Episode #42 looks at one community's challenges and hope. When people move toward their collective rainbows—their dreams—the community can see all manner of hope and possibility. Whether they seem impossibly distant or close at hand, they need to marshal strength, energy, and resources to move forward. The community members step up and take responsibility for vision and actions. We have heard that the village raises up a child. But what can be done if the village itself needs to be raised up? What do we do, for instance, if the village has inadequate infrastructure, health disparities, high crime and poverty, lack of accessible pharmacies and fresh foods, and educational and financial literacy challenges? Threatened on many levels, the village nears the breaking point. If you’re Executive Director George Maxey, you listen and help the villagers create a movement--the New Town Success Zone movement.
More can be found in my newest book Community as a Safe Place to Land.
Music by ©Billy Bowers. Used with permission. www.billybowersjax.com
©Steve Piscitelli. 2019 The Growth and Resilience Network www.stevepiscitelli.com
Episode #39 of The Growth and Resilience Network® podcast channel explores the interconnections of community, resilience, relationships, and breast cancer. You will hear from two Jacksonville, Florida community activists who have been voices for the countless women facing a breast cancer diagnosis. One as a survivor, and one as an organizer for survivors. Both helped those diagnosed with breast cancer develop their own voice.
Bobbi de Cordova-Hanks was enjoying life as a bass guitar player, magazine editor, and newlywed, when she got the news in 1986 that she had breast cancer. In 1988 she formed the support group “Bosom Buddies.”
Jeannie Blaylock, co-anchor of the evening news for First Coast News (Channel 12) in Jacksonville, Florida, was not a cancer survivor. Nor was she living with a diagnosis. She was grappling, however, with the sudden and tragic death of her twenty-nine-year-old friend to breast cancer. In 1993, Jeannie used her visibility as a news reporter to shed light on the topic. She initiated “Buddy Check 12,” encouraging women to connect and remind one another, on the 12th of each month, to conduct a breast self-exam. With her persistence the station aired segments showing actual models conducting breast exams in the shower, lying down, and sitting up. This was unheard of for the time and market. And most definitely needed. The first night, the station received 234 calls from women.
Thanks to these two forces of nature, a door had been opened and once the conversation started, no one was going to stop it.
Music (“T2D”) by ©Billy Bowers. Used with permission. www.billybowersjax.com
©Steve Piscitelli. 2018
The Growth and Resilience Network®
www.stevepiscitelli.com
Episode #38 of The Growth and Resilience Network podcast channel explores the world of improv comedy. What is it? Why do it? How does it benefit our world and the people who perform it? Co-founders of the Mad Cowford Improv Comedy troupe (http://www.madcowford.com/) Rachel Stromberg and Johnny K break it down for us.
Music ("T2D") by ©Billy Bowers and use with permission. www,billybowersjax.com.
©Steve Piscitelli. 2018
The Growth and Resilience Network®
www.stevepiscitelli.com
Episode #35. "Confidence from the Inside Out While Hanging Upside Down: The Power of Pole Dancing" examines the attraction, challenge, and transformation pole dancing has for its adherents. Shannon Burbridge (www.auraaerialandyoga.com), Carol Cullen, and Chrisite Loesch help us understand a form of fitness they say addresses the whole person (physcially, emotionally, spiritually). Their insights also give us a view of why some may hold a negative image of pole dancing--and why they have found it empowering, freeing, and confidence building.
Music by Billy Bowers (www.billybowersjax.com). All rights reserved. Used with permission.
©2018. Steve Piscitelli.
www.stevepiscitelli.com
The Growth and Resilience Network®
Episode #34: "Promoting Original Music, Local Musicians, and Touring Performers." Concert Presenter Ray Lewis and Performing Songwriter Mike Shackelford speak about the importance of quality venues for our performing artists.
©Steve Piscitelli. www.stevepiscitelli.com
The Growth and Resilience Network®
Music by Billy Bowers (www.billybowersjax.com). All rights reserved. Used with permission
Former teaching colleague and current Director of Development for The Arc of Alachua County, Mark Johnson stopped by The GRN studio to guest host this episode. His guest? Me. Yes, we turned the tables and he interviewed me about the promises and challenges of public education. Our topics ranged from the power of a good teaching, to the importance of being a "maverick," to appropriate resources for teachers, to funding and the "marketplace," to, finally the hope and future of public education.
This would be an instructive podcast to listen to with your team, neighbors, school advisory team, and community at large. Go beyond my (Steve's responses). Use Mark's probing questions as a way to begin or continue a true conversation (not pontification; not collective monologues; not yelling). Listen, share, learn.
©2018. Steve Piscitelli
The Growth and Resilience Network®
www.stevepiscitelli.com
Music by Billy Bowers. Used with permission. All rights reserved. www.billybowersjax.com
This episode follows up on a topic we explored in our April 2017 podcast titled “Enhancing Life Through Sports and Recreation" (https://youtu.be/imSNwj8aEsE). We had a specific focus at that time on people with disabilities. In addition to the usual work-life demands, our friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors with disabilities have a few more challenges to address on a daily basis. How do they do it? What services are available for them?
This episode shines the spotlight on four participants from that program who will tell us what this program means to them and their fellow participants.
*Don Bergman
*Sarah Williford
*Matt Sechrist
*Chris Fonner
©Steve Piscitelli. 2017. All rights reserved. www.stevepiscitelli.com
The Growth and Resilience Network®
Music by Billy Bowers (www.billybowersjax.com). Used with permission. All rights reserved.
This episode looks into the connection between growth, resilience and accommodations for our students. While there are laws/mandates that guide accommodation requests and approval, what happens if a student does not get what he/she needs? How can students advocate for themselves—and how can parents advocate for their children? Sometimes the process might seem overwhelming.
Elijah Armstrong helps us (begin to) sort through these topics. Elijah, a college student at the time of this recording, explains accommodations from the perspective of someone who challenged (in court) his high school for appropriate classroom accommodations. He uses that experience to share his insights about what parents, students, and the school personnel can do to help students.
His website: www.equalopportunitiesforstudents.org.
You can read more about the lawsuit, Elijah mentions in the podcast at these two links:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-05-10/story/jacksonville-mother-alleges-disability-discrimination-against-sick-son
http://jacksonville.com/metro/news/education/2017-05-10/duval-school-district-settles-stanton-discrimination-suit-80000.
The Growth and Resilience Network®.
©2017. Steve Piscitelli. www.stevepiscitelli.com
Music by Billy Bowers (www.billybowersjax.com). Used with permission.
My guests for Episode #28 take a look at leadership as it relates to elementary school students. And their perspective is that of student leaders. Listen to four 5th grade students who lead their 1st-5th grade classmates at Atlantic Beach Elementary School (Florida). How do they help themselves and their classmates reflect and grow when it comes to experiences with failure, for instance? Or bullying? Or simply the challenges of childhood? What are the attributes of effective leaders?
Rather than listen to "adults" tell us what the students need to do, for this episode we hear about leadership in their own voices!
The Growth and Resilience Network(R).
(c) 2017. Steve Piscitelli. www.stevepiscitelli.com
Occupational Therapist and Program Manager Alice Krauss gives us an inside look at a free, community-based multi-sport program that serves individuals living with physical and/or visual disability. She tells us how Brooks Adaptive Sports and Recreation nurtures a higher quality of life with its holistic focus on Fun, Fitness, and Friendship!
You can also download this podcast episode by going to iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/g...). Thank you for sharing. A kind review on iTunes would help this podcast channel as well.
Music soundtrack (used with permission) provided by (c) Billy Bowers (www.billybowersjax.com).
Podcast (c) 2017 Steve Piscitelli. All rights reserved.
The Growth and Resilience Network(TM)