Kerry Owen had a dream about thousands of hungry children—and instead of ignoring it, she built a global charity that's fed countless kids worldwide, but this isn't just a charity story, it's about raising children with purpose and discovering that when we help people, we're actually the ones who benefit most.

• How dreams became instructions for life's work
• Why mission-driven kids beat achievement-driven kids
• The practical ways families can start serving together
• How open education enables real-world service learning

Kerry's Book: The Gift of Charity Wrapped in a Korowai of Love (Amazon, Cedar Fort Publishers, Deseret Books)

Kerry's Current Work: Reach Out Today charity in Utah

Timestamped Chapters

(00:00) - The Gift of Charity: A Mother's Mission

(03:29) - From Romania to Reality: A Teen's First Project

(04:55) - When Nobody Cared: Learning Hard Lessons

(07:46) - Dreams That Won't Let Go: Thousands of Hungry Children

(15:43) - Building Community Partnerships: The Salvation Army Connection

(20:55) - Raising Mission-Driven Kids: Why Character Beats Curriculum

(28:42) - The Transformation Power of Service: Youth Finding Purpose

(35:12) - Making Service Accessible: Practical Ways Families Can Start

(46:17) - Open Education Meets Open Hearts: Flexible Schooling for Service

(54:27) - The Ripple Effect: How One Family's Mission Inspires Others

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00:00 The Gift of Charity: A Mother's Mission to Feed Hungry Children

Ela Richmond: Welcome back to the OpenEd podcast. I'm your sometimes host Ella, and today I'm joined by Kerry. Kerry is a fascinating individual, and we're diving into her incredible journey of feeding hungry children. She recently published a book, and we'll talk about what it looks like to have a kid who's passionate about making change—like she was when she was younger—and how that's evolved into her story today. We'll also explore how she involves her kids in mission-driven work. Welcome to the podcast, Kerry.

Kerry: Thank you for having me.

Ela Richmond: First off, let's plug your book. What is it called?

Kerry: It's called The Gift of Charity Wrapped in a Korowai of Love, and it's by Kerry Owen and Lisa Norton.

Ela Richmond: I love it. Where can people find it?

Kerry: You can find it on Amazon, Cedar Fort Publishers, and Deseret Books.

03:29 From Romania to Reality: A Teen's First Charity Project

Ela Richmond: Very cool. I gave a sneak peek about your story and the incredible work you've dedicated your life to, but let's get into it. You mentioned earlier that you were always a mission-driven person—when you were younger, you had this idea that you wanted to change the world. I think there are definitely kids out there who are very passionate. Can you explain what it was like growing up?

Kerry: The most significant story was when I was watching a news piece about children in Romania. They were in an orphanage, and there were six little toddlers in the same crib. Their diapers were dirty, they were crying, rocking back and forth, and they didn't have love and attention.

It really troubled me, and I talked to my parents about wanting to do something. I ended up handwriting letters—back then we didn't have a printer in the home—and I hand-wrote all these letters, put them in each person's mailbox down the street, and arranged to pick up canned food donations.

04:55 When Nobody Cared: Learning Hard Lessons About Community

Kerry: When I went door to door, I had hardly anything donated. I remember crying a lot because I was disappointed. I was living in an area with a lot of wealth, yet this canned food I was asking for—obviously no one thought it was important. I'm not sure what the reason was why people didn't donate, but it was a turning point in my life where I was like, "Why wouldn't they care?"

That was my first project as a young teen.

Ela Richmond: What happened after that? You said you were frustrated that nobody cared.

Kerry: I did a second attempt where I had more success. My parents and I found out about an agency that was actually driving medical supplies and food over to Romania, to the orphanages. I remember them coming to the door to collect the food I had managed to put together. They were really encouraging and thankful, and they actually said, "You'd be welcome to come with us." But I was young, so that obviously wasn't going to happen. I just remember thinking I would have loved to come and see these children and see what the need was.

I think that's where my desire to help was really fueled.

07:46 Dreams That Won't Let Go: A Vision of Thousands of Hungry Children

Ela Richmond: That's so interesting. What happened afterwards that eventually got you started with actually making change happen as an adult? Was there a period between the early years and now where you took on different projects and missions?

Kerry: There were a few things. My parents heard about the Chernobyl disaster—the nuclear plant that contaminated the food supply and children were getting cancer. So our parents hosted some children from Chernobyl to come and stay for a holiday, giving them great experiences and good food without contamination.

Once I was married, my husband and I would also have these kids come from Chernobyl. When we were dating, I was talking about how I'd love to foster and adopt children. I really hoped I could make a difference in life. I never realized I was going to end up forming a charity.

That came later. We moved from England to New Zealand, and it was there where I experienced a series of dreams. These dreams opened my eyes to children going hungry in New Zealand. I had no idea—we were living on the North Shore, a lovely area. I didn't see any poverty. I didn't even know there was anybody hungry, but these dreams opened my eyes to that.

So I ended up setting up a charity and delivering food into schools.

Ela Richmond: As you were saying, the dreams opened your eyes to children who were hungry. What kind of experiences were they? What did you dream about?

Kerry: I had three young children of my own at the time, so I was busy, but I would always pray that I'd be able to help people and get opportunities to help. But I never expected this dream. In this dream, I saw thousands and thousands of children in front of me who were going hungry. It was really upsetting because I had no idea how difficult that was for these children living with food insecurity. When I woke up I was like, "I need to do something about this." But then daylight comes and you think, "Well, it was just a dream. Kerry, you don't even know many people here. You haven't lived here long. What do you think you can do about it?" All those insecurities come into your mind—"Am I able to do this? Am I good enough?"

But when I had a second dream where I saw the same children again, I felt this guilt. I felt this guilt that I hadn't done anything about it and that these children were still going hungry.

It was really that second dream that spurred me on. From then on, I set up this charity, Feed the Need, and ended up delivering food into schools. Back then, New Zealand didn't have a food system at school. Kids who didn't come with a packed lunch would just go hungry. There were other charities doing things like granola bars, muesli bars, some bread in the freezer at schools—emergency snacks. But I wanted to give them proper food, proper home-cooked food that would be nutritious. That's where it began. We did a pilot in a school.

We had a lot of mistakes and problems with food and cooking and delivery. But we learned a lot, and that was educational in a different way. Then we ended up doing two more schools, and each year it expanded until we ended up building a big commercial kitchen within the Salvation Army building.

15:43 Building Community Partnerships: The Salvation Army Connection

Kerry: That was a great partnership because they're all about helping those in need. We were able to cook and deliver from that building. In fact, they lent us their delivery van when ours broke down. It was just great having that community support with like-minded people.

Ela Richmond: What made you say, "Okay, I'm actually going to do something about it"? It sounds like you had these two dreams, you had a moment of extreme conviction, and then you put your effort and money and tears and blood and sweat into this project—while you had three kids, while you're doing all these other things. That's really difficult. So what made you say, "I'm going to actually do this no matter how much it costs"?

Kerry: I felt a responsibility for these children, and I think that's what the dreams gave me—this feeling of responsibility. I've tried to describe it in the past, but you know that feeling I have for my children, the ones that came naturally and the ones we adopted? It's this feeling like I would do anything for these children—they're my responsibility. I want them to succeed.

I want them to have well-being and to be happy. And it was those same feelings that I had for all these children I'd seen in my dream. They might not have been my actual children, but I felt this pure, motherly love for these children. And I could not not do anything, if that makes sense.

20:55 Raising Mission-Driven Kids: Why Character Beats Curriculum

Ela Richmond: That's really interesting. So what did you do next when you decided, "Okay, I'm going to do something about this. I have to do something about this"? Because I think there are a lot of people in the world, especially when you're young, who have this idealism. You watch a movie about people who are hungry or struggling in some way, and your heart goes out to them and you think, "What if I could be the person to do something about that?"

And then over time, you live and go along your life and think, "I don't know if that's going to be me." But this dream called you out of that and said, "You know what? Yes, it is actually going to be you," and you felt conviction around it. How can parents help their children foster the parts of them that want to make change—that want to do something about the things they see as injustices or wrong things in the world that they could solve?

Kerry: I think first of all, believe in your children and encourage those charitable thoughts. See how you can help them. Going back to those Romanian orphans, my parents were very supportive. They reached out to the agency, they helped me do what I did, and I think having that belief—"Yeah, that's a great idea and this is how we can support you"—I think that's really important for children.

I actually think—this is my theory—that most people have ideas and thoughts come to their minds where they think, "I'd love to do something about this." But I think often it's our insecurities that stop us and make us think, "Well, really, what can I do? Can I really make a difference?"

I think I was lucky because I had those dreams to fall back on. For the times when it got really hard and it was really hard to juggle everything—and it was an emotional toll, especially when I'd meet with these children—there were times where I thought, "This is hard." But thankfully I had the dreams to go, "Okay, no, this is what I'm meant to be doing." And I don't think we all need to have dreams to be able to do something good in the world.

I think if you just have that desire, that's enough. And as parents, we can help our children and give them opportunities. With my children, I include them in the charity work. Over here, I direct a charity called Reach Out Today. We've been here eight years. I'll take my kids along to events and things we're doing. For example, we do these pop-up hair salons. I'm not a hairdresser or hairstylist, but that was a request from one of the schools—could we do a pop-up hair salon with hairstylists and volunteers to give these children who need a little bit of TLC an opportunity to have their hair washed with shampoo and warm water and have a hairstylist give them attention they've never had before? I've brought my kids along to help—sweep up hair, give out hair care kits, assemble hair care kits. My daughter has assembled a lot of kits: food packs, hygiene packs, clothing packs, hair care kits.

My daughter's gotten really excited. In fact, she's taking over. She feels like I'm not doing a good enough job putting these kits together. So I'm like, "Great, awesome. You take pride in that." I think giving kids the opportunity helps them open their eyes to the needs out there and also gives them a sense of belief in themselves that they can make a difference. For example, at one of the pop-up hair salons, our daughter was interacting with the younger children and they just adored her. She was really excited afterwards, just talking about these children. I feel like whatever age you are, you can make a difference.

Ela Richmond: I love that. That is so beautiful. As a mom, you're building charities, you're building a business, and you're trying to do all these things. And you're also doing open ed with your kids—you're also building their education. What is that like juggling? Is it quite difficult?

28:42 The Transformation Power of Service: Youth Finding Purpose

Kerry: All my children attended public school, and it was just a few years back that our youngest boy got scarlet fever and sepsis and ended up becoming very sick. His immune system was compromised. His body was impacted for a good 18 months afterwards from the sepsis, so the hospital recommended that we do online school instead of in-person school. That's actually what forced me to look into online schooling. I'd never thought of ever doing it, I'll be honest. So here we were in this situation where he needed to have online school. And then my daughter was keen to try it too. That's how we stepped into the whole open ed online schooling.

It does come with a juggle when you're trying to do things, but also you're aware that your children need extra support from you to help guide them—make sure they're attending their online classes and so forth. But actually, I've really enjoyed it. It's been like each school year has been exciting. We're like, "Okay, so what school trips are we going to be doing?"

We could do this as part of school and we can do that as part of school. My kids always say, "Okay, when are we going to do our school trip this week?" So it's a nice opportunity to be able to connect with them and then have them come with me to go and visit a family in need and have them come with me to different things and be able to do schoolwork and have that flexibility.

You get what I mean. So I've really enjoyed the flexibility of making sure that we can—okay, if we're doing this at 10 a.m., that's okay, we can do this at 2 p.m. instead. Having that flexibility has been really amazing. With charity work you have to be flexible because you don't know—for example, you might have a refugee family that's just arrived and they need this and they need that. So you don't always know what you need to be doing each day. It can come as, "Okay, so there's this family whose house has burned down, they have nothing, where are they going to stay?" That's how charity work is. It's not always planned. It's just what comes and what the need is.

Trying to deal with that need and having that flexibility with the schooling and having them sometimes join me is great. It's really good. I love it actually.

Ela Richmond: Has it transformed your relationship with them to involve them, or did you always involve them? Because it sounds like this was your mission—you had those dreams, you were building this. And then it seems like it became not just your mission, but our mission, like a family mission. The more they get involved, it becomes something they're bought into as well. When you have to go serve somebody or do something for somebody, they understand because it's part of their mission too and they've seen the people you're helping. I think that's really fascinating. And also, I would imagine it actually makes it easier for you to be on call in these crazy moments that you wouldn't expect because you're with your kids a lot. If they were in a school setting, it'd be harder because you're not with them during the day and sometimes you need to be called away. But it sounds like you get a lot of really great time with them as well.

Kerry: Yeah, and it's been great because even our daughter—not for this podcast, but for other things like radio interviews—I'll say to my daughter, "Okay, just ask me some questions. Let me practice." And she'll be asking me these questions and she was like, "Mom, I don't think you should give that answer." So it's been quite funny because she's been my little critic. But it's great because she'll give me advice and thoughts, and because our family knows about everything, it's great having a perspective from her age. Even with this book that we wrote—it's taken years—and so when it was published my youngest boy said, "All of that typing resulted in that small book."

So he'd known—well, he's doing schoolwork, I'm talking and having meetings with Lisa. And he was thinking all that work was—literally, this is the book. And he was just like, "All that work for just that?" And so that was kind of funny. So yeah, my kids all know everything. They know about the books. They know about when I go out and do talks or speeches.

They'll sometimes come along and listen to me. So one of my sons who's living in Orlando at the time, I actually sent him a book and he said, "Yeah, it was great, but I knew all the stories anyway." So it was kind of like, "Okay, I didn't need to send you the book then." But my hope is that they'll be inspired to do something. I believe everyone has a calling, and whatever that might be—it might be looking after the elderly, it might be looking after veterans—I just feel like there are so many needs out there that if we all decided, "Okay, we're going to do something in this sphere," well then, how much better the world could be.

I do know that one of my sons, he's 22, and he would sometimes say, "I don't want to come." And I'm like, "Well, I need you to come. I need you to help carry this food into this apartment." And this one time he was really saying, "I really don't want to come." And I said, "Well, I need you." So he was kind of grumpy in the car—this was a few years back. And then we got there and this young mother with lots of little children were there and they just adored him. They were clambering all over him. They wanted to play coloring with him. And we came out of there and I said, "They loved you." And he was like, "I know." And he said, "Actually, that was pretty fun." So I think sometimes—I think all of us—it's just human nature.

Sometimes we think "I'm too tired" or "I don't want to." And I am actually naturally an introvert. So putting myself out there, meeting people I don't know of different cultures and languages, it doesn't come naturally to me, but over the years I've been able to learn how to interact, even if you don't have the language.

And hopefully my kids watch that and see that and hopefully it will help them.

35:12 Making Service Accessible: Practical Ways Families Can Start

Ela Richmond: Yeah, I love this. I heard a quote once and it definitely resonated with me because it aligned with everything I've ever experienced. Anytime you serve other people—something that's quite dear to my heart is actually older people. There are a lot of older people who feel overlooked and like they don't matter as much anymore because they can't offer the world as much. There are lots of underserved communities, people who are just overlooked and not given enough. But I heard this quote once: "We think that they need us, but we actually need them." And it speaks to the peace of our hearts and our souls and minds that are fulfilled by doing things for other people.

The experiences you have, the moments you have—like with your son when he goes there. He doesn't even know what he needs, but then he experiences this beautiful thing and it speaks to a part of him that he didn't even know needed speaking to, which I think is so beautiful.

Kerry: Well, I was just going to say the book, The Gift of Charity, is exactly touching on that point because I had this epiphany at the end of my journey with Feed the Need in New Zealand—my goodness, this wasn't just a gift for the receiver, this was also a gift for the giver. This has just been such a privilege, and I can get emotional about it. I always do because I realize that having all these interactions with all these different children and learning about different cultures and having all this love for the people we served has just enriched my life. I'll never forget them and I'll always be grateful for those experiences. So yeah, you're right.

Ela Richmond: Wow, that's absolutely beautiful. You mentioned earlier that part of the reason you wrote the book is because you see this next generation—the kids we're raising, including your kids—as the next group of people to recognize unmet needs and fulfill them, whether that's their main career trajectory or side projects they take on. Can you speak to that a little bit and the whole world of service, charity, philanthropy? What does it look like right now being inside of it?

Kerry: I think once you delve into the needs in your community, wherever you are, it's never ending. For example, in New Zealand, we were doing this food in schools, but then the communities would come asking, "Can you do something for our youth? We have youth that have been kicked out of school who are getting into crime."

So we ended up doing a youth engagement program where these kids that had been kicked out of school, we employed in the kitchens while we were making food for those children going without. It was amazing to see these youth who often themselves had gone hungry. It was incredible because they actually felt they were part of something. They were part of something big. They were solving something in their community.

Here they were cooking this food, learning how to cook food en masse and being involved. We were in the kitchens with mayors and leaders of the land and business leaders. And these were youth that had been brushed off to the side, almost forgotten because they were like a "waste of space." And then here they were being valued. They were the ones leading these business leaders on how to cook this food and assemble it and take it into the schools. It was incredible to see the confidence these young people gained just from that experience in the kitchen and being part of something good. I really feel like seeing these young people who were actually really quite insecure—some had been in, I remember one lad said he'd been in 17 foster homes.

These kids were basically unwanted, and so to feel wanted, to feel part of something big, their confidence grew and they all went on to do good things. This one girl went off and volunteered in the hospital with terminally ill children. Others went off to further education.

It was incredible to see that these youth, given an opportunity to go out and serve, despite themselves being broken, were able to do amazing things in the community and also have that sense of worth. Seeing that, I feel like a lot of youth today could probably realize their sense of worth by getting into charity work.

Ela Richmond: It does. Yeah, it's interesting. I think it's weird that we forget all about the things that are not in front of us. If you're thinking about white cars because maybe you're thinking about buying a car, you'll start noticing them more.

I think the same is true about needs in your community. If you start asking the question, "What are the needs inside of my community?" you'll start noticing them more. And I think what's interesting is there are a lot of people today talking about the need for purpose inside young individuals—young individuals don't have enough purpose. I think part of that is...

I wonder if part of it is the fact that we used to have really dedicated third spaces. We used to have really connected communities. So it made it a lot easier for us to see the needs of our community because we were around it a lot. It was in front of us. You'd be talking to people and there were people who always needed something. I wonder if that has a correlation. In your experience, what does it look like once you start asking the question, "Okay, what does my community need?" Where do you even begin? Where do you start? And then what do you start finding out?

Kerry: After I had those dreams back in New Zealand, I started talking to people, trying to understand the situation, reaching out to principals in schools which were low-decile. I don't know if they have something like this here, but a low-decile would be an area with more poverty. Once I started talking to teachers, principals, going into the schools and talking to them, it was evident that my dreams were actually accurate—yeah, there are a lot of kids going hungry.

Ela Richmond: And out of curiosity, why did you start with schools?

Kerry: In my second dream, I actually saw myself cooking foods alongside a team of people assembling these individual meals and watching as we went into schools. That's when I realized they don't have a food-in-school system. They don't have the subsidized food system here. It was actually the dreams that opened my eyes to that. And then when I went and started talking to people at schools, it was true. There was no subsidized food-in-school system.

There was just emergency foods. So that's why I went into the schools. And when we moved here, I did the same thing. I went into the schools. I feel like often teachers are more aware of their students' needs. Social workers, school counselors—they're often dealing with not just the schooling but also the emotional needs of children, so that's where I'd often get the answers of what was going on in the world.

46:17 Open Education Meets Open Hearts: Flexible Schooling for Service

Ela Richmond: That's really cool. That's really interesting. Like in the book that Matt and Isaac just published, they have this like workshop where they go through needs, interests, and resources. And they kind of break it down into like, what are all the things that are available to you right now? What are all the things that could possibly be available to you? What are the things in your local community, for example? So like, what are the needs that you could serve in your local community? I think, well, from what you've said, what I'm understanding is like, sometimes there are legitimate needs in your local community that you could definitely solve. Sometimes you can solve them from an entrepreneurial perspective. Other times you can solve them from a charitable perspective.

and maybe both of them have an entrepreneurial spirit, but like maybe you create a business versus maybe you create a nonprofit business or something like that, a for-profit business versus nonprofit. Something that's really interesting to me though is you started with the question, who do I want to serve? And then you went to where they were, right? And so like, I think you can take it in both directions now that you've shared your story. Like if a kid is really excited about a specific type of group or like maybe they watched a movie and it was like, wow, you know, I feel for this, this very specific thing. you can also start with the question of like, okay, who do you want to serve? And then where can you go to learn more about them? So if you, for example, want to serve young kids or adopted kids, like you can go to the places where people know and are intimately close with that as a challenge and all the things that are going, going on in that world. And like, just learning from those people even. Like as a kid saying, okay, maybe right now I'm not ready to start a nonprofit, but maybe right now the way that I get involved, the way that I focus in on all the things that are available to me is actually just by asking questions and starting to create a landscape in my mind about like, what is this world of helping, for example, adopted children or hungry children or elderly individuals in the community?

what is this all about? What are the gaps that need to be filled? And then maybe they're not ready to do it now, but maybe they're ready to do it in the future. And I feel like that's actually a really fascinating way to do it. It's just like, okay, parents, maybe your kid is like super hyper passionate. Maybe they're ready to go, but also maybe they're not. And maybe they're just ready to learn more and get more curious and get more interested in this community.

Kerry: I love that, I really love that. Like even if it was just starting the question, know, starting asking the questions and just basically being able to like help open your child's mind to the needs out there. And you know, maybe it'll be something that jumps out to them maybe five or 10 years later that they might go, okay, back then, you know, this is something that kind of impacted me and opened my eyes. And so, yeah, I feel like...

If we can just have our kids asking the questions, not necessarily having to go out, make collections, put together kits and whatnot, but just asking those questions would be, I think would be great. Yeah, I like that. So for example, sorry.

Ela Richmond: Yeah, just learning about it. And then the other... No, go for it, go for it.

Kerry: Well, just one of the things that I was thinking is that when we moved here, I wanted to understand about children in foster care and like, you know, could we do something to help these children that are in foster care? And then, you know, talking to, you know, why is there homelessness? Like, what can we do to prevent homelessness? And so all these kind of questions were coming into my mind. So then I went to DCFS, you know, who deal with, you know, child protection and so on. And so, yeah, just asking people. Then I went to like Utah Foster Care and all those organizations that are out there doing that. you know, before I actually did anything of significance, it was asking those questions and just talking to them and trying to understand what the issues were. What could we do to prevent this or that? Or what can we do when a child does enter foster care or does reunite with their biological family, what can we do to help that transition? And so yeah, I think it's just asking those questions will help guide you at this time or in the future.

Ela Richmond: I love that. And then something else that you do really beautifully is you bring your kids into it. something that's important to me in the future is like creating the culture that I want my family to embody, right? And like being the first example of that. So if I want my kid to, you know, work out or eat healthy, right? Like we have to embody that first as parents and then then we can have that standard for our kid. Then we can say, hey, you should be doing this, right? Because kids learn a lot from what they see you do more than what you say. And also, it is really important for habit formation, right? Like if something becomes normal to a kid, it's a lot easier for them to maintain it throughout. How would you recommend that parents get involved in the needs of their community and bring their kids along? I think...

That is also something that I think like my parents did that pretty well every now and again, but I definitely think that there's room for improvement. I mean, even as I look forward to the future, it's like, okay, how do you get involved in a way that, for example, puts your kid, like you were saying about your son, in an uncomfortable position of, hey, I don't really want to do this right now, but you're going to do it because this is what we do as a family.

Kerry: Yeah, I think you can go online. for example, JustServe, I don't know if you've heard of that, but people can go online and look for, okay, they can look for service opportunities on JustServe. And so I'll have people coming to my door and it can be whole families coming to donate. And so it could be like a kit for a child entering foster care or it could be Christmas gifts for a child in DCFS and so I love that some families do it together, some youth groups do it together and I love that communities are looking for ways to buy and serve and you know I'm sure that there's plenty other websites that you can go to to seek out ways that you can serve and involve your kids.

But you could just, I mean, you know, just simply wherever you're living in the world, you could go looking for local charities, local non-for-profits, and just asking what do they do and have they got any opportunities to, you know, if you're wanting your kids to have that face-to-face interaction, you know, just kind of go talking to different charities and seeing what you can do to help and how could I involve my kids? And so I do sometimes get that question like what can I do to involve my kids with your work with Reach Out today? so yeah and so just kind of looking in your community of ways that you can involve your kids and maybe you could start off with an easy one. For example I'm sure a lot of charitable organizations like Reach Out today and like Feed the Need in New Zealand they always want you know donations like kits for you know like here we've got like all different kits and so you could say to children like hey you know this week we're gonna assemble a kit for this reason and this is why we we should do it and this is the impact it's gonna have. In the book I talk about this 11 year old girl that her whole summer she dedicates to raising money for feed the need and she bakes food

and sells it from her garage. And when we meet, she comes and she's almost sheepishly handing me over this money saying, I wish it was more. And honestly, that to me, her donation was one of the most impactful to me because I thought, here she is, an 11 year old girl that sacrificed her summer because she wanted to help children that were going hungry. And so I asked this girl, said, can you imagine?

This money is actually going to give 40 whatnot children lunch. Can you imagine now looking out at these 40 children? Do you think they would think that this wasn't good enough? I think they'd be really grateful. I think they'd be really thankful to you. And she actually started having tears rolled down her cheeks because I feel like, yeah, I just feel like kids, like if you can help them realize that that little bit, you know, it's going to have a massive impact on the receiver.

But also, like, I wanted her to know that she'd done a good thing. She'd done a really good thing. Not many 11-year-olds would sacrifice their summer to raise money for children that were going without. And so, yeah, just maybe, like, look at, yeah, local charities, just seeing what their needs are, what you could do, how your kids could get involved. I do feel like, you know, a lot nowadays, you know, mental health issues, you know.

maybe too much screen time or whatnot, you know, all these different theories. But I do feel like purpose is one of those things that helps your child feel like they've got a reason to be and they've got something to give the world. And so, yeah, I would love it if parents could just kind of encourage their children to look beyond themselves look beyond their family and see what they could do to impact. often I'll get calls at Christmas time. Most people are really keen. We get a lot of help during Christmas time. And I wish that would just keep going through the year because the need is still going after Christmas. But start wherever it is, start small and then just gradually go from there.

if that's helpful, I don't know.

54:27 The Ripple Effect: How One Family's Mission Inspires Others

Ela Richmond: No, that's so beautiful. yeah, I think it's quite valuable to like reiterate the fact that, you know, as a parent, you don't know how much you need this and then you start serving other people and you're like, wow, like, okay, wow. And then as a kid, you don't know you need it either. And then you start serving people. And while it is entirely taxing, like I've definitely been there where it takes an emotional toll on you and it is hard, but on the other side of it, It is so life-giving. I've tried thinking and tried getting involved in different places and it seems like the barriers to entry are pretty high sometimes. How would you recommend dealing with that? So like as a parent, if you're trying to get involved and you're trying to bring your kids places, right? But like there are a lot of places that don't necessarily make it super easy to just say, hey, we're gonna come in for the weekend. It's like, okay, well you need to take these classes or you need a... do all these things in order to make yourself prepared. And probably it's worth it to do that. But have you seen high barriers to entry to in certain areas or would you disagree with that?

Kerry: Yeah, I think for me it's I think because I'm sort of already in there it's easy for me to get my kids involved and I don't know if I have the answers for that because I'm not quite sure. I found it easy but that I think is because like I've built relationships with different agencies and organizations and so on and so it's easy for me to you know include my kids because I'm already in it. Yeah I mean I would probably... what would I do if there wasn't? I mean just like so for example one of my sons was working at this car wash place and he was given some tips

and some friends of ours saw my son giving those tips to a homeless man and my son never mentioned a word of it and then later these friends told us that we saw him giving his tips to this homeless man and I'm like he did yay so you know and I kind of feel like maybe just in the moment if there's a situation if you see somebody that's begging maybe just you know if you've just been to the grocery store and you've got

I've literally done this. I've got a baguette in the back seat of my car and I can see this homeless person and I pass him the baguette through the window. And my kids are like, oh mom, seriously, you're embarrassing, know, sort of thing. But like, I think there's always like situations like that, that, you know, that you won't have time to necessarily plan for, but do you think, okay, like I bought some like pastries for a friend's birthday and...

I saw this person and I'm like, okay, they need the pastries more than my friend does for a buck. So I apologized to my friend. said, I did buy you some pastries, but on the way, they went to this homeless person and that friend was like, no, I love that. I love that. Like, I'm glad you did that. So I don't know, maybe like there's situations like that, just spontaneously just kind of, even if you haven't got anything to give.

This is, think, also important, even if you don't have anything to give, you've got no baguette to hand through the window, you've got no cash or whatever. Give them eye to eye contact. That person, homeless person that stood on the corner with their sign, give them eye to eye contact. I sometimes just say, I'm so sorry, I don't have anything. And I smile. And, you know, I haven't ever spoken to them about that, but I really do feel like just being seen.

important as well for these people that are going through what they're going through and so yeah just being that example to your child is important. There was a story I actually wrote in another book, an experience that I had here where I saw this homeless man and I was at an intersection and then from the other direction there was his car

with these young 20 year old young men who wound down their windows and they had, they started throwing their soda bottles and cans at this homeless man. And it was just very, it was, I couldn't do anything about it and it was a very emotional experience and came home and just was crying about it to my kids. And I said, if you were ever to do anything like that, like.

would be awful if their mums could have seen their sons doing that you know I'm sure they would have been just mortified and so even just sharing experiences my son who was able to drive picked up his keys and went off looking for that homeless man because he wanted to do something to help him and he ended up helping a refugee family and gave them dinner from McDonald's.

So I think just also sharing stories with your kids, sometimes it's hard. Like actually one of the lessons we did was on slavery, you know, through Open Ed and it was hard for my youngest son to learn about it and he didn't want to read about slavery. And, you know, I said to my son, said, but you know, this is part of history and we need to learn. If we don't learn about history, then how can the future be changed. And so sometimes it is hard to share those stories. I didn't want to share the story about the homeless band being thrown at and hurt, but it helps open their eyes that, you know.

A lot of these people that are vulnerable are also marginalized. They're also demeaned. They're also not treated fairly. And so, you know, just highlighting that, you know, this homeless man was treated unfairly, you know, and he didn't deserve that. He was already in a really difficult situation and that just made him feel even worse.

Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent.

Ela Richmond: No, I love that. was really interesting and I think speaks to the heart of like, right, we're all people, we're all humans and every single human has a soul and every single human. And I mean, these are my beliefs for sure, but like, think recognizing that, there's another quote, I'm a fan of quotes, but there's another quote by

a, okay, good. There's another quote by, I think it was a philosopher or somebody, and he was looking at somebody passing by who had worse circumstances than he, and he was like, his name was Philip, I think he was like, there goes Philip other than circumstance or other than the stroke of luck.

Like I could have been that person if I was born in an entirely different situation in an entirely different way. If things had gone very differently, like I could be that person. And I think that's a good thing to remember is that like the reason that these things matter is not because, you know, like.

Well, the reason that these things matter is because people matter and it could have been any of us, right? And if it is any of us one day, know, like we've all heard crazy stories about like somebody, you're having a car accident and their life's changing dramatically or just crazy things. Like you would want people to support you and help you. And I think that is really...

Kerry: Yes, 100%.

Ela Richmond: valuable just to be reminded of. I think something that, so initially I'd asked you the question about like, okay, well, how do you get involved whenever the stakes are high? Like whenever it's, it's a little bit harder to get involved and just stop by and say, come on and pop by. And I think part of that is, well, you mentioned things like create kits for people, like really think through, okay, who do I want to serve? And then think through, okay, what does this organization or what do these people need?

in order to do their job of the people to people kind of things better. So you were saying kits, I bet there are lot of things where you can support the people who support people. That's if like you're going to pick a Saturday and you're gonna do it once every couple of months and that's it. But I think there's also another question of like, okay, but do you actually wanna get involved? Because it works out really, really well.

Kerry: Mm-hmm.

Ela Richmond: to get involved and deeply involved with one organization and to say, like this is our mission. Like this is what we're going to focus on. This is who we're gonna get to know. And like maybe over time, right, you find other missions around you and you also do those things as well. But it actually is quite valuable to say, okay, this is what I'm gonna dive into and we're actually gonna learn about this and we're actually going to do this consistently at whatever cadence we can maintain as a family. I think there's...

Part of it is like, yes, there are barriers to entry for just like dropping in and volunteering, but the other part of it is, well, how badly do you want to volunteer? like, it's probable that those barriers to entry are there for a reason. So I think that's all such great advice and so many great thoughts for, I think just families to think about whenever it comes to, okay, what kind of kids do you want to raise? Right? We want happy and healthy kids, but we also want kids that are

productive members of society that look at society and say, what are the problems that I can help solve? And that find their purpose, right? And like, I think it's interesting, but like most of the time purpose has to do with other people and the people around you and the way that things connect. So getting people more involved in the community is never a bad thing.

Kerry: Yeah.

Kerry: Yeah, there was a school that did a project called "To Walk in Their Shoes"—actually it was a class in a school and the teacher had asked the kids to learn about refugees coming from Afghanistan and refugees coming from all the different countries. It was awesome. We were able to go in and I took some refugees with me into this class, and these kids knew their stuff.

They had really delved in. They understood the culture, the foods, how hard it would be to adjust to a new land, their faith and so forth. I was quite emotional when I left because I just thought these kids were incredible. They really had delved into that whole philosophy of walking in their shoes. And I just loved it.

And these refugees felt really uplifted. I feel like you can give those people who feel like their situation is hopeless hope by just learning a bit about them and their struggle and how we could help them.

Ela Richmond: I love this. This has been so beautiful. It's very refreshing to talk with you and to hear your story and just to hear how much you care. I think something that is quite difficult in the world is just finding people who care. So thank you so, so very much.

Kerry: Thank you.