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- Morning. - Good morning.
- Hi, guys. - Hi.
[indistinct chatter]
- Over here!
- Okay, guys, I need all-- - Morning.
- Good morning. - How's it going?
- Good. - You guys all ready?
both: Yeah. - Okay.
- Today is Tuesday, January 8, 2018,
and now it's time for our two minutes of silence.
[bell dings]
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
Okay, make it a great day.
♪ ♪
- [speaking indistinctly]
Hi.
- Oh, hi. - Aww.
- Hi. Happy New Year. - Happy New Year.
- How are you? - Good.
- Hi, Reuben.
- I woke him up to come see you guys.
- Oh, did you? Hi, sweetheart. Oh, there's a smile.
Do you remember me? It's been a whole month.
Hi. It's been a whole month. A-boo.
Thanks for letting him be our little baby.
He's so sweet.
- Yeah. - I guess you like him, huh?
This is Reuben.
- Oh, what a cutie.
- So he comes to fourth grade once a month.
Are you ready to go to class?
- Where's the baby? - He's coming.
He's downstairs in the office.
I just have to put out his blanket,
and then I'll go get him.
Have a good day.
Okay.
- Or anywhere? I now have my secret...
[indistinct chatter]
all: ♪ Hello, baby Reuben ♪
♪ And how are you? ♪
[soft music]
♪ ♪
- Raise your hand if you can tell me
how you think baby Reuben is.
We just sang him the question, "How are you?"
How do you think he is?
- Happy. - You think he's happy?
What's he doing to tell you that?
- He wanted you to touch his feet.
- Did he move his feet in front of you?
So how does it make you feel when you see Reuben happy?
How do you feel?
- Awesome. - Happy?
It's--you know that feelings are contagious?
You can catch a feeling.
[Reuben coos]
What do you think he's learning when I play with him
and I look at him like this
and I'm looking at him in the eye
and I'm touching his head?
What do you think he's learning?
- Like, kind of, like, a new emotion,
like, feeling, like,
cool, like you're in a room with nobody in it,
nothing, like, in a blank room, and--
- And it's just me caring for him.
- Yeah.
- He is learning to be a more caring human being
so he'll be able--
you'll be able to show that you care for people
because I'm showing you.
♪ ♪
[uplifting music]
♪ ♪
[all speaking native language]
- Phoibe is my grandma.
She was sad when we left the refugee camp.
I remember her coming when we were about to leave.
She was so sad, she didn't even say anything,
and I know she was so sad
because she knew we couldn't make it in the United States.
Now she's living in Anchorage with us.
We enjoy having conversation with her.
She's telling us what happened before, a hundred years ago.
I'm from Congo.
When I was three years old, we moved to Rwanda,
and I lived in a refugee camp before I came here.
We didn't have electricity.
We were treated as people from other country.
I used to miss my country, like, a lot, a lot,
that I can think about it every night,
but right now I feel like the U.S. is my home.
[phone rings]
- The client is here. - Okay.
Is it Achmed that's there with you?
- He is, yep.
- Okay, and it's his mom that's there?
- That's correct, yes, uh-huh. - And refresh me.
What country is she in?
- She is right now in Ethiopia, in Addis Ababa.
- Okay.
- Hi-ho. How are you?
Oh, look at Rosie walking. I have not seen Rosie walking.
Usually she's in your arms. Look at her.
- Okay, you're gonna work on when and where today.
- Okay, we'll try to find someone,
Hope, that can maybe help you with driving, like,
'cause you live far away, so it's hard, like,
to get from a place to the other.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Your job is to just graduate from high school.
- So the bank will lend you money.
Lend--lend means you can have it,
but I get it back.
- We have the Welcome Fund, which is, like,
unrestricted money that donors from, like, around Anchorage
donate to to help us fill in
all the voids that don't exist through all the grants.
If the client doesn't have the means and he comes back in,
talk to him because if this $55 is a big difference
between his ability to, like, get the housing that he needs,
then tell him not to worry about it.
Tell him the Welcome Fund covered it.
- Yeah, okay. - So...
Horrific things happen to refugees.
You have met the qualifications of a refugee
'cause you have experienced extreme trauma.
- Hello? - Hi, is this Ramiz?
Most of our clients and the people that we are resettling
have fled violent outbursts of civil war or ongoing conflict,
militias coming through towns, burning villages,
attacking women at very high rates,
some of the highest rates of sexual violence against women.
- When people flee from those places
and they go to neighboring countries
or they leave those countries and come here,
some of those people are traumatized, like,
and how do you help such people?
- Every time I think, "How is it gonna be for them?"
Clients from, let's say, a refugee camp from Somalia,
they never saw a shower, so we're teaching them,
and then they learn very quickly.
My job is absolutely special.
I see them at the airport,
and a year later, they are different people.
- When I first came to United States,
it was completely a new country.
I didn't even know how to get on the bus.
Solange, she's my auntie,
and we lived together when we were in a refugee camp.
- Once you dip it the first time, you can swipe it there.
- She doesn't speak or hear,
and we enjoy seeing her in Anchorage.
Maombi, she's my cousin.
She lives in Anchorage,
and she came one day before my grandma came.
- Hey. How are you? You look very pretty today.
- Out of the atrocities of World War II
and out of the Holocaust,
the globe said,
"We need to ensure the safety of every human being."
[indistinct speech]
- And then we see that reflected
all the way down to small-town America,
who is stepping up to do their part to ensure
that when that person gets here,
they're welcomed to a place,
and they have all the resources that they need.
- All right, we will put food in the refrigerator.
- And that's the heart of the Resettlement Program.
That's the heart of why someone who's 102 years old
has the right to come to this country and join her family,
and as a globe, we have decided that that is a fact.
If we were having this conversation a few years ago,
I would tell you the likelihood that you would
end up in the United States was very high.
We used to welcome over half of the world's refugees.
That's not the case today.
The value of a human life is the value of a human life
regardless of who you are.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- How did this all come to happen?
How did the universe start?
Like, there has to be a beginning and an end,
and, like, it's completely unexplainable without
some sort of higher power
starting the whole cycle itself.
- Yeah, when you really think about it, like,
there is a lot of things that can't really be explained--
miracles,
something like--I've known people who feel like
they were reincarnated from other--like,
things that can't exactly be explained.
- Like, things-- - I have a strong faith,
and I didn't want--and, like, I would tell my mom
about the class and everything, and she was like,
"Oh, don't forget about your faith."
- If you don't understand something, you can be fearful.
You can--can be angry at it.
- I did not want to take this class at all.
You know, I tried so hard to get out of the class.
I talked to my counselors and everything,
and I was like, "I don't wanna take this class.
"I don't see the point.
Like, I'm not in any of those religions."
Like, I have my own religion, and that's it.
If you wanna have a different religion, that's cool,
but I don't want--I don't wanna learn about your religion.
Like, it's a waste of time, yeah.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
all: ♪ All hail to thee ♪
♪ Johansen High ♪
[whistle blasts]
- Here you go! Yeah!
[applause]
[band playing upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- Morning. Where is everybody?
Whoa, boys. Gentlemen.
No, no, no. Be nice. I know.
[indistinct chatter]
- When you were writing, you were like...
- All right, folks. Religion, what the heck is it?
One of the elements of religion that is the most common
is a belief in an absolute power.
Now, some religions call this idea "God."
Some religions call this idea "Allah."
Some call it the "Tao." Some call it "Brahman."
There are different ways of seeing these ideas,
different relationships that people have with this idea.
Not everybody has chosen a religion for themselves.
Some people believe there is no spiritual world
to connect with.
That is called atheist.
Agnostic is different.
Agnostic is the idea that you're just not sure.
Religion is like--it's like a vehicle that gets you
from this human experience that we all have,
and it connects you with a spiritual one.
The First Amendment to the Constitution says,
"Congress shall make no law
"respecting an establishment of religion
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
What is the topic of the first right?
- Religion. - Religion.
That's how important it is in this country,
this idea of freedom of religion.
- Well, if that came up,
then the best thing for that person to do is come
and talk to me about it, and we will figure out
if we can't pursue an--you know, a compromise.
But in all of my years, doesn't happen.
Mm-hmm.
Most people are like, "Okay, teach me.
Tell me what you got." So.
Imagine if we were sitting in here
and someone official walked into our classroom and said,
"You know, we're having trouble with some kids,
"and we need to remove some people.
"We are going to remove all of the people
who have on yellow striped shirts."
- Poor Tawny. - Bye, Tawny.
And we all look around, and we're like,
"Oh, thank God it wasn't me," right?
A few minutes pass, and they come back,
and they look around,
and they go, "Yup, you know what?
I think everyone wearing black needs to come with us too."
- I'm running. - Seriously.
Should I have spoken up before,
when they take poor little Tawny away
because she has on yellow stripes?
Maybe I made a mistake keeping my mouth shut, thinking I
was comfortable sitting here in my black,
because now it's my turn.
We need to protect the rights of the smallest minority
because in doing that, we're protecting our own rights.
We can't get too comfortable.
We have to stand up for each other.
That's what the Constitution is reminding us,
stand up for each other.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
- This degree means everything to me.
I didn't wanna wake up in five more years
and still be a server.
I didn't wanna wake up in five more years
and be a hairdresser making $10 an hour.
I couldn't do that.
- It's, like, upside down. - 4 times 10, which is 40.
- You just draw what you saw. - I'm a single mother,
and all you know that you need to do is wake up,
go to school, you know, go to work, see my son,
do it again the next day, and that's very hard.
- Did you get it to focus? - I think it's down too low.
Going to school, working full-time at night,
I went months without seeing my son.
He didn't want me when I was home.
He wanted my mom.
He was calling my mom "Mom,"
and it sucked.
So now we're moving to the next magnification.
- Just did.
- I really thought I could hold it down,
but I was freaking out about my bills.
When I tell you I'm broke, I am broke.
Yeah, that one's kind of hard.
I'm the one who stays up crying in the middle of the night
wondering, like, how am I gonna pay this?
How are we gonna make it?
- I'm Russell.
I work at the college. - Okay.
- I'll buy your coffee, and I'll buy you lunch
if I can talk to you for ten minutes.
Will that work? - Yeah.
- Right? What's working for you here?
What are we doing well, and what do we need to know
that's not going so well? I'm Russell.
- Nice to meet you, Millefer. - I work here at the college.
Tell me your name again.
- Millefer. - Millefer?
- Yes. - That's a beautiful name.
Tell me about... When I came here,
I looked at our success rates,
and more of our students were failing out
than they were graduating, and I wanted to understand why.
- You have to take care
of your kid first versus going to school.
- I just started asking students questions,
and the responses that our students told me
that were keeping them
from being successful in the classroom
changed who I am personally and professionally
because their biggest barriers to classroom success
had nothing to do with the classroom.
- Hello. - Hello.
- How are you? - Good. How are you?
- Come on in. How can I help you today?
- You can either get assistance with tuition,
with textbooks, with transportation,
or with childcare. What questions do you have?
- I just wanted to know about the food pantry and--
- The food pantry? Yeah.
- 54% of our students are food insecure,
and 59% of our students are housing insecure.
- They're gonna repossess my car,
and I'm not gonna be able to get to school.
I'm gonna mess everything all up again.
- And then here's the number. - For the utility bill?
- Transportation, childcare, healthcare, utility payments,
legal services, housing, things that I'd always assumed
were someone else's responsibility,
I understood had to be Amarillo College's responsibility.
- I'm working really hard,
and I really want to stay in school,
and it's only--I just wanna be able to pay--pay my car.
I have military PTSD from combat,
and I'm still trying to go to school.
- Okay, so Angelique Martin,
she was needing help paying her car.
So she's--has her car through Auto Connection here in town.
She pays a small amount every two weeks,
and she had used the financial aid
that she received the first eight weeks
to pay all up until this point,
and so now she needs help paying for this--
- What's her GPA? - It's low. Mm-hmm.
- We can't help her. We can't help her.
- No? Okay.
- Maybe we could call the car place and advocate for her.
- I don't mind doing that, but I was also thinking of maybe
asking if the church can help.
[phone line beeping, dialing]
- I was calling in regards
to one of your customers, Angelique Martin.
- Okay. - If we are gonna improve
their education attainment,
We had to connect them to resources
that our community had to help them
overcome the life barriers that they experienced every day.
That's where the magic is for our community
because that's how we're gonna break the cycle of poverty
that is not just crippling the Amarillo or panhandle region.
It's gonna cripple our entire country.
But the only way someone
who's grown up in generational poverty
is gonna be able to get a degree and move out of it
is if they have support and resources,
and we're trying to systemically do that here.
- Hi. I'm Jordan Herrera. - Hi.
- I'm here to pick up a check from Mark. Is he here today?
- Yeah. - I got a check here for you.
All right. - Thank you so much, Mark.
- Have a nice day. - We appreciate it.
- You betcha.
- Good morning.
- Are you Paul?
- You must be Jordan. - I'm Jordan.
- How you doing, Jordan? - Good, nice to meet you.
- It's a pleasure to meet you, Jordan.
- Hi. So here's the check for $300 for Angelique.
- Okay. Oh.
- Our gratitude for helping her out and--
- Oh, and here's what I'm gonna do.
We're gonna kick in a little gift ourselves.
So the first--
- Oh, that's amazing.
- Forgive charge, and we're gonna forgive an extra $100.
- Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it so much.
- Well, you're certainly welcome.
We--we appreciate the efforts,
the community effort and the church.
- Yeah. - And our support of the--
- It takes a village.
- That's r--well, that's what it does.
- It does.
- And what I really like about it is
it's--so it's showing local people
doing--doing some local good to help people...
- Absolutely. - Make a step up,
and that's--we need more of that.
- Hi, beautiful. - How are you?
- I like that. - Oh, thank you.
- The car situation that you brought up to us,
I was able to talk to a church here in town,
so we were able to go pick up a check this morning
from the church for $300
to help pay both of the car payments
that needed to be paid for September.
- Oh, thank you so much. - You're welcome.
- I've never been turned down. You guys never turn me down.
- We're--we're never gonna turn you down.
We won't. We won't, and you know what, Angelique?
All of the services that we have here are for this reason.
That's why they're here.
They exist to help students like you.
You can provide a service all day, every day.
You can hand out whatever you think people need,
but until you can make somebody feel like a human being
and that they're worthy of your time, it's not gonna matter.
- Ultimately, what we all want is to be loved,
to have a family, to have a job that pays us a living wage
so that we can walk in hope and provide for those
that we love and share a life with.
The undercurrent of fear, I think,
is an undercurrent of economic injustice.
Opportunity for everyone rather than just the few.
- The globe is most unkind
when we determine that someone's life
holds more value than another person's life.
That's the start of unkindness.
- With a society that has so much available to it
in physical material, things, our country is at risk
because we've just forgotten how to care for each other.
- Hi, how are you? - Somewhere along the way
it became okay
to just kinda walk over bodies to get to where you're going.
How disastrous does it have to become
before we bring out the better angels of our inner souls?
- Does that sound right? - Yes.
- But as a society, where did we lose our way
and say that this is okay that a whole bunch of people
who live in abject poverty end up,
years later, with somebody living on the streets
'cause they don't have the skills to survive in our world?
- Should we see who's in the park first?
See if there's anyone in Kushner Park?
- Might be too cold to work, huh?
- It's fucked up. It's fucked up.
I mean, I'm fucked up. I--it's my problem.
I have the problem.
- Put your arm--pledge allegiance for a minute.
Put your arm there, just like this.
Just relax for a moment, okay?
So he's gonna go over to McInnis House.
We've got one bed.
We just wanna be sure his vital signs are okay before we go.
- Yeah.
- And I think in the back of my--did it stop?
- "Error, error."
- Oh, did it say "error reading?"
- Yeah, error. - Okay.
- I--I'm an idiot. I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
- No, I-- - Is this blood pressure?
- It is blood pressure, but don't worry, you know?
We'll live with it 'cause your oxygen's okay.
We can live with it. Let me see this hand.
Let me see.
Oh, they're warm there. You're warm. Okay.
- Yeah, but I'm still starting to get--
- And is your feet--how bad are your feet?
Are they pretty bad?
- Trench foot and frostbite and everything else.
- Kay, we won't take them off. We'll look at them when--
- I don't even know-- - No, we'll look at them
when you get over to McInnis House.
You don't have to do that now.
I'm kinda glad you're coming in.
I haven't seen you in a long time.
- Hey, love you, Jim.
You are my favorite person in the world.
- Okay, let me get--oops.
- He's a real human being.
Yeah, he's always been incredibly genuine,
very kind to me, you know?
I mean, in ways that you can't even express.
I can't even say how many things
that these people have done for me.
They've done for me from--than I could do for myself.
- You look like you're stiff.
When you go out to take care of a group of homeless people,
and I would say in particular the street folks,
they will show you the weaknesses
in the mainstream health care system in a second...
So it's coming in both hands? All right.
- Things that we didn't even realize.
There is no doubt that homelessness
is a public health emergency and tragedy,
and it's deadly.
My name is O'Connell. I'm Dr. O'Connell.
What do you need, anything?
- I need mental health, and I want--
- Let me introduce... Street medicine
can actually be just an extension
of regular primary care,
just--just trying to address the particular obstacles
that group of people have to coming into care.
Oh, okay.
- I need your help. - In private?
- Yeah. - Okay.
We can do it in private.
We learned that you can manage heart failure.
You can manage hypertension.
You can manage a lot of chronic diseases by bringing,
you know, your blood pressure cuffs and your things outside.
- Do they still use those? - I still think you had
a little bit of a concussion when you fell down,
and I'd rather have you in, Bobby, okay?
- If you're trained in medicine,
there is no career path to take care of homeless people.
And you don't need detox, right?
- No, no.
- It was a nurse who said,
"You've been trained all wrong," and she took away
all the tools of my trade, and she said, "What we do
is we tend to invite people in to soak their feet,"
and she said, "So I'm gonna have you soak feet."
- Remember, foot care clinic is a gateway into primary care,
not because we will just want to disturb people
and just bother with vital signs,
but it gives us an indication as to somebody's health condition.
Does it make sense?
- Yeah. - All right.
- What's your name? - Walter Bogar.
- Any allergies? What happened to this foot?
- It's a long story. It's a gangrene toe.
It's a dry gangrene. It'll fall off eventually.
- My feet are soaking wet. Oh, walking in the rain.
- How are you today? Do you have any allergies?
Have you had any vaccine this year?
- [speaks indistinctly]
- Let's see what's going on here.
Ooh. Did you see that this is really rough, Eric?
You feel my thumb there?
- Yeah. - How about here?
- Yeah. - Okay.
- Let's take a look at the rest.
- Oh, I can do this.
- Any pain down here? - No.
[indistinct chatter]
- Yeah. - Yeah, let me see. Okay.
- Oh, this? - I don't know why it's green.
- My feet were wet all week.
I walked around in wet sneakers for a week.
- Oh, no. - Yeah.
- That's bad news. - Oh, thank you.
- So tell me, how's that? That help you?
- Yeah. - Okay, okay.
- The hotter the better. - Okay.
- The hotter the better.
- I was given this opportunity in America to go to school
and then get my education in line,
so I knew deep inside me
that I need to give back to this community
that have supported me.
Where is my friend?
- How are you, darling? - Okay, let's do it.
- Okay.
- There. - You do such a good job.
You take good care of me. You really do.
- Thank you. The mayor is here. The mayor is here.
Good morning, Mayor.
- Most homeless people
don't hear somebody mention their name
with dignity for weeks, sometimes, if not months.
- Thanks. - Yeah.
- The nurses are brilliant with this
because it flips the power structure,
so you're at the feet of the person you're trying to serve.
- These people are human beings like you and me,
and they also have fallen into bad times
and ended up being homeless. What can we do to help them?
Can you please allow me to get the blood pressure on your arm?
- You can try. - Oh, thank you so much.
- Didn't work last time. - Thank you.
- It's gonna be through the roof
'cause I don't have my medication.
- Oh. - Yeah, yeah.
I'm done with this.
My blood pressure's high. You can just tell every time.
It's always high.
I haven't had my meds in a week.
- All right. Okay. This is--this is really high.
- Yeah, it's nothing to worry about.
It's been like that forever.
- What can I do? Just-- - Nothing.
You--there's nothing you can do. What are you gonna do?
- I can call that doctor up and--
- Yeah, what's that gonna do?
- Make you an appointment to see him
ASAP, as soon as possible. - Who, Rothford?
- Yes.
- And what is that gonna do?
- He's gonna at least increase your blood pressure medication.
- Yeah, if you wanna try, you can try calling him.
- No, I will do it now.
- God bless you guys. Awesome.
- Can you get him a appointment with Dr. Rothford at Pine?
- You--did you... [indistinct]
- Why? Why, in America--
why would people be still sleeping on the street?
What can we do to bring all those people every night
on the street into a house
so they wouldn't experience snow on them, rain,
even heat of the sun?
Some will come in, and they look exhausted,
so I give them a glass of water,
check their vital signs.
Some, I will see medical issues.
I have to send them out to the hospital,
so you treat people with kindness.
We make them to open up, and you will see more.
- Do you have gloves? - No.
- You can earn people's trust but be present.
Sometimes it happens on the first day.
Sometimes it happens after six months,
but the persistence and the continuity is what really works,
and when you can do that,
then you can start to deliver health care.
If you don't take the time to do that, you can't.
- Skin looks good. This hurt?
There's an aspect of my comfort zone
that I've completely demolished and expanded
just coming here,
working with feet.
At first, it was hard to get used to,
and--and now, you know,
it's--it's just an aspect of humans.
- Do you mind if I take your vitals?
- Everyone in here who's walking behind me,
they--this is their job, and they're everywhere.
They are all over the country, all over the world,
you know, helping people,
taking some small effort to--to provide and try to,
you know, equal the playing field in a unfair world.
- In one year, I've come from absolutely nothing,
a stuttering mess downstairs--
with the help of the staff and everybody else,
I've come out one complete year to having my feet fixed,
my hip reta--replaced. I got a smile, you know?
I got my headlights on now, you know what I mean?
So I'm a complete new vehicle thanks to this place,
and that's the reason why I am where I am today.
- And thanks to yourself. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- When I look at the long vision,
my guess is those two months
invested in soaking this man's feet,
which--for which we could get no income,
probably saved the system a few million dollars
down the line.
I have come to think of homelessness--this is
my own little version of it,
is like if you held a prism up to society, right,
what gets refracted are the weaknesses in every sector,
in the education sector, in the housing sector,
the health sector, corrections, and justice.
We have to figure out how to address the weaknesses
in all of those societal sectors
if we're really gonna address the problem.
- Go.
- Guys! - Whoo-hoo!
- You don't have any air in the tire.
- Yeah, it's been hard to ride lately.
- Oh, my goodness. It's flat. Look at that.
When you get a flat tire, you need to stop by,
and--and I'll pump it up for you.
- Okay. - Okay?
- Thank you. - Oh, of course.
This is something that I love to do.
You wanna go--pump it up? It's a little hard, isn't it?
- Mm-hmm, it's really hard. [grunts]
- It feels different. - Doesn't it, different?
Give it a shot. I'll bet you're really gonna like it.
- Oh, ahh! - How's that?
- Oh, my gosh, look how easy it is!
[laughs]
Thank you, Steve. - Oh, you're welcome.
- When children end up in foster care,
they are often removed from homes where there is neglect,
and their family safety net is ripped to shreds.
Who is gonna be there to catch you when you fall?
- Good morning. - Good morning.
- Ah, you're doing our hair this morning?
- Good morning!
- I guess I do need to practice for this, okay.
- Is this your presentation? - Yes.
- Try and do it a little bit from memory maybe.
- Okay. Jewelry played a big part in Ancient Egypt.
If you were poor,
then you would wear beaded necklaces and headbands.
If you were wealthy, then you were...
- Kids need a rock. They need that stability,
that one person in their life that's immobile,
and that's me.
I am their refuge. I am, you know,
all of those things that give them a safe place to be.
You know, I have grown children, grandchildren,
great-grandchildren.
To me, it was never a matter of choice.
It's just what you do. You pick 'em up,
and you go forward, and you raise children.
- Brody, is this one yours?
'Cause I'll break the yolk if it's yours.
- Yes, it is. - You know,
I have a whole community that loves my children,
and all that can do is create great humans.
I love you. Have a good day today.
Okay, have fun.
- Kay, who's gonna figure out who sits in the front seat?
- I will! - I will!
- I saw--I do that, Estelle. - Okay.
- Children need to know that they are beloved,
and elders need to know
that their lives still have meaning and purpose.
- How about some water, guys?
- It's a place for fostered and adopted people,
not just, like,
regular people that would live in a regular house.
- We believe generations coming together
makes a powerful safety net.
- As long as I feel like I can help any of these children
in any way, I really feel privileged,
and that's the main reason I moved here.
- It means so much to me to have a child
in my life who trusts me,
and when you see the love for some of the elders,
it's very evident.
There we go.
- The children have always been at ease here.
They've come from abuse,
and yet they came here with open arms.
- You ended here, or did you end here?
- Right here.
Every kid here has an elder that they hang out with.
"Probably just a temper tantrum," George says. "He re--"
- What's a temper tantrum?
- When someone gets mad and is really upset.
- Everybody's family.
It's just the thing about living here.
You can't live here without everybody being family.
It's just how it goes.
I tell my friends I have, like, 42 grandmas
and, like, eight grandpas.
- Just sit down here and pretend to read.
Oh, look at that beautiful picture, yeah.
All right, here's a good place.
- Stun-ing.
- Yeah. - Standing?
- Stunning.
Very good. I am so proud of you.
Okay, let's go eat.
- Hi.
- There you are, honey.
- We're foster kids. - Are you?
Are they clowning around?
- Yeah. - We didn't have a book
'cause it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing,
so we read a magazine that was out there.
- Oh, yeah? - Yeah.
- Magazines now, huh? - Yeah.
- Wow.
- You can read about anything you wanna read now.
You're doing so good.
- The teacher actually pulled me aside yesterday and s--
- About him? - Noticed improvements on both.
- Good. - Yeah.
I'm a grandmother who adopted four grandsons.
It still is today too good to be true.
The connection, knowing, that, you know,
you're not in it alone; you're in it together.
- 2009--18. - Yeah.
You're supposed to get... [indistinct]
- You know, one thing I did learn,
you don't have to be blood-related to be related.
- Our purpose is to help these children have abundant,
beautiful lives,
and thereby we will have abundant, beautiful lives.
- We all have goals.
We all have places that we wanna end up.
Working and going to school all the time,
I was mentally and physically exhausted.
I'm a hard worker. I love my son.
I want to be a good mom.
It was Christmastime.
I couldn't buy my son Christmas gifts.
I was working like crazy.
I go in to take my biology final.
Every question, I'm like, "I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know."
You know, all these thoughts are running through my head that,
"Oh, you're a failure," you know?
"Everything that you've done, you've failed,
"and you failed with your--you failed with your son.
"You failed with hairdressing. You failed with waiting tables.
You failed at being a provider for your son,"
but I was giving my all.
And so I really just wanted to get in my car
and drive it off a cliff,
and that's exactly what I wanted to do
because in my head I'm sitting there thinking,
"You're--if this didn't work, none of it's ever gonna work,
"and Kingston's gonna be happier with my parents,
and he'll be taken care of,"
and--and I left that place
holding in as much as I could.
I knew I needed to reach out for help.
I knew I needed to talk to somebody
because I was afraid of what I was gonna do to myself.
I had heard about the ARC through a fellow student,
and she was a single mother as well.
- Figure out a plan, kinda talk about, like,
where you're at, where you wanna be.
She came in, and she said, "I need to talk to someone.
I don't know what to do."
- I poured my heart and soul out in that--in that office.
- And I just got to know her for who she is,
and she's amazing. - Now we help...
- At the most vulnerable time in my life,
when somebody could have turned me away,
somebody could have judged me, they encouraged me.
They hugged on me. They loved on me.
They listened to everything I had to say.
- I just explained to her what we could provide in here.
- I had no idea that they would help me with my bills.
- The services that we had, the resources that we had...
- They cared about me enough to invest in me.
And that's... [sniffles]
- The number of students that utilize that service
is overwhelming to me.
We have all of these services,
but none of those services individually
are designed to eradicate poverty,
but if we as a college can glue them together
in a way that allows Alicia to stay in school and graduate
with a degree and matriculate into a living-wage job,
then she doesn't need those services anymore.
We solved her problem long-term
by fixing the barriers that she faces short-term,
and it's taken every part of the community
to make that happen.
- What we really need is community,
and that's wellbeing. That's resilience.
That's--that's the joy of it all
'cause if I can dance with you,
if I can laugh with you, you trust me,
and if you trust me,
you're gonna come see me when things are hard.
- Community is where hope is going to be found.
- The biggest need for us is we need each other,
and when we say that, we're not just talking about people
within 3 feet around us, but we start there.
We have to take time to have each other experience
what it means to be a neighbor to each other.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
I'll see you later, babe. Yep.
Geneva, you--you in charge
of the big shop part, the workshop part.
- What about me? - And sales, y'all too. Okay?
But--but for you, you gotta listen to her.
What's going on, man?
It's already--you tried to beat that sun, didn't you?
- Yeah, I did.
- What's your mother really good at?
- She takes care of us and teaching us.
- Teaching, that's right. What type of things she teach?
- She teach us, like,
how to--how to be nice to each other.
- That's right. What about you?
- My mom, she good at cooking for me,
for my family,
and I like how she feed me--well--
and--I like how she feed me
and she give me clothes to wear
and a shower and a roof.
- And a roof. - And that's all.
And I like how my mom is good at teaching me
how to be a better person, you know, good.
- Ready, set, go!
Knock on the door. Hello?
Last year, we started a bike shop...
All right. Biker Boyz and Girlz Club.
No--yeah, you take that one over there.
You take it. Let me help you.
Line 'em up straight, in a straight line.
We noticed how many people running up
and down Harding Street,
and most of 'em under the age of 15.
- This one's big. - That's how we started it.
We asked them if they would be our business partners.
This gonna be the retail area.
Everything--where the thing would be, the soft.
I think my role is to figure out
how to discover people's gifts and talents...
- Well, I said, off of here
so they can actually see what's going on in here.
- That's right. Seeing and celebrating
what's in front of us.
- Oh, I must ha-- - Why am I--
- Nia, can you touch this? Hey.
- We got a hole in it, so we need to patch it.
- Who got the broom?
Who gonna sweep? Who wanna try that?
- Me. - Me.
- All right.
The chief of police came down at one point and said, "Hey,
I'd like to invest in this, and I got some bikes."
- Nice to meet you.
- So rather than selling them,
we created an agreement. with a nonprofit...
- That is so wonderful.
- We have to provide opportunities
and support those people that--that are doing the work,
quite frankly.
- Flat tire, flat tire. - Oh, we gotta get 'em off.
- Yeah.
- We've had people come up and was like, you know,
"I really need to get a--borrow a bike
to get to a job interview,"
or something like that, and a lot of times we'll--
we'll go loan them a bike so that they can go do that.
- Historically, this has been-- this has been a rough area,
both to grow up in and to police,
and it's--it's things like this
that I think can help alter that a little bit.
- If you listen to the news,
you'll hear the 46208 neighborhood
as a place for treacherous things or things that are wrong,
but to me it's a neighborhood where people love each other.
It's a place where people share,
and most of that is about community.
- Ahh!
- Yeah, y'all probably gonna have a lot of people here today.
- Yeah, we let you all through and have a seat.
- Yeah, y'all... [indistinct] - Go ahead and have a seat.
Y'all good.
- Stories and people
sharing their stories
is a philanthropic act. Y'all have any questions?
When you sit on the porch and someone becomes vulnerable...
- I don't have a driver's license.
I'm 27, and I've never had one.
- My permit was suspended when I was 16,
so I ain't never had a license.
- I brought some folks from the Indiana Legal Service
for my friend IU law school.
I'm trying to make this as less hoops as possible.
What I'm committing is trying to get 60 people
they driver's license back from and around this neighborhood
or at large that are people of color.
Let us not forget that being African American in this country
meant you were treated cruel at some point,
and a couple of things. We can live in sorrow of that
because those scars of my grandparents have affected me,
and they affect people in my neighborhood.
But for me, what I'm looking for is healing.
And how to utilize his gifts and his power.
- [indistinct] says it best. There are assets.
We just gotta tap into the assets and understand
that they don't look like me. They don't look like you,
and we just need to be able to embrace them
because once you do that, there's hope and healing
within the body of the community.
- What listening does, it builds the first piece of capital
that we all need as humans. It's trust.
But to have they power shined on, right?
In honor, right?
These people have power. These are my neighbors.
[applause]
And I learned a couple of lessons,
the power of being a neighbor
and the power of shutting up and listening.
[laughter]
On these little journeys, the young people learn
also the practice of stopping
and treating your neighbors with dignity.
They know what it means to be treated
in a way that is not dignified,
but they also understand how to treat people with dignity.
- Welcome to McDonald's. How can I take your order?
- We don't sell hot sauce here, ma'am.
- I want to continue discovering the gifts
and talents of everybody in the life of our community,
find a place for they gift,
and celebrate their gifts
in ways that build community, economy,
and mutual delight.
Five and five.
We just want you to pay attention.
You keep this in your pocket. You understand?
They know that little corner house on Harding and Edgemont,
where that bike shop is, is more than a bike shop.
Do you think I'm professional?
both: Yeah. - [laughs]
I la--that's funny. Thank you.
That's a compliment.
That's the most honorable compliment
I'll probably get today.
I want to be a witness, not just in my zip code,
but I want me and my neighbors all over the world
to be a witness to the power of love.
Y'all wanna make the bike shop here?
- I don't know about that.
- I've been thinking about buying this
for the bike shop and fixing it up.
- I don't even know her name.
- Do you know her name? If we can fix this up,
we can have an office and then where you fix the bikes.
- [speaks indistinctly]
- Putting time and practice into family,
love, being a good neighbor,
that's really what counts for all of us.
[poignant music]
♪ ♪
[bird chirps]
- Food order, first thing in the morning.
Yay! Thank you.
- I thought we transported it home.
- Yep.
- Why you hiding that one?
You didn't want nobody to see it?
You messed up? You messed that one up?
- That's just-- - You tried to hide it?
Don't hide your mistakes.
- No. - It's okay.
- Hey, Melissa. - Yeah.
June is usually summertime, right?
- Yes, it is.
- Let's cut around here. - Yeah.
- About that size, about a foot,
and then we're gonna strip this.
- You're ready for the Tour de Hurleyville.
- I'm joining the crew here.
- Okay, follow me. This way. - Come on, Johnny boy!
- Here I come! - I know it.
You're hot on my tail there, buddy.
Ah, feel the breeze.
- In the past, when a child with a significant disability
was born, neurologists and physicians
would be the first to say
that your family would be better off,
place the person in an institution,
basically, warehouse folks with disabilities.
And they were pretty rough places.
Oh, my God, look at that tree, John.
- It is magical, yes.
It's like going back through time.
- In 1980 it was the time in New York state
where we were under sanction by the federal government
to close major institutions, and this movement started.
- Good morning.
How are you?
- Good. - Good. Welcome back to school.
- The spirit here is revolutionary.
We'll take the most complicated people,
and we'll figure out how to care for them.
- Even if you have multiple disabilities
and you have struggles, you can still learn.
There are different ways to adapt the environment,
adapt lessons, adapt everything, really,
to help somebody be more successful.
- Gotta get samples. - You have to remember
that these folks were placed in the '40s,
'50s, and '60s and functionally abandoned.
They still hold on to decades and centuries of judgment,
Older gents and women who lived there for 55 years
and who were probably typically normal intelligence
but had a physical disability,
They were in a terribly ugly environment for the most part.
- We're evolving as a community, as a country.
The inclusiveness of this population,
years ago, you didn't know that they existed.
- Hi. - Good morning.
The residents are essential in helping us pack out
for things like that,
and it's really like a team effort.
- We're outside of a clinic.
We're outside of a four-wall normal situation.
- So what are we doing today? - Washing lettuce.
- You got it. You got it. Okay.
- The perfect day on the farm is all of the staff
standing back and watching while the residents do the job.
Now, we like to work together too,
but that ability to do that, like, that's something
that they taught me, is that is possible.
- This is called Maximilian sunflower.
- Maximilian sunflower?
- You got it, girl. - Yeah.
- What can you do with these raw materials?
What's your favorite color?
- Red.
- You get a bunch of skilled people together
who can make magic out of things in all capacities,
infrastructure, education, therapy,
all these things coming together in a real symphony
looks pretty good. It's working.
- You want the longer one? - Yeah.
- The fire company is a hub of the community.
It's the brotherhood and sisterhood of the town,
and it brings everybody together in a time of need
and a time of joy as well.
- Good job, Tommy.
- I thought it was really funny
how I was making the water dance.
That's what I did to myself. I got myself wet.
- Thank you, my dear. This is cool.
They're compostable.
[laughter]
- You know my board president, you know, Ed Sweeney?
- I think so.
- He may approach you to join the agency board of directors.
You'll have to decide if you want to do it or not.
It's a lot of work.
- Have you had practice for about eight weeks?
Holy cow.
Is there a certain dance you like better than others?
- The tango. - The tango?
You like the tango?
[soft string music]
♪ ♪
- I love this town.
I love seeing Jeffrey in his wheelchair
coming down the street. I love going to the market
and seeing Brian working at the market.
I love seeing them going to the barbershop.
If everywhere were to feel how we feel in this little town
that we're in, it'd be great.
- Ah, ah. Ah.
- Ah.
- It's only been 40 years
that they've come from the dark ages,
and I fear they could go back
if we don't get a handle on some of this stuff.
The single most important thing to do for us
all living on this planet,
it's being empathetic, caring for your fellow man.
If you have that in your arsenal,
you can do just about everything.
- Come on in, boys.
Good morning, ladies.
Come on. Come on.
- Sorry. - Okay. It's okay.
All right, ladies and gentlemen,
this first quote comes from the religion
Judaism, the Talmud, Shabbat 31a, and the quote says,
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow men."
If you find it hateful, whether it's the way
someone talks to you, looks at you,
treats you differently, whatever it is,
if you find it hateful--so you can make,
in your own head silently, a list of all the hateful things
that people could--the way they could treat you.
Now take that list, and don't treat other people that way.
It's pretty simple.
Most world religions have some version of the Golden Rule,
and they all basically are saying the same thing.
It's all about how we treat each other.
All right, so underneath the quote,
what you're going to do--and this is part of the warm-up.
I want you to tell me about a time
where somebody treated you in a hateful way
or--you treated them or they treated you,
so you can be on either side of this hateful treatment.
After that, how did that make you feel?
- There had been an incident at Downey High School
where a student had been bullied,
and we really felt that if all students had this information,
that it just might influence their attitudes
about someone who was different from them within our community.
- Having the world religions class is a natural extension
of talking about the diversity of our nation.
In the United States,
our differences are not a weakness.
They're a strength,
but how can we teach about religion
in a public school setting?
We brought in the First Amendment Center
to do a lot of training with our teachers.
We had representatives from all of our different
religious traditions in the community to come in
and take a look at the course outline
and then come back to us to give us feedback.
- Every day, we treat people in a way
that we would not ourselves wanna be treated.
- One of our major concerns
when we developed the world religions
course was the controversy
that--making a graduation requirement
that all students would be required to take the class.
- That we felt that it was important enough
that every student in Modesto
have an understanding of the different traditions
that make up our community.
- We hope to reach enough students
that they're going to have a second thought
about saying something that's inappropriate
about someone else based on their faith,
based on their race, based on their gender.
- Today, in their lives right now,
they will come across people
of other faiths, at the mall, in their classroom,
or the parents of fellow students
who practice all of these different faiths,
and the more they know about each other,
the easier it's gonna be to get along
and be compassionate with each other.
Underneath the word "respect,"
you're going to copy the definition,
"honoring the worth and value of individuals and institutions
and treating them accordingly."
Does it say you have to agree with them?
- No.
- Does it say you have to like them?
Nope. Treat other people with respect regardless
of how they treat you.
Maybe they will pull themselves up to your level
rather than you going down to theirs.
- Treat people with dignity. Believe what they say.
Every single person deserves to be celebrated,
every single person.
- We all have fear of things we do not understand,
and I think sometimes what we perceive in a community
to be unwelcoming is really fear,
fear of "Is this gonna change who we are?
Is this gonna change our values?"
That's where that comes from.
- The hate that exists in this country
could be our destruction, or it could be our clarion call.
- But I think it does take
someone in leadership to say,
"We are going to build bridges."
- I wanna live in a country
that is a genuinely egalitarian democracy.
Who is it who is willing to risk something on behalf of people
who others hate?
How do you develop more solidarity with the oppressed?
- Galatians 1, starting with verse 15,
"He is the image of the invisible God,
"the firstborn of all creation,
"for in him all things in heaven
and on earth were created."
This is the word of the Lord.
all: Thanks be to God.
[birds chirping]
- I remember some of my critics said,
"Wow, who are you to set aside 2,000 years of tradition?"
The only possible answer I could give was,
"I am attempting to exercise
my vocation as a Christian ethicist."
What happened was vicious attacks on social media
and in reviews, lost friendships.
"You're no longer a good Christian.
I can't be your friend anymore."
It helps to remember that by 2014 when I wrote
"Changing Our Mind,"
I was the coauthor of the leading textbook
in Christian ethics in the evangelical world.
I had taught thousands of students,
but I had been blinded
to the harm that traditional teaching does.
I had repeated the Christian party line
that God made human beings, male and female,
for heterosexual relationships only,
and everything else is sin.
My mother-in-law, Lynnie, is a Baptist of long standing,
and so I--I get her to church on Sunday morning,
and she's in the class.
She's the oldest in the class, but she's not
the only 80-something person in the class.
- Morning. - Morning.
Have you ever been in a Sunday school class
that has this kind of diversity in it, Mom?
- No. [laughs]
The class that I belong to, we're all elderly white women.
- Mm-hmm.
- So a breath of fresh air.
A new day has dawned in the world
if this class can exist and do what it's doing.
- I have an incredible amount of respect for David Gushee.
He was the champion
of the Southern Baptist evangelicals.
- How are you? - I'm good. I'm good.
- If you've been to a Baptist seminary in the last 25,
30 years, you've read his books.
This world-renowned theologian and ethicist,
he's now an outcast.
- We're in Job 9 today.
Job, at this point, by chapter nine,
feels like God has put him on trial, you might say,
but God is both the adversary, and God is also the judge,
and so Job feels overwhelmed by the unfairness of the situation.
- And powerless. - He's totally powerless.
Verse four through ten.
- "He is wise in heart and mighty in strength.
Who alone stretched out the heavens and..."
- The question of which Bible passages are most relevant
to whatever it is you're thinking about
is itself a matter of interpretation.
- "Who will say to him..." - I have met people
whose children are dead
because they committed suicide because somebody told them
that they were wretched sinners going to hell,
and they got that from bible passages.
And this line, where it ends,
"I know that I am not what I am thought to be."
There are people who have been told
that God condemns you,
that you are not okay, that you are guilty before God.
- Well, I resonate with the story,
but I was thinking about my own personal journey.
Job did this all by himself, I feel like,
and once I, like, came out,
that kinda changed everything for me,
and it gave me a support system
and more people to walk with me on the journey.
And I feel like he was very isolated still,
and so for him to be that brave is real inspiring.
- So I think of suicidality of LGBTQ young people, right?
There's nowhere to go.
"I'm boxed in, condemned for being who I am,
"no escape from who I am, but you made me how I am,
and now you judge me for how you made me."
How is that fair?
Can we stand up and hold hands and have a prayer?
There are maybe six to eight passages in the Bible
that appear to address same-sex sex,
and they're all negative.
Dear Lord...
you are healing us through this direct
and honest encounter with scripture,
with church at its best but also church at its worst.
I realized that the traditional rendering
of the traditional verses that were cited was actually
like a weapon of spiritual destruction.
- There have been times in our lives
when we didn't feel safe,
rejected by family,
being dis--literally disowned by family.
When I came out, my father, Baptist minister,
on his deathbed, his words were, "I have no son named Theron."
- Which commandment says to hate people, you know?
Which one says to shut them out for being themselves
and not hurting anyone?
- Oh, yeah. - Here it is.
- That was--okay, for context-- "So I am a boy."
- "A super-duper-duper--" - A super-duper.
"For sure cool."
- My handwriting's never been good.
I was hospitalized in September of 2016
over my gap year for a suicide attempt,
and I was in the hospital for a while,
and my church was so good to me.
- To go into to Sunday school and go,
"Oh, gosh, you know, Jamie's a guy,
and what do we do with that, and how do we support that?"
- For us to have a safe place as parents to say,
"Of course we wanna be supportive.
"Of course we believe in our kid,
but holy cow, this is hard stuff."
- I was raised in the mountains of North Georgia,
and I had never heard the word gay or lesbian.
The people that are in this church
have helped me to be a better person.
- I grew up in South Georgia, a small town.
I had never seen a gay in my life.
- Mm-hmm. - There's been a lot of change,
and I've had to wrestle with that.
- Mm-hmm. - When I was a little girl,
there were no women ministers, no women deacons,
nobody of a different race
or a different cultural background in this church.
- Moving through the Old Testament,
there is this ongoing, resonating sense
that there's something hopeful about what lies ahead.
We are learners on this journey together.
- If the way you're reading the Bible
brings hate of neighbor,
it negates the central command of Jesus.
The role of the Christian community and its leaders
especially is to help the people interpret the Bible
in a way that gives life rather than takes it.
- People are now feeling what they felt as a child
and that they do have a place of belonging.
When I walked through the doors of this church
the first time,
and we were holding hands, the minister said,
"Welcome, friends."
It had been a long time since church felt like home.
- If you would all stand.
If you agree to support this couple,
say "we do" when I tell you it's time to say "we do."
Do you promise not to leave them alone to struggle on their own
but instead to undertake life's journey alongside them?
all: We do.
[cheers and applause]
- In practice, this church has become fully inclusive
in every way that mattered.
Openness in Baptist churches is often measured
by when those barriers begin to drop.
- He didn't even know about Thursday night.
- My kids saw people who loved each other,
and I think because of that love and support,
Jamie was able to find his voice.
- God love you.
- If you think about it from,
"I have no son named Theron,"
symbolizing the most hateful of rejections
and the most--the most vicious because it's parent-child
to "I have a son named Jamie," that's quite a journey.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.
[uplifting music]
♪ ♪
- There is no higher purpose than being kind.
It's just that middle path that we have to follow.
- You see somebody in need.
Do your very best to help them as much as you can.
[school bell rings]
- We're gonna be studying. We're going to be reviewing.
We're gonna be preparing for the big test
in three days, all right? Here we go.
Which clause in the First Amendment
guarantees each person's right to practice their religion?
First one standing, second one standing.
Okay, Diego's first one standing.
Diego gets two. He's group five.
- Okay. - What is the Torah?
- It's like, a--multiple stories,
like, almost like a Bible, but it's, like, in--in Judaism.
- What city is considered to be the holy city of Judaism?
Is it Mecca, Paris, Jerusalem, or Cairo? Diego?
- Jerusalem's considered the holy land of Judaism
because it was the land
gifted to Abraham and his people by God.
- Excellent. Thank you very much.
Have a seat. The many thousands of gods
in Hinduism are simply reflections of whom?
Tell me a little bit more about Brahman.
- Brahman is viewed as many different things,
but in Hinduism it literally is only one thing.
- What is the goal of the Eightfold Path?
- To reach nirvana.
- Exactly. - Samsari is the circle of life.
- The most sacred of the Vedas is, like, the Rigveda.
- Anything about Martin Luther.
- He put the notes on the church door.
- Diwali is the festival of light.
- Yes. Guru Nanak was the founder of what religion?
Sikhism, Islam-- he's trying to write--
- Guru Nanak went into the forest for a few days,
and when he came out, he said, "God does not care what religion
you choose as long as you're kind to others."
- Diego, I'm telling you, what did you eat for breakfast?
Okay, have a seat.
What I'd like to know is what's the essence
of what you're learning here that you will really,
really remember and use--hold on--and use
as you go out there into the world?
- Everything we did learn just came up to one idea,
which is respect.
You need to respect everyone even if you don't understand
what they--what their religion is.
You still have to respect them because they are human.
- Despite our races, our religions,
we are all human beings, aren't we?
- And all the religions really lead up to,
like, the main point is kindness.
- It doesn't matter who the person is.
It's to treat them with kindness.
- I want people to look past their religions.
I want people to look past their differences.
I wanna make a change,
and I want our generation of teenagers
to be at least a good aspect of that change.
- I know that other people
don't believe what I believe in,
and there's other beliefs.
I have no right to judge or shame others for their beliefs.
- This was some interesting stuff.
Like, I never knew
what Buddhists and Hindus had in common.
- The more I learned about different religions,
the more I realized, like,
how they're just--they're all connected.
- The values that the different people in the religions have,
they all--they teach really, like--like,
it increases integrity within a person as an individual.
- This type of class required would probably
be an amazing thing when you think about it.
Like, it might not even just stop in America.
It might even go all around,
and that could really help some really bad situations
in a lot of places, when you really think about it.
- Yeah. - I grew up being a Christian,
and when I seen, like, Muslims or Jews, like, walking around,
I would just--they dress different.
Sometimes you look at them, and you think,
like, "They're so weird,"
and I would kinda just make fun of them with my friends,
and now I--I can't imagine myself doing that
because, like, that is their religion,
and that's just horrible.
Like, I just can't believe I would make fun of, like,
people for their religion.
It's just horrible.
[instrumental music playing]
♪ ♪
- You've got this.
- You got it, girl. You got it.
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
- Good evening.
On behalf of the board of regents,
the faculty, staff, and students of Amarillo College,
it is my sincere pleasure to welcome you
to this fall's commencement ceremony.
[cheers and applause]
Tonight's speaker is quite special.
I think I saw her potential even before she did,
and it's my privilege to ask Alicia to come forward.
[cheers and applause] - Congratulations.
- Thank you. Thank you, Russell.
- Enjoy this, okay?
- Okay. Thank you.
Well, hello. We made it.
Good job, guys. Awesome.
I could have never made it this far
without the help of other people
and without the help of all of you guys.
Three years ago,
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
All I knew is that I did not wanna be
in the financial struggle that I was constantly in.
I wanted to provide a better life for my son,
and I knew that I was gonna have to fight...
- Whoo!
- And fight harder than I've ever fought before.
It's a unique thing to be human,
to form compassion
and understanding the needs of others,
but it's a even extraordinary thing that we understand it
enough to know what we help one another,
and we give it without even knowing.
- Looks good.
There you go. There you go.
Good job. You did it.
- I get the--let me get the door.
- I have a present for you.
[vacuum whirring] - Oh.
- Refugees are in every town, in every community,
in every state.
They're part of who we are.
- It's harder. - Okay, yeah.
- Good. - Good.
Good.
- They need Anchorage to show up.
They need Alaska to show up.
They need the citizens of the United States of America
to show up.
- Thank you. - When I came to Alaska,
I didn't have any rights.
People were genuinely kind, and it's not like Russia
was the best friend of the United States.
- [indistinct]
Kindness comes from heart,
so as I met different people
that did something good to me,
it's just because they are kind from the heart,
not from what they have, not from where they're from.
I can say kindness
is just from heart.
- Hi. - Hi.
[laughter]
- We have a choice.
Am I an individual solely choosing
what I as an individual need, want, and can excel from?
Or am I looking at my community and saying,
"What do I think my community needs?"
Okay! If I can get your attention.
Sorry.
I will let the clients introduce themselves,
their names, where they're from,
and how long they've been here in Alaska.
Rahaba, you wanna start?
- My name is Rahaba Masita. I'm from Congo.
I've been here, Anchorage, Alaska two years.
- My name is Faraha.
I'm from Congo; Alaska two minutes.
[laughter, applause]
- Hi. My name is Hope Gisanna,
born from Congo,
so I'm here almost six months.
First of all, I want to appreciate
to come to work together.
You guys, you know, our country, how it is,
every time there is war, people die in time.
Thank you so much to say that you are supporting us.
Some, we don't have parents.
There is a problem of raping,
guards raping women, killing people everywhere,
so please keep working with our organization.
Keep working with everyone to see
that we can have a peace in this world.
Yeah, thank you so much.
[applause]
- Hello. My name is Ndayikunda Hambifura.
As I said, I'm from Congo. This is my brother Isaac
and my sister Florence and my sister Denise,
and she's my mom. We are going to sing a song.
[soft guitar music plays]
♪ ♪
[all singing in native language]
[warm music]
♪ ♪
- Oh! - Oh.
[all speaking native language]
- Nobody made it here alone.
We have all extended that helping hand
because we knew exactly how hard it was.
Stand if you have ever gone to a study session
and you or someone brought food.
Stand if you have ever lent or borrowed a textbook.
Stand if you have ever helped tutor a student
that needed help with a class,
and lastly, stand if you helped a fellow student out
with encouragement, direction, accountability, or even love.
You see?
I'm standing up here today because of you.
We all are here today because we all helped each other.
- I'm convinced it's that kindness that we all share
that brings out the best in all of us,
and that's when we feel best about who we are.
- We are all humans kind of stumbling through life,
trying to figure out our place,
so I think treating people with kindness
means understanding that,
expressed through patience and caring.
- If every one of us chip in in our own different ways
to do something, no matter how small,
I think we will have a better community
and a better country.
- What can you share with the rest of the world?
We need to value what's present and what's good in people.
- We must agree there are certain basic human rights
that we must all protect no matter what.
- We need to be kind, respectful,
and responsible within society to live in a civil democracy.
- We all are immigrants and refugees from other places
creating a country that has a vision.
- There is love across this country
that happens every day.
It's not about ignoring
those destructive elements of our society.
It's deciding that my attention is gonna go to the good.
- I think it's the glue that holds us together,
I guess you could say,
and I think it's just really important
because without kindness, we'd all be maniacs.
[gentle piano music]
♪ ♪