Good Souls

- [Cherri] Funding for this program has been provided by PECO.

They're the people who lend a hand when times are hard.

- When I got shot in the back of the head, that was my first encounter with Dr. Freese.

- [Cherri] They create opportunities when there aren't any.

- They could do it.

Everybody could do anything with training.

- [Cherri] When times are tough, they offer a hand to help.

They encourage you to keep moving against the odds.

- When you find a deficit, I believe it is your job to fill it.

- [Pastor Aaron] Come get this food, change your life.

- [Cherri] And they go above and beyond to help others.

- This is the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

Philly would be a lot worse if Level Up did not exist.

- Who are these people?

They're the ones you chose to be honored as this year's Good Souls.

(calm music) Hi, I'm Cherri Gregg.

Thanks for tuning in to the "Good Souls" television special.

We're here at Antioch Christian Fellowship Church in West Philadelphia.

This is home to Level Up Philly, one of the organizations you'll learn more about in just a few minutes.

The people and groups featured tonight were nominated by you, WHYY listeners and viewers, because of the work they do.

A Good Soul is someone who positively influences their neighborhood, community, and beyond through their time, action, talent, and dedication, and they serve as an example of compassion, generosity, and service.

(upbeat music) - No, you got a 10 outta 10 and a 30 outta 30?

- It's hard to describe the level of connection that Pastor Aaron has with those young people.

- Come on, come on, come on!

(upbeat music) This is the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's also the most rewarding thing I've ever done.

I never knew that my heart could be enlarged to be so deeply in love with so many young'uns.

I got a lot of kids.

I'm wealthy.

You see my kids all around here.

I'm a wealthy man.

I've been doing work with young people in Philadelphia for about 25 years.

Five years ago, I took 10 of my mentees, and I asked them, "How would you guys like to turn the city upside down?"

And they said, "Yes."

So I said, "Well, you're gonna be brand ambassadors," empowered them, mentored them through the process, and then together we created Level Up.

Level Up Philly is a grassroots interventional anti-violence mentoring program.

We're citywide.

We serve about 900 young people weekly ages 10 to 25.

We do anti-violence, anti-retaliation negotiation, college prep, career prep, life skills training, PTSD, gun violence counseling, art as therapy, gardening as therapy, you name it.

We really try to be holistic A to Z, and we call it Level Up because we meet each young person where they are, and we help them level up for their unique path for success.

We offer our 12,000-square-foot building, this church building.

We knocked out all the walls for them.

Arcade, pool tables, bought used leather couches on Facebook Marketplace, four 80-inch-screen TVs, video games on each one, a full pantry of food.

We're cooking every time the doors are open.

So I sat with them and let them teach me about what do we need to have, and they said we need to start having these dance battles.

And they taught me about, you know, the Philly dance culture, which is very strong.

What began with using dance to draw them has now turned into the biggest dance movement on the East Coast.

They come from all over the city.

We're actually considered the only neutral place in the city where all the different warring neighborhoods can meet peacefully.

So we are just not the safe space, but we're the neutral grounds of the city and the region.

I tell you what, as bad as Philly is, Philly would be a lot worse and a lot bloodier if Level Up did not exist.

(group chanting) Come on, little one.

Come get this food, change your life.

Can you eat all that?

Oh, yo, you chilling!

We cook for five to 600 young people every time our doors are open.

It's a grind.

It's hard work raising money to feed that many.

We have a 2,500-square-foot garden out there.

We harvest our own herbs and vegetables, and they learn to cook with them.

We feed them like kings and queens and exert them to live like kings and queens.

(bright music) - I would describe Level Up as a safe space, number one, as a place where young people get to breathe, they get to relax.

They get to be themselves.

They get to be kids for a short time.

They get to forget about the realities of their normal lives, of their neighborhoods.

- Everything we do here is by strategy, you know, the colors on the walls, you know, what's on the screens, our four 80-inch-screen televisions, the 200-gallon fish tank, and then the smell.

You get someone coming here that's involved in some violent activity from a very dark neighborhood, and they walk into this, it's designed to communicate from the gate it's something different.

We cook home-cooked meals here, just like every young'un's favorite barbecue.

And a lot of them come early just to help cook.

I mean, cooking is therapy, right?

Cooking slows you down.

It becomes the place where you talk.

More noodles or more chicken or both?

- Both.

- And six or seven of them sit down, and just like it should be, they get to sit at the table, and they get to just talk about their day.

We're open Tuesdays and Thursdays, and that's when the doors are just wide open for as many as want to come.

(calm music) On Thursdays, that's our large day.

That's where we get up to about 1,000 in attendance.

Camden, Newark, New Jersey, but of course mainly all Philadelphia, 81 different schools and ages 10 to 25.

So it's not just high school students.

Wednesdays we have what's called Level Up Academy.

That's for seventh through 12th grade where the focus is on academic success.

Career days, we have different professions coming in and sharing their careers, even people from hard and rough backgrounds like them so they can actually see what's the path to success look like.

When they leave here, they need to leave with a sense of hope.

They need to leave having felt loved.

They need to know that if they were to disappear, they matter, that we would miss them deeply.

(upbeat music) My young people, I mean, they motivate me, you know.

I see what they go through, and they smile through it all.

It's a place where I come and spend myself.

But it's a paradox 'cause I also walk away more full than ever.

(powerful music) - I'm here with Pastor Aaron Campbell, founder of Level Up.

You just saw him in the video.

Pastor Aaron, welcome.

- Thank you for having me, and thanks for being here.

So so much going on in that piece.

You all do so much.

How much does all of this cost?

- It costs somewhere between, I'd say, 6,000 and 7,500 a week.

- A week, oh, my goodness.

- We are feeding about 1,000 young people a week.

And we used to say we're ages 10 to 25, but now it gets down to ages six and seven to 25 because siblings are bringing their younger siblings because kids aren't eating in the city.

Kids don't have food.

So they're coming out for home-cooked Southern meals, you know?

Moms are coming, grandmas, and we can't say no to anyone.

- So I understand the City of Philadelphia is not funding this program, but where do you get your money from?

- So we are funded by the state, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

We have a great relationship with them.

Wouldn't be able to do what we've done without their support.

From the city, we've not received a penny yet.

- And so you're hoping to grow that funding.

- Definitely, I mean, city officials have been here.

We are the largest gathering, the largest safe space in the city and the region.

We just need, just like someone at the front lines of the war needs supplies dropped in ASAP, we need more than the visits, 'cause we're encouraged by them.

We need supplies, we need provisions, we need resources.

- You have so many dreams and visions for this organization.

Tell us where you want it to go.

What is the vision here?

- Well, the vision is not equality, you know.

It's more than equality.

I mean, yes, we're addressing disparities in education, disparities in housing, disparities in just exposure to the world.

But we didn't, we're not just going for equality here.

We're going to make them the best.

That's our goal.

So the vision here is to actually be this enrichment program, an afterschool enrichment program, 'cause we have 81 different middle school and high schools in our building.

We wanna be the ultimate holistic enrichment program that's not just serving the young people who come, not just serving their families, but even serving the schools with our cutting-edge STEM education, tech ed.

- Wow.

- We've already got them in VR headsets, already teaching them the metaverse, and not just a matter of equality.

- But yeah.

- What we're giving them here, no one in the region is getting right now.

- And as we wrap up, how can people support you?

- Go to our website, you know, please.

We've got blog articles.

I'll be doing blogs on our website, LevelUpPhilly.org, because it takes a village to raise a child, so.

- It does.

- We can't do this without everyone involved.

I cannot do it without my team.

I'm not a one-man show.

- You are not.

You are not.

It takes us all.

- You know, so go to the website, contact us.

Definitely donations are needed.

And you know, they're all of our babies, you know?

These are our babies, you know, so let's raise them together.

We're doing the work, but we have to, we need partnerships, you know?

So the solution is grassroots mentoring with partnerships.

- We'll leave it there.

Pastor Aaron Campbell, founder of Level Up Philly, thank you so much.

- My sis, thank you so much.

- Yes, Good Soul at its best.

- Oh, wow, thank you.

We turn now to longtime friends turned business partners.

Cosmic Cafe is a sustainable farm-to-table eatery, but customer Susan Toler who nominated them says it's much more than that, calling their Boathouse Row establishment "a place that's helping to create opportunities for a lot of people."

(calm music) - [Peg] We have 30 staff.

20 of them are disabled.

But if I didn't have them, I wouldn't have the cafe.

- $3.

- [Peg] Tyheed's like two people, - No problem.

I was looking for a part-time job.

I just walked here.

I came across the boss one day, asked her if I could try to have a job.

I tried it out for a couple weeks.

Then I was fully accepted.

When I first started working here in the cafe eight years ago, I started out as a dishwasher.

It was a very comfortable position, and it was something that I'm used to.

And then I started learning other tricks of the trade, if you will.

I observed how the other staff were working their cash register, cooking meals, delivering the food to the customers.

And I learned how to make the beverages and doing everything else.

- At the Chestnut Farmers Market, I had like four that worked for me.

They started off as dishwashers, and then, you know, we'd be so busy, I'd make 'em wait on a customer.

They'd be, "Oh!"

You know what I mean?

But then they knew how to do it.

They could do it.

Everybody could do anything with training.

- I've been working here since three years.

I'll be outside wiping down tables or sweeping the trash off the ground, dump them in the trash.

I'm a hard worker.

I'm liable, cheerful, and dependent, kind.

(gentle music) - I'm Harrison McInnis.

I've worked with Peg now for about 12 years, her right-hand man.

We've known each other about 28 years.

We met in culinary school here in Philadelphia.

Been a passion of Peg's for as long as I've known her.

Before she was here, she was in Chestnut Hill at the farmers market.

- The Chestnut Farmers Market was rotisserie chicken, prepared foods.

It was all healthy, so people started calling about catering.

So we started catering.

We did outside events.

One of the times somebody from the city gave my husband a card and said, "Why don't you apply at Lloyd Hall?"

Then we did the RFP, and we got it.

So then I've been here 12 years.

- We deal with Lancaster Farm Fresh, which is a cooperative of like 60 farms.

So if we can get it fresh and from a smaller purveyor, we just feel it's better for all involved to keep the smaller farms in business, and it just, the quality always shows through.

(bright music) - My boss is a good person, and that radiates off the rest of us.

She's fair, honest, vigilant, and patient.

I have more self-advocacy and a sense of independence.

- We love her as family.

She treat us my family, and I got 100%, I got faith in her.

Miss Peggy is everything to me, and I really love her.

- She has taught me to be a better soul by knowing her.

It's every day, it's just, I can feel myself getting choked up.

She's just amazes me how wonderful she is.

(gentle music) - From feeding the body to taking care of it, Latinas in Motion is the brainchild of Elaine Gonzalez-Johnson.

This 5,000-strong organization has 17 chapters in eight states and is making health a priority in the Hispanic community.

(bright music) - In 2012, I was already walking, jogging, running when a colleague of mine said, "If you enjoy jogging, you should really sign up for this popular race in Philadelphia called the Broad Street Run."

I committed before I had any of the details.

And so when I googled Broad Street Run, it said 10 miles, I had already told her I was gonna do it.

So you know what I did?

I did the race.

(inspiring music) When I get to the Broad Street Run, this was May 2012, there were 40,000 runners there.

- [Announcer] Runners, go!

(horn blares) - After I ran these 10 miles, I felt like I could fly.

I felt like I could run through a brick wall.

I'm like, "Who's gonna stop me?

I done ran 10 miles.

Wife, mother, career person, and now-10 miler," right?

And so after feeling this feeling, I'm like, "Do other women have this feeling?"

At the time in 2012, there wasn't a space for me, for women who look like me, where we can talk about our songs, where we could talk about our culture, where we can, you know, speak the same language.

And so when you find a deficit, I believe it is your job to fill it.

And so when I googled Latina running club, when I googled Latina wellness group and found nothing in 2012, I decided to create something beautiful.

And that's when Latinas in Motion was born.

Three, two, one, other side.

The purpose of Latinas in Motion is to encourage, inspire, and empower women of color, specifically Latinas, to get active and get healthy.

We are not called Latinas Run.

That was never even a question in my mind when I started Latinas in Motion.

I enjoyed running and jogging and walking because it's easy and that's what I like for me.

But there are some women who enjoy to cycle.

There are some women who enjoy to swim.

There are some women who enjoy to Zumba.

And I wanted to empower women to find not only themselves, but to find their fitness journey and their wellness journey on what they would fall in love with.

Five, four.

- I've never been athletic or active really prior to Latinas in Motions and joining.

Looking at my family and having children, I wanted to be there longer.

I want to be there for them in the future and not a burden to them with health.

I don't think I'd be in motion to the level that I'm at now if it wasn't for Latinas in Motions.

They hold me accountable and continuing to improve and grow.

We fall off and we come back, and they're always there.

- When Elaine first started Latinas in Motion, I always thought that it was gonna be local.

I didn't expect it to expand, and I didn't expect her to think that it was gonna be bigger than anything local.

She wanted to be bigger than Philadelphia, bigger than Pennsylvania.

She wanted women all over the country to have this experience, to understand that there were women that were being empowered to take care of themselves and be in motion.

- [Elaine] We have chapters in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, in the DMV area, in Florida, in Dallas.

- [Group] Latinas in Motion!

- My dream for Latinas in Motion is for us to continue to expanding to different chapters, and in the long run, I would love to create a program for girls where we can teach these young women how to encourage, inspire, and empower themselves to get active and get healthy.

- I think she is a Good Soul.

I think what she's created with Latinas in Motions and the sisterhood, the bonds and just kind of that empowerment that you feel is definitely Good Soul material.

(gentle music) - Thank you.

Two little words, but for gun violence survivor Oronde McClain, those words mean a lot.

He posthumously nominated our next Good Soul, Dr. Andrew Freese, who he credits for saving his life.

(suspenseful music) - I was 10 years old when I got shot in the back of the head.

That was my first encounter with Dr. Freese.

He was the only one that wanted to perform that procedure because I was in like a adult hospital.

They usually transfer somebody my age to CHOP children hospital, but it wasn't no time.

- I worked with him for a number of years in neurosurgery, and I personally saw him save many lives.

He wasn't a pediatric neurosurgeon, but he was an adult neurosurgeon, and he specialized in spine, so a lot of what he did was elective, but to respond to an emergency and treat a child who needed help, that sounds very familiar.

(upbeat music) (bright music) I am Paola Leone, professor of cell biology and neuroscience at Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine.

I'm a neuroscientist by training, and I have been working in the field of gene modification and studying brain function.

Dr. Andy Freese, I call him Andy, my really good friend, was an inspiration to anyone that will really get to know him.

In 1996, 1997, 1998, we were all starting to work in a field called gene therapy with the idea of modifying genes in organs, and our interest was the brain, because Andy is a trained neurosurgeon, I'm a neuroscientist, and so Andy and I were studying together with a team of experts the rare disease that affects about two to 300 patients in the world.

And the name is Canavan disease.

(calm music) There are different forms of the disease, but the most common is the most severe, and Andy took the lead as a clinician to be able to take the project to the next level, from the benches to the clinic.

It was June 5th, 2001, for the first time that adeno-associated viral vector was introduced in the human brain.

He would inspire generations.

Even most importantly, his soul is still alive because of the legacy he left behind and the work that we are doing.

- The care that he showed for the patients and the diligence with which he followed up and really provided the best possible care to people was very inspiring.

(calm music) - Joining me now is one of our Good Souls honorees, Dr. Nia Imani Bailey.

Dr. Bailey is a radiation therapist based in Delaware, welcome.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- So for folks who may not know what a radiation therapist does, explain.

- We kill cancer.

It can be in breast cancer patients, prostate, lung, brain, head and neck, skin.

We are killing the cancer, and the goal is the cancer won't return.

- So how did you decide to get into the field of radiation therapy?

- Curry James Bailey III, my dad.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer when I was a sophomore in high school, and although he kept it from us, when I finally realized that he went through it, because I'm a daddy's girl, I had to get in the same field that cured him.

- And you wanted to be the cancer killer.

And so in your practice, there were some red flags when it came to breast cancer specifically.

Tell us what those were.

- Young women coming in for radiation treatments to the breast.

One woman, she was 24 years old, and we looked just alike.

We have box braids, the same gold anklet.

We both liked a popular Philadelphia rapper.

And she passed away at the age of 24 years old.

Another woman, Kywannia Lopez, that was my girl, and she passed away when she was 42 years old.

But it wasn't until Jaclynn Smith, my friend, she came in, and we just vibed.

I'm with the patients between four to seven weeks, so you really gain a rapport.

And before she passed away, she said, "Don't forget about me," and then she passed away.

And so that was the red flag that young women are being diagnosed with breast cancer, but they're passing away, too.

- Yeah, and the cancer screenings for breast cancer were 50.

They recently lowered it to 40.

And many of the women you talked about would not even be in that space to even get the screenings.

What did you decide to do?

- Absolutely, I decided to create a documentary.

I said, "Sometimes people don't like to read books or look at a presentation, but you know what?

I love movies.

I love documentaries.

So that's how we can sort of learn."

So I was able to interview three phenomenal women.

- [Cherri] What did you find?

So many young women, did they think that they were susceptible to the disease at their age?

- [Nia] They did not know at all.

They didn't know that it could be them, but what they did know is that something was wrong with their body, and they advocated for themselves.

Sometimes they had to advocate for months, but they knew to do that.

The doctors kept saying, "You're too young for cancer.

You're too young," but they kept saying, "If there's something called pediatric cancer, then I'm not too young for cancer."

And so they really pushed, and unfortunately, they were diagnosed.

- What do you hope people will take from this film?

- I hope that we can save lives from this film, that we can talk about family cancer history, advocacy, clinical trials, genetic testing, and knowing your body, that is so important.

And I think by doing that, we provide everybody with the resources and tools to save lives.

- Dr. Nia Imani Bailey, thank you for all the work that you do, definitely Good Soul work.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Our final Good Soul turned a student idea into paid internships for homeless youth to care for at-risk animals.

(bright music) - I've always had a passion for animals.

That's how I got involved in Hand2Paw.

And now I have a passion for the youth side as well.

And I think everybody has that thing that moves them enough that they're willing to take their free time and do something about it.

I started life as a lawyer, and I practiced at a Philadelphia law firm for about 16 years, and I got to the point where I started thinking, "What else is there to life?"

At that time, students at the University of Pennsylvania were petitioning to have a animal law class taught there, and my passion was animals.

I got an adjunct teaching position at the law school teaching a class called Animal Law and Ethics.

One of my students came to me and said she had come up with this idea to put together, you know, two problems in the city of Philadelphia, one of which was youth homelessness, and one of which was animal shelters who didn't have enough resources to care for the animals the way they wanted to.

So she was putting them together for weekly volunteer sessions.

When she graduated, I told her that I would take that idea and do what I could with it.

And Hand2Paw is a violence prevention paid internship program for young people in Philadelphia who are between the ages of 15 and 24, most of whom have been involved in either juvenile justice system or experienced homelessness or experienced foster care.

And that's how Hand2Paw grew from an all-volunteer organization to having a paid staff to running an adoption center for the Pennsylvania SPCA in Fishtown for a few years to eventually ending up in our own space in Olney, where we have our own small rescue, and we have cats and Guinea pigs and rabbits.

We have two internship programs, Unleashing Opportunities, which is a full-time program for six months, and Pawspurr, which is a once-a-week program, and we use our animals here in our own space to support that programming, support the animal-assisted therapy, humane education.

The youth learn the skills that they need to then move on into a career serving animals and to explore their interest in whether or not this is a career they might want to pursue.

We use animal-assisted therapy to support the growth and empathy in the youth that participate.

People who commit violence have a lack of empathy.

So to the extent that you can nurture the empathy that is in people and make them feel supported in what they do, I think that lessens violence.

People that commit violence against animals go on to commit violence against people, and you'll often see domestic violence in the same home with animal cruelty or neglect.

To the extent that you can teach empathy through the vehicle of the animal, that empathy doesn't end with the animal, hopefully.

The goal is that it extends to your family and to the community.

(calm music) - Tonight was just a glimpse of this year's Good Souls.

To learn about the other nominees, head on over to whyy.org/goodsouls.

And while you're there, you can nominate someone for 2024.

Thank you so much for joining us, and thank you to Level Up for opening its doors.

To all the good souls out there, we see your good works, and we are honored that you let us share your stories.

We'll see you next year with more "Good Souls."

I'm Cherri Gregg.

Have a good night.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (upbeat music)