. Make it part of your DNA. I’d love to see extra tax credit incentives tied to that monthly commitment. I want a world full of givefluencers…..people influencing the world through giving actions.

Our course, Giving While Making a Living, helps push that into reality. A woman in Wisconsin bought it and finally started the nonprofit she’d dreamed about serving kids traumatized in childhood. I held her hand through it: naming, logo, shirts, accountability. Most people watch a course, get pumped, and Monday morning do nothing. We want action. I want to figure out how to scale that….maybe through something like the SBA….so more businesses step into monthly giving.

We have something special with “givefluencer.” There’s so much we can do to fuel more life from saving supplies and empowering more businesses to give. If we find that one big thinker, that magical person who sees what Pop Drop is and what it can be and helps us expand it. I’m ready to receive that partner.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

John Snyder: Everything is connected. You can live within your life’s purpose without it being the only thing you do. It’s perspective: a young punk kid says, “We don’t live that well,” and a dad drives to Skid Row to show cardboard homes; that kid says, “I’m going to help,” and later he does at the exact place his grandfather, who he never met, was once homeless. Full circle.

The lesson is to keep my eye on the giving prize. Name it. Show up monthly. Make it simple so it’s sustainable. Invite others so the pile grows. Remember why you started….people, not programs. Keep it real and keep it consistent, or you drift into being that “Thanksgiving and Christmas philanthropist.” We’ve seen that a simple, turnkey system like “last Saturday of the month at 12” is what actually keeps the giving going.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

John Snyder: It’s made me a nicer person. In business I used to be “sell, sell, sell”…..numbers, aggressive, go-go-go. We still have numbers in nonprofit, but Pop Drop humanized me. When you start something and discover your mom’s father was homeless in the very building where you began your giving, it’s hard not to see a higher purpose in that. This journey made me more faithful. It shifted me from feeding printers to feeding people, from transactions to connection, from me to we. And I don’t plan on stopping.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Episode 92: Shoulder Check

 

In the past fifteen years, I have not resent the same interview twice in one week. However, when I orginally scheduled this to be delivered last Thursday, September 11th I didn’t foresee all that would transpire the day before. The assassination of Charlie Kirk followed by the 24th anniversary of September 11th created so much noise that this very special story might have been missed. So, yes if you are seeing this twice it is intentional because I want you to have a bright light on your Sunday morning. Something to start your week to remind you of all the good in this world. So here you go….once again…

 In full disclosure, I know very little about hockey….especially as an LA girl…..but what I do know is that rare and extraordinary group of people who take unimaginable loss and somehow transform it into a mission for good. Today’s guest, Rob Thorsen, is one of those people. After the heartbreaking loss of his son Hayden, Rob chose to honor his memory by spreading kindness and compassion in the most powerful way.

Drawing from Hayden’s love of hockey, Rob used the term “Shoulder Check” not just as a sports reference but as the cornerstone for a movement. What began as a nod to the game has become a beautiful legacy of connection and care. Shoulder Check is about more than hockey…..it’s a mission and a movement about reaching out, checking in, and making contact with those around us. Rob’s story is one of resilience, love, and the reminder that even in the deepest grief, we can create something profoundly good. Take a listen and you will want to be a part of this…

 

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what ShoulderCheck.ORG does?

Rob Thorsen:  ShoulderCheck.org is the first initiative of the HT40 Foundation, which we created to do one simple, specific thing: inspire and enable young people to check in on one another…regularly. We give them the language, tools, and motivation to make “checking in” a daily habit. The culture we’re pushing against is that paradox the U.S. Surgeon General called out in April 2023: we’re hyper-connected by tech, yet lonelier and more isolated than ever. Shoulder Check is our answer.

It started in hockey, our son Hayden played, and the community rallied around us after his death but it quickly became bigger than a sport. The signature gesture is literal: hand on a shoulder, paired with the refrain, “Reach out. Check in. Make contact.” We do this in locker rooms, at center ice, in school assemblies, classrooms, and community events. The goal is behavior change through a simple ritual and a shared brand language…something memorable enough to spread, practical enough to use, and human enough to matter.

Charity Matters: What were your early experiences in PHILANTHROPY?

Rob Thorsen: I didn’t come up through a lifetime of traditional volunteerism; I came out of marketing and advertising. I ran ad agencies. My wife did, too. Ideas, brand-building, behavior change….that’s our professional DNA. After we lost Hayden, I didn’t set out to “become a nonprofit founder.” I set out to develop an idea that could help people the way Hayden helped people….by making contact.

In that sense, Shoulder Check “just happens” to be a nonprofit vehicle. It is, first and foremost, an idea carried by a brand and a toolkit. From day one we treated it like a serious creative brief. Our team (pro bono) built language, design, rituals, and programs the way we would any world-class brand……with clarity, consistency, and heart.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start ShoulderCheck.org?

Rob Thorsen: When Hayden died by suicide in May 2022, our lives were instantly and permanently altered. The first feeling was compulsion: we have to do something. I reached out to a national mental-health nonprofit whose executive director told me, bluntly, “Leave interventions to the professionals.” It stung, but at the same time, it focused me. She was right: I’m not an interventionist. I am a professional in another realm.

A few months later I sketched a simple thought in a notebook: “I have a hand to give. I could use a hand.” That became our north star. We began gathering with 30–70 kids at a time, at home, at the community center and iterating together. We wanted this to be everyone’s idea, not mine. The first crystallized concept to emerge was Shoulder Check: make kindness a contact sport, give everyone a role in the dialogue, and make the ask actionable.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Rob Thorsen: Processing grief and launching a nonprofit at the same time…..there’s no handbook for that. You’re building a startup out of a garage emotionally and literally, while processing the heaviest thing you’ll ever carry. We’re not clinicians. We’re not event producers. Yet we’re running programs and putting on major events because that’s what the idea requires to spread.

Operationally, the work is exhausting….production, follow-up, stakeholder care, constant outreach. Conceptually, the challenge is staying disciplined: we’re not trying to “do everything mental health.” We’re doing one thing well which is equipping friends to check on friends. The saving grace is that the idea is a virtuous circle. The very act of placing a hand on a shoulder….giving or receiving….feeds the work that sustains us.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Rob Thorsen: The stories. Constantly. We hear from people who finally knew how to start a hard conversation and did it……and from people who were struggling and felt their friends show up. Nearly everyone will accept help from a friend; Shoulder Check gives those friends simple language and a moment to step in.

And the ritual itself is its own therapy. When hundreds or thousands of people put hands on shoulders and say “Reach out. Check in. Make contact,” there’s a tangible lift in the room. You feel the possibility of a culture shift……one conversation at a time.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Rob Thorsen: I know it in two ways. First, in the micro: when a young kid writes to say, “I went home and checked on someone because of Shoulder Check….and it mattered.” Or, “My friends came to me, and I didn’t feel alone.” That’s the point.

Second, in the macro moments. At our events, 2,500 people….families, players, kids….all link up and speak the refrain together. You watch the posture in the building change. You hear “Lean on Me” sung by an arena and feel the message land. Those moments are catalytic….but they exist to seed a million small, private ones later: on buses, in bleachers, down hallways, at kitchen tables.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Rob Thorsen: We launched the idea with the Shoulder Check Showcase in August 2023; this year we hosted our third annual showcase. It’s a community-run charity game anchored by NHL players who’ve believed in the mission from day one….people like Chris Kreider, Kevin Shattenkirk, Trevor Zegras, and many others who donate a week of their time to play, meet kids, sign, and amplify the message.

Each year, 2,500 people pack the arena. Before the puck drops, everyone places a hand on a neighbor’s shoulder and repeats our refrain. The response has been overwhelming…..an emotional jolt you can see and hear. This year, New York Rangers anthem singer John Brancy performed the National Anthem and led a “Lean on Me” sing-along. The NHL, the NHLPA, teams, and media have all helped carry the message; we’ve appeared on Good Morning America two years running. The Showcase fuels grassroots adoption…..teams, schools, and communities taking the toolkit and making it theirs. That’s the impact we care about most: replication and daily habit.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Rob Thorsen: I want Shoulder Check to become cultural shorthand for empathy…..like a color you instantly associate with a cause. Think Komen’s pink for women’s health or Movember’s mustache for men’s health. Our teal-aqua should say “kindness, connection, and awareness.” Not as a merch play, but as a signal that prompts action: check on someone right now.

I imagine late-August/September activations timed to back-to-school and fall sports….teams, classrooms, clubs, workplaces…….all making commitments to one another. I want the toolkit to be accessible and flexible: bake sales, 5Ks, pre-game rituals, morning meetings…..however a community wants to manifest it. We’re not raising dollars for a lab; we’re raising awareness for each other. If Shoulder Check becomes the universal cue for “I’m here…..let’s talk,” that’s the dream.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Rob Thorsen: I’ve learned presence over control. In the immediate aftermath, your mind tries to script the unanswerable: Why did this happen? What will my life be a year from now? You can’t solve those questions. What you can do is show up….in this hour, with these people, for this work. When you do that, you give yourself something better than certainty: integrity.

I talk a lot about reflection vs. regret. Reflection is learning from what happened while knowing you did the best you could in the moment. Regret is knowing you didn’t. The line between them is presence. If we keep showing up as honestly as we can, we can live with the outcomes, even the imperfect ones, because we’re learning forward.

And I’ve learned about duality. The loss doesn’t lessen, but growth helps you understand where that loss lives with you. New people come into your life, new work emerges, and you hold both pain and purpose at once. That duality has become the constant: grief and goodness side by side. There is peace in knowing something beautiful can grow from tragedy, even if the sorrow never leaves.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Rob Thorsen: This experience has changed me completely. I sometimes think of myself in three chapters: original Rob 1.0, then Rob 2.0 after Hayden’s death, and now something new….a version who carries both. I wouldn’t say I live in the world in a totally different way, but I see differently. A part of me that was smaller before has been amplified. The idea itself feels like Hayden. Shoulder Check is Hayden. So I feel a duty of care, as if tending this work is tending him.

That sense of duality shapes me too. Pain and purpose live together now. When I watch a stadium of people place hands on shoulders and say our refrain, I think: How did this happen? It’s beautiful, and it’s born of heartbreak. Holding those together has become who I am.

And practically, I’ve changed in how I manage time, people, and vision. We’ve been naïve in believing that a good idea will just travel….and in many ways, that faith has worked. But we’re also at the point where we need to manage like a real business, with intention and sustainability. It’s a “big small business,” and its next stage requires maturity. That responsibility makes me a different leader and a different person.

Ultimately, the change is clarity. Less time for what doesn’t matter, more devotion to what does. More comfort in knowing that if I keep showing up honestly, this work and Hayden’s legacy will keep growing. And if my legacy is simply that people checked in on one another more often, that would be a life well-lived.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Season 9 Premiere! Episode 91: Supplies for Success

Back-to-school season is filled with excitement for so many children…..the thrill of fresh notebooks, sharpened pencils, and a brand-new backpack ready for a year of possibility. But for countless students living in poverty, this same season brings a heavy burden of anxiety and shame. Instead of walking confidently into the classroom, they arrive empty-handed, feeling different before the first lesson even begins. The simple joy of new school supplies, something many of us take for granted, can make a meaningful  difference as these young students begin their new year.

This week on the Season Nine Premiere  we sit down with Mindy Richenstein, the founder of Supplies for Success, a nonprofit that has been equipping children with dignity and the tools they need to learn for more than twenty-four years. What began as a small effort to help 68 students has now touched the lives of over 300,000 children. In our conversation, Mindy shares her powerful journey of resilience, the heartbreaking loss that deepened her mission, and the joy of turning pain into purpose. Her story is a reminder that something as simple as a backpack can carry more than supplies……it can carry confidence, opportunity, and hope.

 

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Supplies For success does?

Mindy Richenstein: At Supplies for Success, our mission is to equip children with the essential tools they need to thrive in school and beyond. We believe that every child deserves a fair shot at success, and we know that education is the clearest pathway out of poverty. For twenty-four years now, we have been making that belief a reality.

Each year, before school starts, we provide children living in need with brand-new backpacks filled with the supplies on their class lists. It may sound like something small, but the difference it makes is enormous. When a child arrives at school looking just like their peers….with fresh notebooks, sharpened pencils, and a sturdy backpack—they feel included. They feel ready. They walk through those doors with dignity and confidence, rather than shame and embarrassment. That confidence can shape how they approach learning for the entire year.

Most of us have happy memories of back-to-school shopping: the excitement of choosing crayons, binders, or even the “perfect” pencil case. But for children whose families can’t afford these basics, back-to-school time brings anxiety and stigma. That gap in opportunity and self-esteem is what Supplies for Success seeks to close. Over the years, we’ve grown from serving just 68 children in our first year to helping over 300,000 nationwide. Every one of those children walked into school knowing someone cared enough to set them up for success.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start  Supplies for Success?

Mindy Richenstein:  Looking back, I think my path toward this work was influenced by my upbringing. My parents weren’t particularly involved in organized philanthropy, but they gave me the gift of unconditional love and instilled in me empathy, compassion, and strong values. In Judaism, we call this tzedakah, which is often translated as charity but really means justice. It’s not optional, it’s an obligation to make the world better. That belief has always guided me.

The first Supplies for Success drive began in 2002 when I learned of children who were starting school without basic supplies. The thought of a child showing up empty-handed broke my heart. That year, I organized an effort to provide backpacks for 68 children. It was simple, grassroots, and powerful.

Over time, our work grew. By our 18th year, we were serving more than 11,000 students annually. For many years we operated under the umbrella of UJA Federation of New York, which gave us wonderful support. But in 2018, they told us we had grown so large…with huge backpack packing events drawing in thousands of volunteers that it was time to become independent. That was daunting, but in 2019 we officially launched as our own nonprofit.

Then came March 2020. My beloved son Eric, just 37 years old, died in a ski accident. Six days later, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. My personal world had collapsed, and suddenly the entire world shut down too.

In the midst of grief, I found purpose. My daughter called, worried because her three-year-old son’s preschool had closed. As I comforted her, my mind went to first responders….mothers working in hospitals or nursing homes who had no choice but to work. What would happen to their children suddenly stuck at home?

I called our suppliers to see if they had art supplies. Two were open. Within two weeks, we created Eric’s Care Kits. Boxes of crayons, markers, and activities that we sent to food banks, hospitals, and nonprofits. They gave children a way to stay creative and hopeful, even in lockdown. Those kits became my lifeline. They gave me a way to honor Eric’s memory and turn unbearable pain into purpose.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Mindy Richenstein:  Time is always the biggest challenge. Supplies for Success has always been almost entirely volunteer-run. Aside from our dedicated college interns, we don’t have paid staff. Coordinating volunteers, assembling supplies, fundraising, and distributing tens of thousands of backpacks is a massive undertaking.

Fundraising is another challenge. Nonprofits are essentially small businesses, but with a very difficult business model…we rely on generosity. During the pandemic, we had to reinvent how we fundraised and distributed supplies since our large-scale events weren’t possible. That required creativity, flexibility, and resilience.

And then there’s the challenge of growth. Every year, the demand increases. Meeting that need while staying true to our mission and ensuring quality is a constant balancing act.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Mindy Richenstein:  The children fuel me. Their stories, their smiles, their dignity. I keep a picture on my computer of a little girl we helped who lost her mother at six, was removed from her neglectful father, and placed in foster care. She was embarrassed to start school without supplies. When she received her backpack, her smile lit up the room. I look at her and see myself as a little girl. Her story could have been mine, if not for the parents I was blessed with. That sense of gratitude drives me.

And Eric fuels me too. Every kit, every coloring book we create in his memory allows his light to shine on. Turning pain into purpose has been my medicine. It gives me strength to keep moving forward.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Mindy Richenstein:  I know we’ve made a difference when I hear from teachers, social workers, or parents. A teacher might tell me that a child now proudly walks into class, ready to learn. A parent might share that their child no longer feels embarrassed. A social worker may say that our supplies gave a student the confidence to keep going and even pursue college.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a hand-drawn thank-you note. Sometimes it’s realizing that a child we once served has now become the first in their family to graduate. Those stories remind me that our work matters.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Mindy Richenstein: Success, to me, is measured in both numbers and stories. From helping 68 children in our first year to more than 300,000 today, the growth speaks volumes. Last year alone, we served nearly 40,000 students. We’ve raised millions of dollars to make this possible—entirely from generous individuals, companies, and foundations. We’ve never taken government funding.

But the true measure of success is in the children. It’s in their confidence, their joy, their sense of belonging. It’s knowing that we’ve made education accessible to children who might otherwise have felt left behind.

We’ve also evolved our programs. Eric’s Care Kits provided creative outlets during the pandemic. More recently, we launched a Mandala Coloring Book, designed to support youth mental health and promote unity at a time when children are struggling with stress and the world is struggling with division. Each evolution has been about finding new ways to meet the needs of children in the moment.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Mindy Richenstein:  I dream of the day when Supplies for Success is no longer needed….when poverty is no longer a barrier to a child’s education. While I know that day may be far off, it remains the ultimate dream.

In the nearer future, I dream of expanding the reach of our Mandala Coloring Books, created in Eric’s honor. Mandalas symbolize unity and harmony. Coloring them reduces stress and builds focus. I want to see those books in schools, hospitals, and youth programs across the country, supporting children’s mental health and helping to counter hate with healing.

And personally, I dream of ensuring strong succession. After twenty-four years, I want Supplies for Success to continue thriving beyond me. A strong leader to carry this mission forward would be a dream fulfilled.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Mindy Richenstein: I’ve learned that I am stronger than I ever believed. Surviving the loss of my son and continuing this work has shown me resilience I never thought I had.

I’ve learned that action matters more than intention. Good intentions are beautiful, but they don’t change lives unless we act on them. Picking up the phone, sending the email, packing the backpack….that’s where change happens.

And I’ve learned that purpose is everything. I believe I am here because I have a mission to fulfill: to help children, to honor Eric, and to leave behind a legacy of love and service.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Mindy Richenstein: In some ways, I am the same person I was when I started…..compassionate, hopeful, driven by empathy. But in other ways, I’ve changed profoundly. I’ve grown into a leader, learned to take risks, and discovered the power of community.

This work has introduced me to extraordinary people…..volunteers, donors, social workers, and other nonprofit founders…who have become lifelong friends. It has deepened my gratitude and shown me the best of humanity.

Above all, it has taught me that love can multiply even in the face of devastating loss. Supplies for Success has shown me that when we act with compassion, we don’t just change individual lives…..we change entire communities. That knowledge has transformed me.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Episode 90: Enchanted Makeovers

Seventeen years ago, Terry Grahl received a phone call that would change not only her life but the lives of countless women and children across the country. What began as a simple request to paint one wall in a shelter became a profound calling—one that transformed Terry from interior decorator to nonprofit founder, from a woman with a paintbrush to a warrior with a mission. Her nonprofit, Enchanted Makeovers, was born from that moment…an act of faith and heart that would grow into a national movement dedicated to restoring dignity, hope, and beauty to women and children escaping domestic violence and human trafficking.

In this deeply moving 90th episode of Charity Matters, Terry shares the raw and powerful story behind Enchanted Makeovers. With humility, grit, and grace, she opens up about her childhood, the influence of her mother, and the quiet, persistent voice that led her to walk beside women on their path to healing. This is not just a conversation about nonprofit work it’s about listening to your heart, honoring your calling, and discovering how one simple act of love can ripple out to change the world.

 

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Enchanted Makeover does?

Terry Grahl : Enchanted Makeovers is a national nonprofit serving women and children who are escaping human trafficking and domestic violence. We just celebrated our 17th anniversary this past December. From the beginning, our mission has been to bring everything that is sacred, healing, and beautiful into their lives.

We believe deeply in the healing power of handmade items. There’s something truly personal and loving in something made by hand. Our programs reflect that belief. We create sacred spaces by transforming bedrooms in shelters, and we also provide sewing rooms and host hands-on programs like “Capes for Kids,” our “Doll Adoption” project, and the “Pillowcase Program.” Each initiative is designed to bring dignity, hope, and healing into the lives of women and children who have experienced deep trauma.

Charity Matters: In looking back at your childhood is there anything that helped lead you to whre you are today?

Terry Grahl: My mother is my hero, my role model and warrior. She taught us the importance of creativity and the power of imagination. We experienced homelessness as a family, and the community played a role in helping us during that time. I remember one Christmas, my mom gathered us all up and said, “Put on your boots, we’re going to an event for kids.” It was held at a VFW hall, and we had to stand in this perfect line while volunteers watched from the walls. A man came over and said, “Come here, girl. Pick out a toy.” That moment stuck with me, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.

Years later, I saw how that memory shaped the heart of Enchanted Makeovers. Today, we don’t believe in perfect lines or creating separation. Everyone stands side by side. Everyone is equal. We ask, “What is your name?” and it transforms how we serve and how we see one another.

When we lost our home, I didn’t fully understand what was happening, I just thought we were moving again. My mom drove us from city to city in a giant old station wagon until we came across a run-down house with weeds up to her waist and tires in the yard. She walked over to a nearby church and asked, “Who owns this house?” They told her the deacons used to live there. And she said, “I need a home for my children. If I put down a small deposit, could I eventually own it?” And they said yes.

That house became our home. I remember her describing how she’d restore it, telling us all the things she would do. The house had been abandoned, but to her, it was full of potential. She even wrote a poem called “The Promise” about the house. I remember my mom laying her face against the front door and promising to bring the house back to life, just as it would help bring her back to life too. That home became her healing project and in truth, she was restoring herself in the process.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Enchanted Makeovers?

Terry Grahl: When my children were all in school full-time, I started a decorating business. I told my mom, “This isn’t about decorating, it’s about giving women hope.” My first client’s home was heavy with sadness, though I didn’t yet know her story. I began working in her kitchen and said, “This floor isn’t just a new surface…it’s a new path for your life.” She later told me her father had abused her. When I finished the home, I said, “Let’s name your house.” She said, “High Hopes.” We hung a sign outside with that name.

A year later, a man visited the house and saw the sign. He asked about it, and my client told him how I had helped heal her through design. He said, “I also fundraise for a shelter for women and children, do you think she’d be willing to paint a wall there?”

On December 6, I called him back. He said the shelter was in an old post office where women stayed for a year with their children and nothing had ever been done to the space. I agreed to visit after Christmas.

In January 2007, I walked through the shelter. The last stop was the women’s dorm. I had to use both hands to push open a heavy metal door. Inside were 30 women and children, all sharing one room with no dividers, no privacy. I asked, “Where are the dressers?” The director said they used cardboard boxes. The bunk beds had come from a prison. Everything was worn and institutional. Duct tape held baby cribs together. The bedspreads were faded, identical, and from another era. The energy in the room was so heavy with sadness that I could hardly breathe.

I took some “before” photos, though I wasn’t sure what I could do. Driving home, I was angry. I said, “God, why did You bring this to me? I have four children and a new business. I don’t have time for this.” I tried to ignore the photos all week. But by the end of the week, the last image of a stained mattress with no pillowcase just broke me. The pillow had polka dots, and I’ve loved polka dots since I was a little girl. When I saw it, I heard the words, “Trust me.” I raised my hand and said, “I’ll do it.”

I didn’t know how I’d get the money, the volunteers, or the supplies. But it was a leap of faith. I returned a week later with a design board and stood before about 50 women in the chapel. Then I started to cry..you know the ugly cry. I was so overwhelmed.

Then, one woman looked at me with her purple eyeshadow, blue nail polish, and butterfly necklace, and she said, “It’s going to be okay.” I looked around and saw not women but girls. They were crying with me, saying, “It’s going to be okay.” That was the moment I knew: I wasn’t there to save anyone. I was there to walk beside them.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Terry Grahl:  In the beginning, it was tough. I remember going into a store trying to get paint and thinking, “If I just share these women’s stories, they’ll help.” But it wasn’t that simple. There were a lot of no’s. I cried in the car after those rejections.

One week, I sent out a massive email campaign, sharing from the heart why the women needed new mattresses. I needed 30 of them. Out of the blue, a man called. He was on vacation and had seen my email. He said, “My father raised me to help when you can, so I’m donating all 30 mattresses, along with mattress pads and pillows.”

That was our first big donation. After that, I knew nothing could stop us. The women knew it too. What we didn’t know then was how long this journey would be…or how much it would grow.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Terry Grahl:  The promise I made to those women, right there in that shelter, is what fuels me. I said I would do everything in my power to transform their space, and I had to fulfill that promise.

But looking back now, I see that it was more than that. I was on my own healing journey. The little girl inside of me needed this transformation just as much as the women did. She needed to feel heard, to have a voice, and to believe in something beautiful again.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Terry Grahl:  For me, success is measured by the stories the women share. One woman I’ll never forget is Donna. She lived in the shelter during the time of the transformation. Later, I ran into her and asked how she was doing. She told me she had moved into transitional housing.

I asked, “What was the moment that felt most meaningful to you?” And she said, “Making grilled cheese and tomato soup for my children. Just that.” That simple act of care and comfort meant everything to her.

These women have taught me what it means to be a warrior.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Terry Grahl:  I’ve learned that I am a warrior. In 2008, I attended a Country Living event focused on handmade products. We missed our flight, I had a migraine, and I thought, “Great, now I have to talk to a stranger on this plane.”

A man sat next to me and asked what I did. I told him about Enchanted Makeovers. He said, “I minister to men in prison,” and we started sharing our callings. I told him I had been praying for God to break me into a million pieces and rebuild me.

He gently put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Sister, He’s already done that. It’s time to be a warrior.” I got off that flight in tears, but I knew that I was equipped. I could do this.

I’ve also learned the power of prayer and that I am forever a student on this journey. Every lesson, every relationship, every door opened and there’s a reason behind it. Now, even large corporations are reaching out to partner with us. And I’ve learned to hold my head high and use my voice to speak up for women and children everywhere.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Terry Grahl:  At the very beginning, I prayed through tears, arms lifted, saying, “God, give me a voice, please just give me a voice so I can be a voice for others.”

As a child, I was painfully shy. I was bullied constantly from first grade through high school. I was always told to stay quiet….and I did. But God kept His promise. I still can’t believe that a shy girl would grow up to speak on national platforms, even on Kelly Clarkson’s show.

But I know why I’m here. God gave me this voice so I can use it for women, for children, for those who don’t yet believe they’re worthy of being heard.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Episode 88: A Brighter Day

I am so excited to introduce you today to an amazing man, Elliot Kallen. He is a passionate entrepreneur, nonprofit founder, and father who has transformed personal tragedy into a mission of hope. As the CEO of multiple companies and the founder of A Brighter Day, Elliot brings both business acumen and deep empathy to his work. After losing his 19-year-old son, Jake, to suicide, Elliot committed himself to supporting teens struggling with depression and anxietywith his nonprofit,  A Brighter Day.

Today his organization touches thousands of families each month. Grounded in the life lessons passed down from his Holocaust-survivor mother, Elliot lives with a deep sense of purpose—driven not by profit, but by impact. His story is one of resilience, love, and an unwavering belief in the power of helping others.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what A Brighter Day does?

Elliot Kallen: What we do is we create resources for teens and their families on stress and depression with the goal of stopping teen suicide.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about Growing up and your family?

Elliot Kallen: I’m the CEO of three companies right now. I grew up in a very middle-class home in New Jersey. My parents were community-minded and active members of our local synagogue. We gave money, even though my dad never made more than forty thousand dollars a year, and my mom was your typical 1960s–70s stay-at-home mom. Still, we gave back.

My mom often spoke about her father, who was a librarian in Vienna and probably made five dollars a week during the Great Depression. Every week, he would empty the change from his pockets, and that’s what he would donate. We were always taught to give back. Most of the time, that meant giving to family or helping cousins around the world.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start A Brighter Day?

Elliot Kallen:  It’s a heartbreaking story, and sadly, it doesn’t have a happy ending. Eleven years ago, my 19-year-old son, Jake—a sophomore at the University of Montana—took his life in the early hours of a Friday morning. No drugs, no alcohol. He walked onto the highway and stepped in front of a truck.

We were frantically searching for him all day because his phone was off—something no teenager ever does. At 6:30 that evening, FedEx delivered a six-page suicide note. That’s how we found out he was gone. His note was filled with the typical ramblings of a teen in crisis, but one paragraph stood out. He wrote, “Mom and Dad, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I never would have told you how I felt. I never would have asked for your help. And I never would have taken your help.”

It was as if he was trying to let us off the hook—but how could we ever be?

His mother and I flew to Spokane the next morning, then drove to Missoula to claim his body, which had been left unclaimed at a funeral home. On the flight home, his body in the cargo hold beneath us, I kept rereading that paragraph. I turned to his mother and said, “We have to do something to prevent this devastation from happening to other families.” She replied, “I can’t do it. You’re on your own.” And so, I began the journey to create a nonprofit.

At first, the idea was to use music—bring in adult cover bands and host events for teens with mental health resources. But when we met with local musicians, they gave me critical advice: “This has to be for teens—by teens. No adult bands, no adults in the room. Teens won’t open up if they feel watched. And the resources have to be teen-friendly. Most mental health tools are built for adults, and they miss the mark.”

We decided to focus on depression, anxiety, and suicide prevention—issues teens face every day. A recent survey showed that nearly 50% of teens have felt anxious or depressed in the past year, and many have had suicidal thoughts.

I often describe it like this: imagine a six-sided box—four walls, a top, and a bottom. For teens, it’s rarely all blue sky. Life can feel like constant turmoil. And when all six sides of the box feel black—when it’s all pain and no light—some teens begin to believe, “Yesterday was awful. Tomorrow will be worse. No one will miss me anyway.”

That moment—that hopelessness—is where suicide lives. That’s what we’re trying to stop.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Elliot Kallen: I don’t want to downplay how cathartic it’s been to start a nonprofit and to share Jake’s story—especially in that first year. Every time I told it, I could barely hold back tears. What surprised me was how many people shared their own stories in return—about their uncle, aunt, parent, sibling. We cried together. I kept tissues nearby and handed them out often. If you cried in my office, chances are I was crying too.

Sometimes, I still go to the cemetery. Nothing changes—the view, the conversation—but it grounds me. I stand on Jake’s grave to read the plaque, and I talk to him. I talk to God. I don’t want to imagine Jake’s face in the clouds like a movie ending. But I do hope he’s listening.

I’ve built and sold businesses, so I understand the lifecycle—products, services, cash flow, lawsuits, people problems. A nonprofit is different. You still have people issues—because people are people—but the bigger challenge is constantly telling the story in a way that touches hearts. That’s not hard for me. The hard part is finding the right audience to tell it to. Filling rooms, building an online following, gaining traction—that’s the uphill battle.

And here’s the truth: every nonprofit is regional—until it either goes national or goes out of business. I’ve served on national boards like the Boys and Girls Clubs and the American Cancer Society. They were national before I joined. My nonprofit, A Brighter Day, has resources used in all 50 states, but when it comes to fundraising, we’re still very local. Regional nonprofits live hand-to-mouth. That means I need to lead, write checks, and carry the mission forward every day.

But I don’t want to die and take the nonprofit with me. I’m working hard to build sustainability so I can eventually step back from being the de facto leader and just serve as a board member. We talk constantly about that next step—about building longevity and putting a structure in place so A Brighter Day has legs without me.

I believe there should always be a Kallen on the board—because it began with us—but they don’t have to lead. They just need to show up once a year, wherever they live, to remind others why we exist. This began with Jake, but it doesn’t have to end with me. That’s the goal.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Elliot Kallen: I’ve been very blessed in my life. Even after losing my son to suicide, I still consider myself incredibly fortunate. I grew up in a small, middle-class home, but I was always deeply loved. My father was part of the Greatest Generation and my mother survived Auschwitz. They had both seen unthinkable tragedy and loss.

Their voices still guide me—what I call the “schizophrenic voices” on my shoulders, not devil and angel, but Mom and Dad. My father’s message was always, “You can never make up for hard work,” and he instilled that in his three children—we all became workaholics. My mother’s voice says, “You can do better today than you did yesterday, and better tomorrow than today.”

That mindset stays with me. I still come to work each day with energy and excitement, whether it’s in my for-profit ventures or in the nonprofit space. In business, I’m always asking how we can grow, improve, and learn from our missteps—because mistakes are just painful learning moments. In the nonprofit world, the question is: how do we serve more people, more effectively, without burning through resources?

Every organization, for-profit or nonprofit, has a financial burn rate. If you ignore that, one day you wake up and can’t make payroll. That’s the reality. Whether or not you call it capitalism, we’re all accountable to the numbers—even in service work.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Elliot Kallen:  Right now, through A Brighter Day and all our online resources at abrighterday.info, we’re reaching thousands. One of our biggest tools is a teen-focused texting crisis line that gets 50 to 150 new teens every month. They receive a response within five minutes—because teens love to text—and almost every single one asks the same heartbreaking question: “Am I the only one feeling this way?” They’re incredibly isolated.

We also know that if your teen came to you and said, “Mom, I’m cutting” or “I’m thinking about hurting myself,” you’d do everything you could to get them help. But in most places it can take 6 to 10 weeks to get a live appointment with a licensed therapist. We can connect teens with a licensed therapist via Zoom in all 50 states within seven days. And while virtual counseling isn’t quite the same as being in the room, it’s still meaningful support—and we cover the cost for 90 days.

Right now, we’re reaching between 3,000 and 6,000 families every single month.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Elliot Kallen: If there’s one word that defines our goal, it’s impact. We want to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives, and that only happens if our message truly reaches them.

People ask me, “Where do you see yourself in 20 years?” My honest answer: I hope I’m still alive—but not still running the charity. That would mean I failed to build something sustainable. What I really hope is that, at my funeral, someone stands up and says, “He made a major impact on everyone he touched.” That’s the legacy I’m striving for.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Elliot Kallen: The biggest lesson? Life is incredibly short. My mother used to say, “Life goes by in the blink of an eye,” and I never understood it until I got older—but she was right.

You can’t take life for granted. You have to show up every day with the right attitude, because attitude really iseverything. If you keep putting in the effort with heart and intention, good things follow.

What truly matters is the people around you, the lives you touch, the impact you make. It’s not just about who’s impacted you—it’s about how many lives you can reach and make better. If you focus on that, you’re doing something truly great.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Episode 87: Raregivers Global

You’ve heard me say it time and time again—the universe constantly places incredible people in my path. Sometimes I think my brain has a special filter that helps me find the very best humans on this planet. A few months ago, I was speaking to a National Charity League group and selling books when this bright light of a woman approached to buy a few. We started talking, and of course—she’s a nonprofit founder! But she is so much more than that. Her story is as amazing as she is.

I am truly excited for you to meet Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin and hear her incredible journey of service with her nonprofit, RareGivers Global—a worldwide network that provides emotional support to caregivers of those with rare, chronic, and complex diseases. Did you know that 350 million people worldwide live with a rare disease? That’s 1 in 15 families globally who are navigating these caregiving challenges. Cristol’s story is ultimately a love story—for her brothers, whom she lost to a rare disease—and how she now uses her life to help countless others.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Raregiver Global does?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin: Raregivers cares for the caregivers. We are all about providing emotional relief services to caregivers that are living in what we call a radical caregiving environment. We work specifically with patients, parents and  healthcare professionals in rare, chronic and complex diseases. There’s about 10,000 uncured rare diseases that have been genetically identified, and it’s not a small community. It’s the wrong word… rare. The rare disease community is actually one in 10 families in the United States, and one in 15 worldwide.

This is really radical caregiving. This is 24/7 medical management at home. This is doing skilled nursing interventions like administering epileptic medications every hour on the hour, 24/7 for decades.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about Growing Up…Did you have any indicators that maybe you would go into this type of work?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin:  My parents met when they were 15—he was the football captain, she was the cheerleader. They married at 19 and told their pediatrician they wanted a big family. Within eight years, they had five children. What my mother didn’t know was that she was a carrier for Hunter Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder affecting boys.

My oldest brother didn’t have it, but my younger brothers David, Jared, and Randy did. My mom noticed early delays in their development. Eventually, they received the diagnosis: Hunter Syndrome. There’s no cure. Our family went through every phase of grief, holding on to hope.

I was 10 when Randy passed at 12. My other brothers passed at 18 and 19. I was 10, 14, and 15 when they died. Not long after, my parents divorced. Later, I learned that divorce rates are six times higher in rare disease families. Depression, anxiety, and addiction rates are also staggeringly high among caregivers.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Raregivers Global?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin:  You even mentioned in your book, Change for Good, the impact of mortality events.  I think there is a moment in your life where you realize you’re mortal.  You think, I may not be on the planet as long as I thought I was going to be. This is not a dress rehearsal and we only have one life to make our mark.  I always wanted to be in an environment where I can give back and to have some sort of meaningful element to the work I’m doing.  That moment for me was far after my brothers had passed.

As I started thinking about starting a family.  I was genetically tested and actually found out that I was a carrier. And based on that, my dad and I go to the national MPs (Hunter’s Syndrome) family conference. We walk in the door and we look around and there are all these young men that look like my brothers. It just gave me chills.

I came home and said to my girlfriends, “There’s a part of my history that I’ve never really shared with you.  And I want to do something.” We started a fundraising organization called Angel Aid.  Angel is a moniker, A, N, G, E, L which stands for A Nonprofit Group Enriching Lives.

It took awhile but we raised $50,000 and in 2002 we received a matching research grant  which went on to become an FDA approved treatment. The research doctor had this very elegant idea that if the kids are missing the enzyme, they need to create a synthetic version of that enzyme, and we’ll flush it through their body like dialysis, Enzyme Therapy. We went through FDA approval that funded research. Then  we went through clinical trial, and now young men that would have passed away in their teens are going off to college.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin:  The challenge is that missions morph. Angel Aid was the precursor to Rare Givers.  And here’s the challenge. There’s no cures for any of these diseases.  Community is not a cure, it’s a treatment.  I mentioned 10,000 rare diseases, one in 10, one in 15. Worldwide, that’s  350 million families and there’s only treatments for 5% of that community. So the challenge is the other 95% have no options, none.  They’re going through the same cycles that my family went through holding hope and grief in the same heart every single day.

In 2016, I went in and I got a routine mammogram. I came out with a breast cancer diagnosis.  I was like, Oh no, well, there’s another shift in mortality.  Now I have a 10 year old. I’m married. What hit my heart was, what am I waiting for?  I thought my community was the MP/Hunter’s Syndrome community. Then I realized, my community is this much broader community. I was waking up every single night, thinking these families with rare diseases must all be in emotional crisis. There’s no cures. That community needs emotional support like I received with breast cancer support.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin: My mother inspires me because, as I mentioned, my parents divorced, and my mother went on a very deep, dark journey with alcohol,  gambling, with any really kind of escape mechanism to deal with the pain and grief.

We can’t imagine the choices that my family’s had to make. Somewhere along the way, her faith pulled her through, and she got sober. She came back to me. My mom showed up for my daughter and my family in a way that was really profound. She actually reconnected with my father and did a lot of really healing conversations. So what fuels me is very personal, but it’s also, an example of what can happen in rare disease families. This is the joy to the grief.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin: We’ve identified 287 pieces of published research on the emotional toll of rare disease caregiving. From this, we developed an emotional journey map outlining six stages families go through—from noticing changes in a loved one to diagnosis, caregiving, and end-of-life care.

We started with seven women in a living room in 2019. Today, we’ve reached 77,000 families. Our guidebook—thanks to Microsoft—has been translated into 12 languages. With AI tools, they’re working on 400 more. Our goal? Reach 3.5 million rare givers by 2026. What do we need now? Funding. But we have momentum on our side.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin:  I dream big. My dream is very clear and specific. I want Dolly Parton to write a song about RareGivers. Then Melinda Gates will hear it, fund a $10 million endowment, and Oprah will spread the word to hospitals worldwide. Colin Farrell, whose son has a rare disease, will join in. Chris Hemsworth will visit rare disease families in Australia. Eva Longoria will thank us at a L’Oréal event. John Mayer will bring a Hunter Syndrome patient onstage. And Julia Roberts will direct and star in an Amazon series to educate the world. That’s my dream.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin: When I was younger, I used to think that I was creating change in the world and I would just muscle it out and use my intellect, my network, connections, skills and just manifest change. During COVID, it was just a global pandemic, that humbles you in a way that  you just can’t deny.  We had to relaunch Rare Givers.  I started realizing that I can’t muscle through this.

I was looking at my mother, she’s a very strong woman of faith, and I really had not cultivated that side of my heart and my soul.  The word surrender just kept coming up again and again.  It brings me to tears, because as soon as I surrendered the outcome, then it just became an exercise in faith. I will tell you that the miracles just start coming, and then you start living in gratitude, hopping from miracle to miracle and that exact right person arrives.

Charity Matters: You mentioned there was a happy ending to your familY’s story, can you share it with us?

Cristol Barrett O’Loughlin: My parents married young and lost three of their five children. They divorced, remarried, divorced again, and married new partners for 20 years. Both were widowed in the same year our daughter Chloe was born.

Chloe’s arrival reopened their hearts. After 35 years apart, they began dating again. And last year, at 81 years old, we remarried them—60 years after their original wedding. That’s our happy ending.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Charity Matters Inspiration

Episode 86: William’s Be Yourself Challenge

Easter has passed and we are officially into springtime, the season of renewal. There is no greater renewal story than today’s guest Susan Shaw. Susie and her husband lost their nine year old son William in an accident. In the years that followed they have taken that pain and turned into purpose for other grieving families.

Join us today for a powerful conversation about love, loss and renewal. Susie’s journey is one of inspiration and hope that there is always love.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what WBYC does?

Susie Shaw: At WBYC, we empower individuals to embrace their authentic selves with courage and joy. We are dedicated to fostering meaningful connections within our community and supporting grieving families by providing the tools they need to honor their loved ones and navigate their journeys of healing. Together, we create spaces where love, remembrance, and personal growth flourish.

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start WBYC?

Susie Shaw: We started the organization shortly after my son William died. He died in 2019, when we were on a family ski trip out in Montana.  William was nine. There was an accident and, as you can imagine, it was one of the most painful and excruciating events that I’ve ever experienced. The beauty that came from my community after he died, was incredible. I live in a very small town, where everybody knows everybody.

 When William died, he was in third grade and the whole town suffered with us.  As time went on, we started  to notice and hear that some of William’s friends and parents were still struggling in their grief.  A year after William had died, my husband and my surviving son, Kai, were getting support. We were going to the grief groups because there are services for people like us there. There aren’t any services for best friends.

If you’re the friend of a little boy who dies, there’s no support group for that right? I was so close with all of these families that I just hated what I was seeing for them.  So a group of moms got together with my permission, and they decided to put on our very first event playing a game William loved. When we saw the excitement and the beauty and the love that all these kids felt for each other while honoring William and they had that agency over their feelings. Williams Be Yourself Challenge spawned out of that inaugural event. We went on to host an educational lecture and brought in a therapist to talk about grieving for the community. 

 I also realized how privileged my family has been in our grief journey and the support that we have received through therapy and our beautiful community. My husband got to take six months off of work. That is not the norm.  We had this unbelievable privilege of him taking those six months and we got to travel as a new family of three to figure out. We were able to create some new memories. All this stuff that happened in the early months after William died was percolating in me. A while after, I thought,” I wish other families could have this. I wish other families could go away, because sometimes home is hard. The bedroom is there, the toys are there.” There’s all these reminders. 

We’re currently raising money to be able to buy a single family home for families who have suffered the loss of either a child or a parent. We want to be able to give 52 families per year a free week-long vacation. I realized that getting away was so incredibly important for our family. Now all I want to do is allow other families to have just a week. Isn’t long enough, but it’s something.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Susie Shaw:  I am an entrepreneur. And that was something I had never done before.  This isn’t me. My first job out of college, I was in the nonprofit space.  I worked for the United Cerebral Palsy of Chicago. I was their events planner, and it was an amazing job. Then I worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in their development office and at the LA County Museum of Art. So, I had this past of service and understanding of the world of philanthropy and giving.

Some of my challenges have been being the starter. Before, when I was in nonprofit, I was the worker.  Now I’m telling people what to do. I’m walking that line of not trying not to control too much, but needing help finding the right help. Now we need expertise in real estate and in planned giving.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Susie Shaw: I just think about the families that I want to serve because I know what it feels like to need that support, you know. I’ve walked their path. And I certainly don’t want to insinuate that I know what every grieving family feels like, because every grieving family has their own unique story. However, I do think that some of the things we want to do for these families are universal. You want to be cared for. You want to be seen in your grief. You want to be witnessed in your grief, and know that somebody is looking out for you who understands.

And so that’s what I think about when, when I get off a call with a potential donor who just doesn’t get it or isn’t interested in the project.. It happens. You’re not going to relate to everybody.  Then I go back to the families because I’ve been there and I know how painful it is.

 I just want to be able to give other families that same little bit of hope to know that they’re going to be able to survive. I was so afraid that my family would disintegrate after William died. Instead, we had a ton of support, a ton of guidance and we’re doing wonderfully.  We brought a new child into our life. We have a four year old, Cody and he is just the best thing that we could have done for our family. 

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Susie Shaw: it’s hard to quantify, because what we’re trying to do is such an emotional experience. We don’t have a program where we’re hiring therapists to execute with immeasurable results. However, I do think about success in getting feedback from a family who spends a week at our house and telling me that it was transformative, that it was healing and that it was important. I also think about those families than telling their friends about it, and maybe those friends then donate to us. That, to me, is a measure of success. Or those guests that come to our house and tell their grief support groups about their experience and create a referral system. That’s a measure of success. The fact that people are recognizing that this is a needed service within the grief space is success as well.  

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Susie Shaw: if we had a network of grief retreat homes for families.  That would be beyond my wildest dream. Then we could serve double and triple and quadruple the amount of families. With one house, we can serve 52 families a year, if we were to have people there all year. 

Judy’s house is a grief support group out of Denver and they partner with New York Life Foundation.  Both are responsible for sort of quantifying data around bereaved families. Their newest report has just come out. They have found that one in 11 children will suffer the loss of a sibling or a parent before they turn 18. Wow. That is so many families!  52 families to me, sounds like an amazing feat, but that’s barely scratching the surface of how many families need grief support.  If we can have more, let’s have more!

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Susie Shaw:  I’m grateful for every moment.  There’s no rush in any of this. Let’s just be really intentional about what we decide to do today or this week or this month, and that’s really helped me slow down in everything.  I just feel like I’m a better human being.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Susie Shaw: When William died, my entire life changed 100%.  I am a mother and I have two living children as well.  I identify as a bereaved mother. Sometimes first, because it has changed me so much more than even becoming a mother. Losing a child has changed me more than giving birth to three children.

I think I’m a better person. I really do. And I talk a lot with other bereaved moms. There’s a similar sentiment among many of us. I mean, we were just cracked open.  Everything just came pouring out….The good, the bad, all of it and I guess I just feel like I’ve grown so much in my empathy and for all types of people. Especially with my little four year old, I am so much more patient because I view motherhood in a new way…… that we all just need to slow down.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Episode 85: The KinderSmile Foundation

Did you know that students miss 53 million hours of school each year due to oral disease? I did not but thanks to our amazing guest today I have learned so much about what our underserved communities around the country are facing with a lack of proper dental care. I am so excited to introduce you to the amazing Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes. A full time dentist, a mother and a nonprofit founder on a mission to change all of that with the KinderSmile Foundation.

Join us for an incredible conversation that will inspire you in unbelievable ways. If you don’t think one person can change the world then you haven’t met Dr. Nicole!  Dr. Nicole is pure sunshine in a bottle and will definitely give you something to smile about!

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what The KinderSmile Foundation does?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes: KinderSmile Foundation is a 501, c3, non profit organization whose mission is to increase oral care access and oral care education for low income children and Perinatal mothers and their families. And our vision hopes to eradicate the number one preventable disease, which is oral disease, and that every child has a chance to see a dentist.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about Growing up? Did you have any philanthropic role models?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes: Growing up, I can identify multiple role models. My mother, of course, was one. She was an immigrant from Jamaica, West Indies. My mother worked very hard, and she poured into us giving back, giving back, giving back in her own way.  I noticed as a young child, I always had an affinity to serve and to give back. Either I was taking some young children to the park or babysitting or helping the elderly. It was always part of my fabric and my soul. And so I think that’s where that philanthropic part of me started as a very, very young child. 

When I completed dental school 1991 I was this black, successful dentist in northern New Jersey, Montclair, New Jersey, I checked off all the boxes you have, your home, your children, so forth and so on. But my whole soul was still craving or yearning for something. I had a hole in my soul despite checking off all the boxes. And then you realize that there’s a difference between providing a service, like what you do in dentistry or serving your community. What I was missing was serving my community. 

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start The KinderSmile Foundation?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes: That moment was in 2007 when I decided to open up my private practice to children at a local Head Start in Montclair, New Jersey.  I asked the Executive Director of that program to please bus children to my office. I wanted to treat them for free as long as they have the consent from their parents. One evening I received a phone call from my receptionist. She said, ” Dr Nicole. There is a five year old little girl here in the office now. They need help. They need an emergency exam.”

 And so I leave my children, I go to the office. There was this little five year old black girl,  we’ll call her Z,  and she leaped into my arms. She literally had an abscess the size of a golf ball. And when I saw that, my heart stopped after leaving my children, because my son was almost that age.  I knew that it could potentially be deadly. So I spoke to the grandmother, and I said, “Look, this is serious. We gotta get on some antibiotics. Do you have any insurance? ” And she said, ” Well, we live in Union County, we live 30 minutes away. We could not find a dentist in a 35 mile radius to treat her because we have state Medicaid.”

So that night, I went home, and I could not sleep. I fell to my knees, and I had a long conversation with God.  I literally said,” if this is my purpose, confirm it. The next morning, I was reading the ADA quarterly news, about a 12 year old,  black boy from Prince George’s County, Maryland, who died from that same toothache, infection that little Z had. He was 12 years old. His mother was burying her first child because no one wanted to treat him because he had Medicaid. All it would take was two minutes of writing a prescription. 

It was at that was that moment, November 2007 that I started KinderSmile Foundation. I knew nothing about a nonprofit, absolutlely nothing.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes: Some of the early challenges were juggling a family, a private practice all while starting a nonprofit.  Some of the challenges as a woman entrepreneur you’re balancing family life because you’re driven by your passion. You’re driven by the fact that there’s a problem and I can solve it, or I can contribute to the resolution of this issue.

 Then  trying to get other people in my profession to understand why I’m doing this and the necessity. That was very difficult, because public health dentistry is not necessarily viewed as a successful entity of the dental profession. And if you don’t know that 53 million hours in school are missed every year due to oral disease, you don’t know that. I had to educate my colleagues, not to get offended, but to educate them. So the education took at least seven to 10 years. Now we have a list of volunteer dentists who are willing to participate, who are willing to open up their doors and to treat our children and our patients. So it’s worth it. The persistence paid off.

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes:  I tend to look at it qualitatively. Education to me is the key. And for me, success is if I can educate a child, one family at a time, the extractions, the fillings, the dental services,  that is the icing on the cake. But if you can really meet them where they are, to edify and encourage them that you know what? Your child doesn’t need to have a cavity. This is the way you go about it. That’s what makes me sleep at night.

Yes, the grants that you receive, or the $16 million worth of in kind services, or the 8000 patients we see annually, yes, those numbers are impactful. But the lives that you save through compassion, educating, and letting them know that I Care Dental Homes that we built, not dental clinics, which has a negative connotation, but the Dental Homes that are beautifully decorated and clean and organized. When they walk in, they say, “This is for me,. whether I have dental insurance or not.” That is success. They know they can always come back to a KinderSmile community for quality, comprehensive treatment. That to me is success.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes:  The big dream would be the expansion of our KinderSmile dental homes and our KinderSmile community oral health centers. I would like to see that in other areas in the country. A dental home that opens the door to the underinsured. Replicate our model and have it in other indigent areas because we know the model works. We know the mission and the vision is so impactful.

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes:  I learned that first of all the word obedience blares out right when you’re called to do something trust and have that faith. But I also learned  that persistence wins and humility connects God. Persistency wins and humility connects because when you’re humble, you realize it’s not about you. When I’m speaking to my colleagues, and you’re humble, regardless of what they’re thinking, your humility is going to connect.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes:  This has been a wonderful journey. A wonderful, wonderful journey. One thing, I could definitely say is that I get less offended. I think in the early years, when colleagues would say insensitive things like, “What’s it in for me?”  or “I don’t treat those.” I would take it just a tad bit personally. When you step back and you realize that it’s bigger than you, but most importantly, it’s not about you.  Then you get less offended. Then you say, let me use this platform to educate my colleagues, to educate people, regardless of your socioeconomic status or your color or your race or your religion. This is my purpose. This is my journey. So let me educate because you don’t know what you don’t know.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Dr. Nicole McGrath Barnes:  To be very honest, what fueled me was my faith and that I was brought here for a reason. This is my purpose. And when you know that, you know that. You know this is a purpose, there’s no such thing as giving up.  You understand that there will be dark times and there will be light times, but you still persist, because it’s bigger than me. It’s serving a community and it’s creating a legacy.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

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Episode 84: Thrive in Joy: The Nick Fagnano Foundation

I get asked all the time about the people/nonprofit founders who inspire me the most. While I am truly inspired by all who serve and I do not have “favorites.” The answer is people who have lost children and take that unbelievable grief and pain and recycle it into good. Those are the people that I will never forget. Their stories and their children’s stories stay with me. These people are my heroes and their love for their child becomes their love for others. It is the ultimate recycling of pain to purpose.

Today’s guest, Mary Fagnano is one of those remarkable humans. When her young son Nick was struck by lightning on a summer day at the beach, her life and her husband’s life were forever changed. Nick was their only child and a remarkable young man heading off to college. His life and legacy of service lives on through the beautiful foundation his parents created called the Thrive In Joy, Nick Fagnano Foundation. Join us today for an inspirational conversation that you won’t want to miss.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Thrive IN Joy Nick Fagnano Foundation does?

Mary Fagnano:  At the Thrive In Joy Nick Fagnano Foundation, we encourage young people to discover their character strengths and the joy of service through programs inspired by the life of our son Nick.

Charity Matters: What were some early influences on your giving back?

Mary Fagnano:   My mom volunteered a lot in school. She had a drama and speech  background and would go into schools and do creative dramatics and music. I would tag along with her in those early days. My father was always volunteering.  He adopted a family from Afghanistan through our church and brought them into our family.  I did grow up seeing my parents doing outreach and giving of themselves in my own life.

I look back and the first thing I remember is when I moved to Los Angeles, and I was trying to meet people. I moved here and the church I was going to had a program where you could go to juvenile hall and you could volunteer and talk to young people who were incarcerated.  It was a really powerful experience and the first time in my life that I had really put myself out there. 

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start The Thrive IN Joy Nick Fagnano Foundation?

Mary Fagnano: Nick always inspired me. He always inspired me to be a better person. He did this baseball equipment drive for kids in the Dominican Republic when he was going from Little League into high school. He loved baseball, and he had rallied his friends because he saw something on TV about how kids in the DR love baseball, but can’t afford the proper equipment. As a result, he put this drive together.

Another influence in my nonprofit journey was this guy named Greg Buzek, who I was in the advertising and marketing world with.  He had started an organization that brought executives together for a common good to help vulnerable children around the world, and they would make these service trips.   Nick was 20 when he passed.

Well, the signs that lead us. I was having a tough time and said, “Nick, I need to feel you. I need to know you’re here.” And at that moment, my phone rang, and it was Greg Bucha. And it was that call that really changed our life and started Jay and I to have a purpose. That phone call from Greg came only about four or five weeks after we’d lost Nick. 

Greg remembered that I had said that we were going to go to the Dominican Republic. And he said, “Maybe we’ve got this trip coming up. We’re going to install a computer lab at this school, and maybe you and Jay would want to go on this trip, because you never went with Nick” There were just so many signs on that trip that Nick wanted us there.

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Mary Fagnano: We came back from that trip and did an extreme makeover in one classroom at this school in the DR. There was something that just told us we can do all ten classrooms. And we came back and we had a fundraiser, and we did have a great community so we raised $30,000.

The Foundation started in 2016 when we got our 501, c3. In 2016, we had a board that was focused on this little project in the Dominican Republic, helping out at an orphanage in a school and taking two trips a year to go there and do work. Then the board said to us, “This is great. You’re doing this in the DR, and we’ve seen how this has really been something that’s helped keep Nick’s memory alive. But if we’re really going to be a legitimate nonprofit, we want to have sustainability. We need to look local, and we need to find something local that we can do. “

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Mary Fagnano: Nick. Our board did some background research and found this Values in Action organization. We aligned the descriptive words of Nick against 24 character strengths that Values in Action defines through their scientific studies. And they have a survey that every student can take, every adult can take. It gives you this lineup of your top 10 character strengths. This is where we realized, okay, we do have something here.

Charity Matters: When do you know you have made a difference?

Mary Fagnano:  It’s the people we’re serving and the people who serve alongside of us. No nonprofit can operate without volunteers and but it’s the stories. 

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Mary Fagnano: Our impact is what happens through the young people that are part of our programs. We’ll talk about impact right now with our C 11 program.  The young people involved in our program have a project called an ESIP. It stands for entrepreneurial social impact project. At each school where we start with these foundational kind of modules to get that handle on character.

Every year, in the spring they have to do a they have to produce an ESIP. What they produce and how they’ve grown and how they activated their entire campus  is what gives me such impact. This group of students started out with a little leadership team, and then they recruited a club, and now they’ve got like 30 members. Those 30 members had this positive impact on their entire campus with discussions on body positivity or whatever subject.

The students brought together community resources, and they invited their whole campus and everybody could talk to these different organizations.  Everything from financial security, to safety, to riding public transportation, to health and safety. All are the students’ ideas. I measure the impact. I count how many you know people did this small group of students bring together?  Each school that we partner with creates its own little mini nonprofit and picks a cause they believe in as long as it aligns with mixed values, that were things that were important to Nick.

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Mary Fagnano:  I would like to see the C 11 program go global. That would be the big dream.  I want to see that. Just continuing that everybody who wants to have the C 11 program and that every school  feels that there’s a value to this in their school.  We can provide it, and the dream is that we’re constantly able to improve it and update it and make it more exciting and more engaging. 

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Mary Fagnano: People say when you have a child, it changes your life. When you lose a child, it changes your life. Absolutely and I have changed by carrying a lot more about a lot of things that I think are more long lasting than the things that I cared about before.  Nick was only always number one. Everything about being a parent for both Jay and I, it was great. And so losing that and losing all of that purpose, and being able to find a different way to channel it has been a gift.

After Nick died, we found an essay that he wrote when he was a freshman in college. The title of the essay was the reality of heaven. The essay was a five page essay about all the different world religions and what they believe happens when people die. Nick concluded in this essay that his Christian faith tells him that when he dies, he will be finally reunited with the loved ones that he’s lost on earth. And he wrote, “I believe that when I go to heaven, I expect to feel joy, gratitude and excitement. I don’t believe that people should say rest in peace. Perhaps a phrase such as thrive in joy better reflects how I want to spend eternity.”

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Mary Fagnano: I would say the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is never to take a day for granted. Every day is precious. Every relationship that is important to you is precious. There’s never enough hours in the day, and you can’t beat yourself up about that. You try to get in everything you can in a day.

I don’t want to live an easy life. I want to live a meaningful life.

CHARITY MATTERS.

 

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Cancer

Episode 83: Robin Cancer Trust

It is a lovely gift when people around the world reach out wanting to have their story shared with our Charity Matters community. With 1.6 million nonprofits in the United States alone, it is hard to even begin to share the stories we have here. It is a rare moment when we have conversations with our friends across the pond. Since cancer knows no boundaries and affects so many regardless of where you live, I wanted to share this amazing organization and family with you.

Toby Freeman’s family was living a lovely life until his oldest brother Robin was given a shocking diagnosis of cancer at the young age of 23. Twenty million people will also receive that diagnosis each year around the world but not all of them will act to serve others. Join us today for a beautiful conversation on the power of love, family, community and legacy. We all have the power to make a difference and Toby’s story is a beautiful reminder of what happens when we do.

 

Here are a few highlights from our conversation:

 

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about what Robin’s Cancer Trust does?

Toby Freeman: The Robin Cancer Trust is the UK’s only testicular and ovarian cancer charity. We cover both of those cancers  and we do education, awareness and support in schools, colleges, businesses all across the country, delivering life saving awareness talks.

We’ll go in talk to the students and have all of our very funny and very big prosthetics, a really fun engagement tools.  We pull up the headmaster, make them check themselves in front of the class in a safeguarding way. They have a pair that they can check and then we go out to festivals and  universities reaching students and young people there. We also reach millions of people online with our campaigns. And then we do support for our community as well. So we do free Cancer Support packs for anyone affected by those cancers anywhere in the UK. Then we send out additional resources to support them during that incredibly difficult time of their life.

Charity Matters: Tell us a little about your Family Growing Up?

Toby Freeman: I would say my parents are just so unbelievably selfless.  There’s a national charity called Bliss, and my mom headed up our local chapter.  I remember packing things and her talking to us about it and why it was so important. My dad used to help with loads of local organizations, and they’d always get really involved in anything we were doing.

I’m the youngest of three boys, so there was a lot to be done, but they were at everything we were doing sports and school wise. They were at theater productions, helping us. They we did Boy Scouts, which obviously a big part of that is giving back.  I just have this feeling of my parents selflessness was something I’ve always been very aware of. 

Charity Matters: What was the moment you knew you needed to act and start Robin’s Cancer Trust?

Toby Freeman:  I always say experience breeds empathy. I think you have to go through something to be able to empathize with it. When these big, traumatic things that can happen in life, a lot of empathy comes out of them.

Rob was my elder brother.  Rob and I were very, very close when we grew up.  He was my best friend as well as my elder brother.  As we were getting older, he used to ferry me around and look after me and make sure I got to football on time. Rob was in his prime of his life.  He was 23, fit, gym guy, healthy clean eating, training all the time and looking after his body. He was very health conscious and he was diagnosed with a stage four mediastinal germ cell tumor.  He had a testicular tumor in his chest that got to the size of a grapefruit wrapped around his heart and his lungs. It just hit us absolutely out of nowhere. 

I just watched my brother go from the prime of his life to an absolute shell of himself both mentally and physically.  By Christmas time we were  thinking, what’s just happened to us? How has this just happened to us?

We were sat around the table, and we’d made a promise to Rob that we’d never let him just be a photo on the wall. It was never our intention to put him at the forefront of everything. What we did realize was, if someone as health conscious, as fit and active as Rob was could be diagnosed at that later stage and ignore signs and symptoms, then there was something to be done.

During that entire year, we couldn’t find any information about the type of cancer he had. We searched Google, and there was just nothing, and we just felt so alone and untethered.  We didn’t want another family to feel that way.  My dad’s a very pragmatic man. He said, “If we are going to do something, we need to research it thoroughly, understand what the problem is and how to fix it.  We need to create something that isn’t a grief reaction. Something that is actually needed and can outlast us.” So from day on we wanted to be able to step away from this at some point. We want other people driving this. There’s been a beautiful 12 years of seeing this grow .

Charity Matters: What are your biggest challenges?

Toby Freeman: I think the biggest challenge was navigating the grief. I think two things saved me during that time. First, my now wife treated me with a lot of TLC and gave me the kick up the butt to go to grief counseling.  Second, the charity because it gave me something to focus on when that cup was empty. Actually doing something good, putting something positive out in the world, even if that’s just thinking about a project you could do. It just helps fill that cup up every day.

Charity Matters: What fuels you to keep doing this work?

Toby Freeman:  A very patient partner. Everyone grieves in such different ways in a family unit, right? No one talks about how this is really difficult. We did have this unifying thing to be positive about during that time. So I think that was really powerful. My father’s still on the board, and he loves being involved. My mum, my brother have stepped away for various reasons over the years. This has been something that tethered us, because it’s so easy to become so untethered in how everyone’s feeling in those moments

Charity Matters: Tell us what success you have had and what your impact has been? 

Toby Freeman: How do you measure awareness? We were education and awareness based. That’s why we started because no one was covering that. We listened to our community and realized they needed more support.  We provided that service. Awareness is ethereal. You don’t know we’re teaching life skills effectively. We’re asking a 15 year old say, check yourself and if you found something, go to a doctor. But that could be 20 years down the line.

We’ve seen a dynamic shift in the UK to fund as being much more amenable to anecdotal feedback. Real life stories having a tangible impact. We have feedback forms for all of our talks  I can track how many people are landing at certain places on the website. So if I am at certain events, you can have certain links and see 300 people from that event landed on that website. I know that’s an impact. What action they’re taking in the comfort of their own homes, in their baths, in their bedrooms? I don’t know. What we  struggle to track is what is the end impact? Because you can’t be a charity that goes to someone newly diagnosed and say, “Did our resource help you? “

Charity Matters: If you could dream any dream for your organization, what would that be?

Toby Freeman:  Being unemployed, because if someone cures cancer, I don’t have a job. I’d be the happiest unemployed man in the world.   I would say the biggest goal for us is reaching every young person in the UK at school level.  That’s where we’re going to have our biggest impact because we are teaching life skills.

If we also work with all the hospitals in the UK to make sure that anyone diagnosed has access to our free Cancer Support packs and ongoing resources. Then from both points, from an awareness and a support point, I think we have done our jobs.  

Charity Matters: What life lessons have you learned from this experience?

Toby Freeman: That’s something I reflect on quite often. We  have a podcast called Thrive Against Cancer,  where I get to interview people affected by cancer at all stages of their journeys.  I think that gratitude for life takes some people almost forever to understand, to just be able to step back and know what is important and what isn’t important.

How lucky am I to have a happy and healthy family?  So I’ve got no complaints whatsoever. And I think that’s the biggest lesson,  I am grateful to be reminded of at least every two weeks when our podcasts come out. You just get all of this information from everyone else and you can’t sweat the small stuff when you know how much big stuff there is out there in the world.

Charity Matters: How has this journey changed you?

Toby Freeman: Someone once asked me in an interview, “Do you think Rob would be proud of us?” I don’t think he’d be able to recognize me in a good way.  I think when you lose someone, you want to take the best parts of them as well.  My brother was a very responsible man. He really focused on his health and fitness. And for me, over the last few years, that’s really become really important. Putting myself first.  I realized I couldn’t tell other people this without living it.

I’ve just taken it feels like a 180 the way I was. I was very young. I try not to beat myself up. I didn’t handle that year of Rob being ill, Rob’s death, I didn’t handle that very well. I am so lucky to have the people around me that got me out of that and put me on a good path. The charity has given me purpose, and that has defined me as a person that’s helped me be responsible.

Having soaked up so much life experience and being around people that have been through even more, is it just has completely defined who I am.  I’m so grateful for that and to have that opportunity to be who I am.  I’m really proud, and I think my brother would be too.  

Charity Matters.

 

YOUR REFERRAL IS THE GREATEST COMPLIMENT,  IF YOU ARE SO MOVED OR INSPIRED, WE WOULD LOVE YOU TO SHARE AND INSPIRE ANOTHER. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please connect with us:

Copyright © 2025 Charity Matters. This article may not be reproduced without explicit written permission; if you are not reading this in your newsreader, the site you are viewing is illegally infringing our copyright. We would be grateful if you contact us.

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