That Made All the Difference Podcast: Season 4

Hear from our Season 4 guests:

Andrew Heinrich, Founder and Executive Director, Project Rousseau

Catherine Coleman Flowers, Environmental Justice Activist

Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org and WaterEquity co-founders

Jeni Britton, Founder & Chief Creative Officer Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams

What if every child had access to higher education? Advocate Andrew Heinrich discusses finding his purpose helping young people from underserved backgrounds, and how the smallest moments can make the biggest impact. Learn about what inspired him to start such a vital organization at a young age and what gives him hope for the future.

[THEME MUSIC UP]

Andrew CLIP: In my field at least — working with young people from underserved backgrounds — it routinely inspires me, and sometimes shocks me, how little of a catalyst is needed to help someone get on that path towards reaching their full potential.

ALICIA INTRO: What if every child had access to higher education?

When Andrew Heinrich was a student at Columbia University, he would travel back and forth by bus from the main campus to the athletic field where he played football. During those rides through New York City, he was struck by the deep contrast between his own way of life, and the lives of those less fortunate.

It was then that Heinrich first committed to helping the most vulnerable kids get a better start, an education, and the opportunity to take more control of their own lives. Ten years later Heinrich is leading Project Rousseau, a mentoring initiative for at-risk youth. The organization has grown into a national nonprofit that seeks to, in his words, help the kids that might otherwise be completely forgotten.

The passion that Andrew brings to this is palpable.

[THEME MUSIC OUT]

Andrew: Project Rousseau is a non-profit organization that helps young people, in the US reach their full potential and pursue, and excel in higher education. We work really hard on identifying the highest need young people we can possibly find as a core part of our mission. We think of ourselves as an emergency room of education. looking for young people who may have not just slipped through the cracks, but maybe even been completely forgotten. But of course, in order for a child to benefit from that, they have to get in the door in the first place. And so, we think of recruitment not just as who can we attract to us, but it's who can we go seek out. In fact, one of our upcoming hires will be someone whose sole full-time job it is to go find more and more young people like the ones we're describing: students where the,change in their opportunities can be the highest.

Alicia: You're looking for those who can't be found in other ways.

Andrew: Yeah, yeah.

Alicia: And you're going right to them, and it sounds like that's something you learned by discovery.

Andrew: Absolutely. There is more than one student in Project Rousseau who we met because they were street dwelling homeless, and they were, were begging. Um, and- and either I crossed their path, or another member of our team, crossed their paths. And we can get in touch with a social worker, someone who knows something.

Alicia: Yeah.

Andrew: And what's so amazing, is that it's often just the catalyst that's needed. Um, you know, it's, it's the adult or set of adults who decide to put the pieces together. Um, and- and help the child figure out what pieces they want to have put together. But that's really one of the key points, is that seeking. the other point that I think is so crucial, that's at the core of what we do, is our holistic programing. And- and I- I'll tell a brief story on this. We had a student who was, um, housing insecure, who was otherwise, um, you know, struggling to find consistent academic motivation, but who was very impressively consistent in her attendance at school.

< Music IN >

And at some point, um, her attendance in school, uh, just fell off. Her school stopped hearing from her. Um, and since she had b- bounced around numerous residences, shelters, and other accommodations, it was extremely hard to get in contact with this particular child.

Alicia: Okay.

Andrew: And we, um, heard from the student through her Project Rousseau mentor. Uh, a one-to-one, near-peer, college student volunteer, who, um, just met with the student weekly to chat about life and homework, and that sort of thing. And the story was ... the student was getting teased for appearing to be dirty. Um, because the student didn't have enough clothes to wear that- that she could wear new clothes every day, so she was getting teased by individuals in the school, um, and was being called pejorative language related to homelessness, that she found humiliating and just couldn't go to school anymore. And it turns out that, um, by giving part of our student needs budget to the mentor, and they just got, you know, three of the plainest t-shirts on earth, and- and, from a Goodwill store, and I think three pairs of pants. And I think she had two of each at the time, so that got her to five. So, she could have something different to wear each day of the school week. And she started going to school again. And, you know, this- this student now holds a, um, a post-secondary qualification, and is very stably employed in a, in a field that's long been of interest to her.

< Music OUT >

And what I loved about the story is, it showed me that we can solve problems very easily just by listening, and by hearing about what the non-academic causes of academic problems were. once we figured it out, the solution was quite easy.

Alicia: Right.

Andrew: Academic problems rarely have academic causes.

Alicia: Um, I just wonder if you could take me back to-

Andrew: Sure.

Alicia: ... why you started it?

Andrew: Yeah. So I always knew that helping young people in situations of need was what I wanted to do most, and that comes from deeply rooted stories I grew up with, um- stories of the Holocaust and hearing that the swath of people who were affected, and the experience of, of my family, um, really helped me see that this could befall anybody. Um, because what I learned so early was, you know, of course it was, nothing to do with their own decisions that, uh, my family and millions of other families were targeted. And the life lessons learned that were passed on to me by people who lived through it and, um, survived, made me see my own privilege as a form of responsibility.

Alicia: Which is pretty extraordinary, Andrew. I mean, when you think about a lot of people are, you know, told stories and, and when they're younger, but you really internalized it in a different way.

Andrew: I did. And, you know, I think that what I'll say is I grew up knowing I wanted to do this. The question was,

< Music IN >

how would I do it? and I experimented from very young ages with volunteering at soup kitchens in middle school and high school And they had such profound impacts on me. The soup kitchens were interesting because so much of, it was the human interaction with the clients that I found so fulfilling. Um, I distinctly remember a father and a son. The father held a graduate degree. Um, and his child was, was clearly very talented. I was so taken by their story of how quickly, um, their fortunes turned and why they found themselves at a soup kitchen. And that just strengthened my resolve to do something, um, in some way, again, I didn't know what the something was or how to do it.

Alicia: Right.

Andrew: I, I, that was definitely the, the ethos of what I was interested in doing with my life.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: What was your own childhood like, Andrew?

Andrew: Uh, I had every, every privilege in the world growing up and, and I'm so grateful to a family that supports me so deeply to this day. I never went to school and wondered if maybe my two parents both of whom I lived with would be deported or would be, um, befallen with some other, uh, really tragic circumstance. I think I intuitively knew that those were elements of what I wanted to bring forward in other young people's lives.

Alicia: Even when first started it, uh, out of your dorm-

Andrew: No, no, I think, I think before then I was unclear on, on how I would make the difference. Would it be here or far? Would it be, you know, education or other services or more holistic services? Um, and the way Project Rousseau came to be was, you know, when you're 18, 19 years old and you're in college, academic skillsets and, and interpersonal connection are two of the strongest skills you have. And, I was confident that I could use those -to have an impact. And, you know, it was so vivid at Columbia University where I went to college, um, because I played on the, on the football team. And when you would take the bus to practice, the, um, stark contrast in the environments, when you got outside of the Columbia bubble was extraordinary, you know, just a few blocks in, in a couple of directions, um, changes the tone. Um, and you realize that some of the young people there probably walk by Columbia all the time, but may never actually think that that's attainable, um, and may even feel that it's alien. Um, and that was something that I realized I, I could at least on some microcosmic level help people work towards, uh, overcoming. Um, and-

Alicia: 'Cause you're constantly, it feels to me, like focused and acknowledging the contrasts that are happening?

Andrew: Absolutely. And so I

< Music IN >

started by looking at other organizations, it was, you know, why don't I work within someone else's infrastructure and, you know, they might serve 95% of their students beautifully? And there are say that 5% who could use the extra support and, um, in, in a variety of ways. And at that point, it would have been just mentoring and, and tutoring and the like. And what I came up against very understandably, was, uh, the realization that, you know, funders that fund particularly larger nonprofits are very scale focused. but I was just always more drawn to the opposite approach that it's the in-depth holistic, um, uh, deeply longitudinal as well, uh, approach with each individual young person that is where I get, find my calling. And I was speaking to a mentor of mine who had a phenomenal impact on my life, um, and, uh, a, a faculty member at Columbia and an, an administrator. And I remember telling him about this contrast between my vision and, and, you know, the organizations I was speaking to Um, and he said to me, it looks like you're going to have to figure out how to start something yourself.

Alicia: That's what I've noticed about how you, um, seem to have approached all the challenges right from the beginning, is-

Andrew: Absolutely

Alicia: - you seem to be extremely hands on.

Andrew: I didn't question that, um, and went about figuring out how to get something started. And, um, yes, you, you referred to earlier, you know, there's saying of starting something in your dorm room and, and my dorm room was an office. Um, I, I joke often as you, as you mentioned, that my locker room, uh, as a, as a football player was where I probably spent more time anyway. So I, I did a lot there too.

< Music OUT >

Um, and, um, it was learning the ropes at that point, that also helped me realize the value of broadening horizons, because I don't think I would have known what a 1099 was.

Alicia: And do you feel like you mentor differently now based on things you've learned from your mentors?

Andrew: Absolutely. I share my own shortcomings when I was in high school, my own under-performance, things that happened in my life that made me find motivation. Um, ways I changed: the way I approached being a student, the ways I handled disappointment, um, along the way. A mentor is great when the mentee knows that you have that person's full presence, not just their attention, but their full thoughts, their full commitment in the moment that you're with them. Um, and that is something that can be rare for young people.that is a really unique gift to find in a mentor. And it's often that little conversation that was in the corner, while, you know, there was a museum trip ... Um, in fact, uh, there's a particular student in Project Rousseau who calls a formative moment in her life the Egypt exhibit of the Met Museum talk. Um, because it was a-

Alicia: [laughs]

Andrew: ... conversation we had

< Music IN >

in the ancient Egypt exhibit. this 20 to 30 minute conversation of, "Hey, I really think you have talent, you have great ideas, but they're not your goals 'cause you don't think you have the right to aspire to them. And you do, because I see the talent that you have."

Alicia: Hmm.

Andrew: And- and that affirmation ... And- and, frankly, a bit of a- a challenge to, you know, now you, now we think you can do this, let's- let's go get it. Um, uh, was what kicked the student into gear, made the student take advantage of every opportunity put before them to the best of her ability, and, um, you know, makes her the extraordinary role model that she's today, and she is herself a mentor-

Alicia: Right.

Andrew: ... in Project Rousseau now.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: And, that's incredible, so, it- ... literally paying it forward. Andrew, was there a moment that you realized, "Wow, we are really having the impact that we intended to here."

Andrew: Yes. And it was a dark one:

< Music IN >

our first student fatality, um, the first student we lost. It was a- a- a violent crime that resulted in a young person's death. Um, and it was tragic. I was in college still, it was very close to the homecoming game of my senior year, and our senior season, and it was a stark contrast. And I remember thinking, you know, quite concretely, this young man passed away, um, and he was younger than I was at the time. Um, so, I failed in my mission, was my initial thought, because he didn't reach his full potential-

Alicia: Hmm.

Andrew: ... because he never will. And it was the hours after that where I realized that the opposite was true. Um, I know, with as much certainty as one can ever know something like this, I know he felt cared for in his life, I know he felt more cared for over time. I know he felt more engaged, and enjoyed learning more. Um, I know he had certain needs addressed. Um, and I know crucially that the other students took profound comfort in having someone to talk to, um, and multiple people to talk to-

Alicia: Hmm.

Andrew: ... about what had happened. Um, every time I get an update from one of them, that they finished their associate's or bachelor's degree, or they get a new job-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Andrew: ... or they, you know, are just happy with what they're doing ... um, that is exactly our mission.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: Thank you for sharing that story, Andrew. That is incredibly powerful and, um, you know, it- it so underscores your point, it's about the human potential. And it's-

Andrew: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: ... it's not about the academic potential. Um, and- and what you're doing is [laughs] , is helping the men- ... whether you're a mentor, whether you're a mentee-

Andrew: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: ... you cannot really realize your own human potential, unless-

Andrew: Yeah.

Alicia: ... you're having the impact on the other.

Andrew: That's exactly right.

< Music IN >

Community service is often the first place where our students realize thy can improve their own circumstances because they get external validation that they're having some form of concrete impact on someone else. Be it brightening up a residents' day at a nursing home or providing food at soup kitchen or homeless shelter.

Alicia: Hmm.

Andrew: And then they think to themselves, "Gee, I just made that person's day better. I can probably help myself too."

Alicia: Yeah.

Andrew: If there's one message I wanna get across to anyone else who's thinking about making a difference in anything, um, in my field at least, working with young people from underserved backgrounds, it routinely inspires me, and sometimes shocks me, how little of a catalyst is needed to help someone get on that path towards reaching their full potential.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: It's a great way to end. And when you put it that way, I think of, in my own life, how often the things that made a difference were small catalysts.

Andrew: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: Um, so, let's all be those small catalysts, moments-

Andrew: Absolutely.

Alicia: ... let's- let's all look for them. Thank you.

Andrew: Thank you so much.

[THEME MUSIC UP]

ALICIA OUTRO:

Andrew Heinrich knew from an early age that he wanted to help kids who really needed support. But it wasn’t until he started individually connecting with his mentees that he discovered how he could truly have an impact. Through his non-profit, Project Rousseau, Heinrich has learned that sometimes just listening — just really being there for a young person — can make all the difference in the world.

What would you like the power to do?

Thank you for tuning in to the fourth season of Bank of America’s “That Made All the Difference.” We’ve had so many great conversations around sustainability this season, from this one with Andrew; to hearing from Catherine Colman Flowers and Matt Damon and Gary White about their efforts to empower millions of people around the world with access to clean water and sanitation; and entrepreneur Jeni Britton, who is determined to make the perfect scoop of ice cream while building a truly equitable business.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from all of them, and learned more about what drives and inspires these people to really make a difference.

You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Alicia Burke and I’ll talk to you again next season.

What if clean water could help women achieve true equality? Learn about how actor/writer Matt Damon and engineer Gary White are combining practical solutions with storytelling to help create global access to clean water. Hear what inspired their work and what they learned along the way.

Damon CLIP: Girls — millions upon millions upon millions of them are missing days of school because they go and they collect water for the family. They're out of school because of that.

ALICIA INTRO: What if clean water could help women achieve true equality?

Actor and writer Matt Damon and engineer Gary White both wanted to help people escape poverty. And when they joined forces, that’s when their work really started to take off. In 2009 they founded Water.org and so far have helped bring clean water to 38 million people.

And they realized that doing so also provided other benefits, from improving women’s incomes and their chance at an education, to simply living healthier lives. But even more importantly, with a lot of trial and error, they figured out a way to help the more than 800 million people around the world who don’t have basic sanitation.

I can't imagine a better demonstration of the power of partnership...

[THEME MUSIC OUT]

Alicia: So I thought I would start, Matt and Gary, with the fact that you've been described as brothers from another mother.

Matt: [laughter]

Alicia: Why do you think people say that?

Matt: It must be my three engineering degrees. [crosstalk]

Alicia: [laughs]

Gary: And my enormous... Uh, I have an Oscar, so... [laughter]

Matt: Um, I-I-I think that we, um, from the very beginning, I was looking for somebody to partner with. Once I realized, that this was such an exceedingly complex issue, and that the traditional ways in which I had assumed would be helpful wouldn't be entirely helpful, um, I-I realized I-I needed somebody who was a true expert and who had really thought about this, um deeply, and for a really long time. And that's how I came to find Gary. Gary had been, for 20 years at that point doing this. And I'd, you know, I'd been for only for a couple. But I had this group. We were called H2O Africa. And we were basically just identifying good places to-to direct money to. P-places that were doing good work. But we said from the beginning, rather than fold one organization into the other one, we were gonna create an entirely new one. I think if we share anything it's that we both wanna get to the most practical and scalable solution as fast as we can. And-and we'd do anything we can to make that happen. I feel that's something that I do carry over from my acting life too. it's about collaborating. It's not about your idea, it's about what's the best idea. And um... not to be afraid to fail in front of each other, to look stupid in front of each other. To ask a question that may have an obvious answer. It's in doing that, that I think we've come to the, kind of, greatest impact that we've had. And here's a level of fearlessness that this work requires, that hopefully we share.

Alicia: You saw that in each other.

Gary: There's also I think, this, kind of entrepreneurial spirit that we each share, right? I mean, to like, do what Matt's done in terms of building a career in acting. You know, you had to, like, [laughs] . You had to suspend disbelief that you were gonna make it. You had to go pound the pavement, you've told... talked stories about you had Ben Affleck coming to New York you're just, like, "Yeah. It's gonna happen." Right? You are an entrepreneur for yourself, and I think that same entrepreneurial spirit is embedded in what we do. Because, we look at this and say, "We know that we can reach that vision, of everybody in the world having safe water." And I think that's what keeps us going. That's what keeps us-

Matt: Yeah.

Gary: Uh, innovating and trying new ideas like WaterCredit, you know, launching an asset manager, you know, creating products for impact investors. Connecting the global capital markets to people living on three or four dollars a day. It's like, all these things that you would've thought impossible a decade ago, because, water NGO's go drill wells.

Alicia: Right.

Gary: They cut ribbons

Alicia: right.

Gary: And they give that away. It's like, we're not, we're not the white saviors here. We're not the ones, you know, kind of handing out free water.

Alicia: Right.

Gary: Uh, we are just kind of nudging the system towards the people who need the help the most. And that's how the crisis will be solved —

Alicia: It's really... You're describing this relentless optimism combined with practicality.

Matt: Yes.

Alicia: That you both share.

Matt: That's exactly right.

Gary: That's, uh, that's it. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. and, which shares a very razor thin edge with insanity.

Gary: [laughs]

Alicia: [laughs]

Matt: Like, when we said to the board, we envision a day, you know, where everybody has access to-to, uh, safe water. And this can happen in our lifetime. I think we had, we had reached fewer than a million people at that point. They looked at us like we were maybe, maybe insane. But, now we're approaching forty million.

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: You know, which-which, you know, a decade ago...

Alicia: That's right.

Matt: I don't think anybody would've thought that was possible.

Alicia: That's right. Your relentless optimism and practical nature is proving true. And it goes... The roots of this go way back, right? For both of you. Um, so even in childhood, Matt, you had some experience, I think, maybe traveling with your mom. early on?

Matt: My mom, took me to, um, you know, to-to Mexico to-to study Spanish as a teenager. To Guatemala. And-and-and I got to see,

< Music IN >

you know, people living in a very different way, um, than we live here. And that... was an amazing gift. Um, I definitely do it as a father. because it had such a profound impact on me. With-without kind of finger wagging at the- at my kids. My-my mom didn't, uh, lecture me about anything. She just showed me the-the-the world.

Alicia: It's kind of extraordinary that she was providing those kind of experiences early on. And, you're so right. I have two teenagers and I realized, I actually can tell them nothing, I can only show. [laughs]

Matt: Yeah.

Alicia: Observing and absorbing.

Matt: Exactly.

Alicia: And that's-

Matt: Exactly. Yeah.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: And that's where change comes. And Gary, you had a similar experience, right? Early on you, I think, were traveling in a way that, I think you had your own epiphanies in terms of how you would use your multiple degrees.

Gary: Yeah. Well, yeah, I think, this is kind of another interesting thing. We both kind of passed through Guatemala. We may have even been there at the same time during the eighties.

< Music IN >

We haven't been able to figure out the amount yet. But, I was in-in Guatemala, uh, you know, volunteering on a project there. And had the opportunity to go in to one of the more poor neighborhoods. Just, uh, kind of as an aside during that trip. And then just, you know, I saw this young girl, you know, probably four or five years old, that was scooping water from this obviously very contaminated barrel of water there in her neighborhood. And it's just bizarre to me that that kind of world should exist in the kind of world that I'm going back to. And that was, that was a real seminal moment for me to say, "Okay. I-I wanna be a civil engineer." Because, that seemed to be the direct way to solve those types of problems.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: And so, you, you got your degree. Was it around that time that you, after that, had a dinner with your family and sort of kicked the whole thing off?

Gary: Yeah, yeah. We, you know, invited about 100 family and friends together to raise money for this water project in Honduras, And that was the-the start. We raised about four thousand dollars and then, uh, I traveled there and kind of brought the story back to-to folks the next year. And that kind of, that was kind of our launch.

Alicia: You started in 1990..

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: So, if we go back in time to Water Partners, and then Matt, as you were talking about H2O Africa, um, in 2006, I think. So, would love to go, just the lead up to how you met. Um, and it was through your work at H2O Africa.

Matt: Yeah. We were... We, uh, that-that was just literally a platform to raise money to try to, uh, funnel money to the people in this space who were doing the best work. and Water Partners had been one of the places we'd seen. Their work was, uh, among the most effective of the direct impact that was happening. Cause, one thing that people may not know is, half of the water projects fail. Um, and-and you see it everywhere. I mean...

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: I remember in Ethiopia we, uh, we... This is 12 years ago, but we went to this place in northern Ethiopia, by Eritrea and there-there were, there were these kids g-g-getting water that looked like chocolate milk out of these hand dug wells. And-and about 100 feet away was this state of the art, uh, well system that an NGO from India had, you know, raised money, they put in. like, "Here. You're welcome. Here's this beautiful, state of the art well." Well, invariably, those things break. And if the community hasn't been included. If they... Nobody understands how to fix it, if there aren't any spare parts and you're in, you know, northern Ethiopia, and there's no hardware stores. Um, wells just...

Alicia: So failures, because it's wh-what they're creating is unsustainable.

Matt: Right. the thought was there. And the-the money... You know, the-the goodwill was there. Everything was there.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: Except for, um, except for the fact that it wasn't, kind of, done p-practically. And in concert with the community.

Alicia: Right.

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: And I... I-I've heard you talk about when you met. I think at a conference,

Matt: Yeah. the first thing he started t-talking to me about. Was how-how he had failed and why. And I was like, "All right. Well, this is, you know, this is a potential partnership. And-and-and this potential partner is leading with everything that's gone wrong. And I was like, "Well, that's-"

Alicia: That's refreshing.

Matt: "That's exactly the kind of guy I wanna get to know"

Alicia: [laughs]

Matt: And what were your first impressions of Matt when you met

Gary: Well, I think my first impressions were, Matt is incredibly smart, And asking all the right questions about the work. Asking about sustainability, asking, you know, how are we able to-to make this financial concept work. And so that is like, this is gonna be person who I am gonna partner with and we're gonna make a difference. he's just, you know, devoted an incredible amount of resources, time, and- and talent to this, Matt now walks into a room and he is literally one of the world's water experts, he can, you know, hold his own and present the ideas of what we're doing and the success of it, uh, to, you know, the president of the World Bank-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Gary: ... all the way down into a community in India, because he's been there and developed that expertise.

Alicia: Yeah.

Matt: And kind of going back to what I was saying earlier about Gary, it's like, both of us looking at objectively, it was only about maximizing our impact.

Gary: Yeah.

Matt: And- and with-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: Like with WaterCredit, Gary had this idea He believed it would work.

< Music IN >

And this idea was that the poorest women in the world would- would repay loans for, the ability to connect to existing infrastructure and- and- and for water services, right? And that they were already paying. His time that he had spent in these communities m- uh, helped him understand that the poorest people in the world were actually paying more for water than the middle class and the upper class. Um, because they weren't connected to the infrastructure. And- and they didn't have the money to connect to the infrastructure 'cause it would require, say, 200 or $300.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: They did not have that savings. But-

Alicia: And they were paying loan sharks in some [crosstalk] -

Matt: They're paying loan sharks. They're paying en-... They're getting water any way they can.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: They're taking time away from jobs, in these urban, peri-urban communities where- where women might be working as housekeepers somewhere. They're taking time away from that job in order to go stand in a line and get water. Girls — millions upon millions upon millions of them are missing days of school because they go and they collect water for the family. They're out of school because of that. Now what does that do to the, obviously to- to- to- to-

Alicia: The ripple effects.

Matt: The ripple effect on their lives is-

Alicia: They never end.

Matt: ... is- is incalculable. Right, so.

< Music OUT >

But Gary goes, "Well, wait a minute. They're paying for this, you know, and they're actually paying more. So if we could actually front them the money for, to- to loan, to connect, uh, to- to an ex-... The- the municipality might be piping water right under the- their feet in the slum in which they live. We just need a water connection into their home."

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: And this changes their life entirely. And once they pay this loan off, which can pay off within two years, they suddenly have inc- this extra income in their pocket and this extra income which might not sound like a lot, [inaudible] make 50 bucks a month or whatever it might be.

Alicia: Right.

Matt: Uh, and money they're not paying to these water vendors is- is an absolute game changer for them. And if you put it in the hands of women, they're gonna spend it on things like their kids and the educa-... You know, it's- it's the ripple effects to that are-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: ... again, incalculable [crosstalk] .

Alicia: Yeah. So the negative and the positive, as you said-

Matt: That's right.

Alicia: ... that women, who I think I've heard you say spend 200 million hours a day-

Gary: A day. Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: ... working to get water.

Matt: Right.

Alicia: So that is... It's really unfathomable-

Gary: Yeah.

Alicia: ... when I, when I think about it.

Gary: They're paying sometimes 15 times more per gallon. It's like, this was the light bulb moment.

Alicia: Yeah.

Gary: It's just like, you know, what if we could get them access to- to small loans so that they could then escape this- this trap and- and have the- the safety actually, the health of a toilet? Uh, and that's when the idea came about and it's like, again, building on other people's good ideas. it's like, ok, we just need to work with the microfinance institutions and nudge them towards lending for water and toilets, because obviously the market's here, the value's being created. [crosstalk]

Matt: But that's... I mean, he's being humble, because he had... That was something he had to convince the MFIs of.

Gary: Yeah.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: Because- because, you know, the classic, you know, Grameen Bank loan-

Alicia: Right.

Gary: Yeah.

Matt: ... is an income generating loan, right? It's- it's I'm gonna take your loan and I'm gonna buy a sewing machine and I'm gonna s-... And you know, so they go, "Okay, well, that's a business. I see how you're gonna pay the loan back." With water, there's no income generation that- that you can see. But what you're actually doing is buying back time and allowing people to work more at jobs that they already have. It's- it's an income enhancing loan. [crosstalk]

Alicia: It's the enhance-

Gary: Yeah.

Alicia: That's where they, why they call it enhancement loan.

Matt: [crosstalk] But that was a big thought leap, and in retrospect it seems really obvious and simple. B- but that was Gary's kind of insight, and he really had to work hard to bring these MFIs along. So w- when I met him, it was in this kind of early stage. And- and- and like all, any of these problems, he was saying, like, "I don't see why this won't work — do you?" You know, because he would ask anybody.

Alicia: Yeah. [laughs]

Matt: "Can you tell me why this wouldn't work?" [laughs] And I'm like, "I'm an actor, uh, and a writer...

Alicia: [laughs]

Gary: [laughs]

Matt: ... I don't see at all, and no, I don't." And it turned out to be this incredible innovation and insight.

Alicia: And that's where the scalability comes in.

Matt: Exactly.

Gary: Yeah.

Matt: And so now we're at, n- nearing 40 million, uh, people that we've reached, and the loans are still paying back over 99%. It's completely undeniable at this point that this works.

Gary: Yeah. Three- three billion dollars in these loans have happened now and repaid at 99%. So we, you know, it is, you know, scaling.

Matt: And the beauty of this- this solution, right, well, the two things. I mean, one is that it drives down the philanthropic cost of, per person reached, right?

Alicia: Right.

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: Because every time a loan gets repaid, it goes back out.

Alicia: Right.

Matt: The money keeps circulating. The other beautiful thing about this solution, the most beautiful thing is just that it's really a story of, like, one by one, these women, the, uh, the- the most vulnerable on the planet-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: ... like, you know, all we- we're doing is just nudging the market towards them.

Alicia: Right.

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: It's women who are the disproportionately impacted and it's also women, once you put the money in their hands, they will do what needs to be done.

Gary: Exactly.

Matt: Exactly.

Alicia: As always, women are gonna take over the world.

Gary: Yeah. [laughs]

Matt: [laughs]

Alicia: [crosstalk]

Matt: My mom's been telling me that since I was a kid. [laughs]

Alicia: It's just a matter of time. We're just waiting. But it is extraordinary and, they're not, as you're saying, you don't treat them as charitable cases. You treat them as customers to be served.

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] . Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: Right.

Alicia: and do you go back to the places-

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Alicia: ... to see sort of how it's progressing?

Matt: Yeah, we try to do a trip once a year, just together, just to kind of stay connected to the emotional side of it, for me, is actually, I, I, I really love it. actually in Haiti. we went down to visit and, and, and the girl that I talked to was 13, and my oldest kid at the time was 13. So I really, you know, it was

< Music IN >

an instant connection. Um, and, uh, and, and I asked her, you know, how her life was going to change, and she was, she was taking four hours of her day to get water.

Alicia: That's something.

Matt: And, uh, you know, she's a junior high school student. So she was still in school. School was important enough to her that she was willing to just add on the four hours on top of everything else.

Alicia: So she would go to school and then-

Matt: And then go and spend her entire afternoon, uh, fetching water. And so I said to her, like, you know, "Wh- Is this going to give you more time for your homework?" And she [laughs] , she was one of those really sharp kids. She just, she looked at me and goes, "I don't need more time for my homework."

Alicia: [Laughs]

Matt: She goes, "I'm the smartest kid in my class." [Laughing] And she said it in a way that I was like, "Yeah, you are, aren't you?" [Laughs] And I said, "Well, okay, you know, hot shot, what are, what are you going to do with all your extra time then?"

Alicia: Right.

Matt: And she looked at me completely seriously, and she goes, "I'm going to play." And it like, I mean, it buckled me. you realize what is asked of these kids all over the world in the developing world and how quick they're asked to grow up and, and what, what it does when, when you can help spur an intervention like this, and how much their life changes.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: You know, it's either a time of great despair or, again, relentless optimism depending who you are and how you operate.

Gary: The despair in me is like the magnitude of the problem. You know, a lot of people that even have some access to water today they're going to lose access with climate change, right? Climate change is water: too much of it in so many places and not enough in others. We have to understand it's the least among us that are going to be impacted the most. And so that's certainly that message of resilience needs to come through. When this started out, I didn't, I didn't necessary believe this journey as solving the water crisis, right? But then if we can show that these things are bankable, then that's what's changed. You know, everybody's hunting for ESG now —

Alicia: Yeah —

Gary: There is no purer form of ESG than one of these funds where we're helping, you know, millions of people get access to water.

Matt: That's the great thing is we don't ever feel like we're selling anybody a used car. It's like, look at the data. I mean, it, it absolutely supports being involved with this. it's a success story in, you know, in nuts and bolts terms. But on the emotional level for me as a storyteller, I mean,

< Music IN >

it's about these heroic women, right? Primarily women, I should say, who, who are the borrowers.

Alicia: The women are at the center, it feels like.

Matt: ... Yeah, it's like 94, what 94%? 94%

Gary: 94% of the women are borrowers, yeah.

Matt: Yeah, are, are women-borrowed. But, but, but these, these decisions that they're making in kind of headwinds that we can't even understand, you know? Surviving on, three dollars a day and, being a better bet than some people down on Wall Street. That's, that's pretty amazing.

Alicia: As you said, "What could be a better bet? It's the best bet."

Matt: Exactly, right.

Gary: It's like, what we're doing, we're not creating the solution so much as just discovering it, 'cause it's there all the time. And that solution is that person-

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Gary: ... living in poverty who needs water and sanitation, she's the one who values water. She's the one who's willing to- to pay for that, take out the loan, and go get it done. And so, we're not creating anything. We're just discovering and kind of helping [crosstalk] .

< Music OUT >

Alicia: You're the catalyst.

Gary: [crosstalk]

Matt: Yeah, also she's not gonna pay for a solution that's not the right solution for her.

Gary: Yeah.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Gary: Yeah, I mean, the- the agency is there with seeing her as a customer as opposed to a charity case. And I think that's what's important in any kind of solution that's gonna sustain and scale.

Matt: And like why can't people look at it like with the VC model?

Alicia: Right.

Matt: You know, like, "Where is the money?" And it's sitting there-

Gary: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Matt: ... as Gary was saying. It's just, it- it's sitting there. Trillions and trillions of dollars is just sitting around.

Gary: Yeah, this- this entrepreneurial spirit in terms of VCs doesn't seem to extend into philanthropy, right?

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Gary: And venture philanthropy, until you see Mackenzie Scott and Jack Dorsey step up.

Matt: Right, when I do philanthropy, that's how I wanna do it.

Alicia: Right.

Matt: Because I wanna have the biggest impact. I wanna maximize it. I wanna do it, you know, I want it to be the, you know, this new innovation. I want, you know, it just seems to tick all the boxes. but what fuels all this is philanthropy, too. Like we need that-

Alicia: You need both.

Gary: ... that major philanthropic capital to go out and create things like WaterCredit, to create things like WaterEquity, and certainly anybody going to Water.org and contributing a- actually can translate that into another person getting access to- to water and sanitation. And as we look at WaterEquity, you know, we're looking at ways that everyone can become an investor in one of the funds, so people can kind of keep their- their eyes open for the ability to do that.

Alicia: That's great.

Matt: That was well done, Gary.

Gary: Okay. [laughs]

Matt: I have no notes. [laughs]

Gary: [laughs]

< Music IN >

Alicia: [laughs] Um, and I would love to ask you why you're each other's better half? [Laughing] Better half when it comes to-

Matt: I'm never going to claim to be Gary's better half. [Laughing] Gary is... You know what Gary is? Gary is a saint. Gary is, Gary is my best ticket into heaven. [Laughing] Because if I go after him, hopefully he's advocating for me.

Gary: Matt is like the, the ticket for how we're going to get everybody safe water because I think it's this- this perfect, you know, combination of, like, generating ideas together and then articulating them, uh, in ways. I can articulate them to a technical audience. Matt can translate it into people's everyday experience, I think.

< Music OUT >

Alicia: I love that. And I really can't thank you both enough, uh, for being together with me to tell the story, but also for enlightening all of us and for plussing each other up.

Matt: Thanks, Alicia. Really, thanks for having us.

[THEME MUSIC UP]

ALICIA OUTRO:

Fueled by passion and pragmatism, Matt Damon and Gary White have developed an innovative approach to the problem of clean water access. And what really struck me was how they've used their inspiring partnership to uplift the possibilities of health and stability for people in the world's most challenged communities. Better yet, it's a solution in which all of us can participate.

What would you like the power to do?

You've been listening to Bank of America’s “That Made All the Difference”. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Alicia Burke and I’ll talk to you soon.

What if you really listened to the kid in you? Entrepreneur Jeni Britton discusses how a childhood inspiration led her to see owning a business as an act of fellowship. Hear how starting small and always improving were her “secrets” to building a successful business and a better world.

Jeni Britton: I built the company — we built the company — that you would build if you were 12 and you just did it the way that you thought everybody did it.

ALICIA: WHAT IF… you really listened to the kid in you?

From the time she was a young girl, Jeni Britton wanted to be in charge of her own life, and to build something that the kid in her would love. In 2002 she founded Jeni's Spendid Ice Creams, with an offering of surprising flavors that have kept people coming back for more. I ate a whole pint of Brown Butter Almond Brittle last weekend and it was incredible — best homework ever.

But equally important is the special mission Jeni gave her small business: to bring people together and take care of them in the process. Her passion for sustainability is a core ingredient in that mission — so the whole thing a recipe for something good, that just keeps getting better…

Alicia: Jeni, thank you so much for joining us.

Jeni: Oh, thank you so much. It's so fun to be here.

Alicia: I have to say, I can't believe how meaningful ice cream has been in my life.

Jeni: I feel you.

Alicia: Yeah.

Jeni: I know. You're, you're coming into my world now. [laughs]

Alicia: [laughs] Exactly. Exactly. You know I was thinking about, I was the youngest of five girls and so it was very rare I was with my mother alone when I was little. But once in a while, she would take me shopping and we would stop at the Howard Johnson's and she would get me a small chocolate chip ice cream, on a sugar cone, and that is still my default,

Jeni: I think there's a thing about ice cream, it really is sort of transportive in a beautiful way. Everyone sees themselves in their flavor just a little bit.

Alicia: Hmm.

Jeni: So when you choose the flavor that you choose, if you're a chocolate person or a mint chocolate chip person or, peaches and sweet cream and, and butter biscuits, you get to tell somebody else a little bit about yourself. Almost always, the people who come to an ice cream counter will then turn to each other and answer the question, "Why did you get that? Why that flavor?"

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: And that is where you get to learn something about someone and they get to learn something about you.

Alicia: I love how keyed-in you are to people's reactions. How has that played into your life as an entrepreneur?

Jeni: I think of myself as a start-small-and-build entrepreneur. It's different than what a lot of entrepreneurs are now, which is the pitch-and-launch entrepreneur. You know, you, you have an idea, you go get money and then you, launch as big as you can and you grow as fast as you can. I had a different story. I grew very, very, very slowly and I spent 10 years actually boots on the ground, going to work every day in a farmer's market, buying ingredients from the farmers, making them into ice cream and then giving samples and scoops over the counter. I learned, listening to feedback,that we can get better all the time.

Alicia: And Jeni, I know you chose to focus on sustainability right from the beginning. Why?

Jeni: Sustainability is really about relationships with people. And wanting to do the best for each other and community. I don't know. You know, Maybe it's because I'm a mid-westerner and I was brought up by artists here and I just had a different way of looking at the world or my own possibility, But I built the company — we built the company — that you would build if you were 12 and you just did it the way that you thought everybody did it. Everybody says they make things from scratch. Everybody says they pay people fairly. When I was 22 and I started, you know, working on what this could become, it was just gonna be the most good it possibly can be. And then, pretty soon after I started making ice cream I realized that not everybody makes their ice cream from scratch. In fact, almost no one does.

Alicia: And it's hard to, I would think, maintain your 12-year-old self in that way.

Jeni: But I got to build my own world and, for the most part, I've gotten to live in that. So I have preserved that sense of wonder and curiosity.

Alicia: You know, y- you talk about being 12 and I think you said you moved to Columbus when you were 12 and you've mostly been there since, although I know you do a lot of traveling. Um, what was is it like growing up there, Jeni?

Jeni: I mean, I was from central Illinois, and it wasn't even Peoria. It was a big shift for me, but also, it, it has remained sort of a refuge. We have a lot of creativity here. We have a lot of culture here, but, once I started getting used to going to San Francisco, New York, and especially L.A. and Nashville and Atlanta, I began to understand how a really intense, creative, talent-based culture can actually be really oppressive to people like me who are more introverted and actually who just need space. I find my most, most of my creativity comes from places like the forest, um, places that have no other people, places... You know, solitude. But then I love getting together with people. I love coming back together with people. I love being inspired by people. I just can't be around it and in it all the time. I need a break. And so Columbus has really been that for me I think. It's been a lot of things for me.

Alicia: Yeah. It sounds like it's where you created your world and it's also now where you escape to or it is your refuge in the way you're describing it.

Jeni: It's interesting as well that Columbus wasn't, in quotes, "on the map". Because of that, I could try and fail and try and fail and try and fail over two decades until I got everything right and, and was so far out in front of any competition because they just weren't watching. Whereas, you know, whereas if I had started this in Portland or Brooklyn or Austin or any of the other cities with, with very ingrained, identifiable, creative cultures, it would've been immediately picked up and copied by other people. It would've become a concept. Whereas, for me and my company, it's just not copyable because it's so, um, it's just got so, so nuanced. There's so many details to how we do things whether it's the molecular science behind how we make our ice creams and take milk apart and put it back together, um, as dairy people first, um, or how we do art and design in house, which is a really complicated thing to do which is why most people don't do it, especially small companies.

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: Or if we had to grow faster, it would not have worked.

Alicia: So you end up at Ohio State, um, and you begun, begin studying, I think, art history and fine arts. I wondered if you could take us back to that, Jeni?

Jeni: Ohio State's a massive place. It's a city into itself. Um, you can learn about anything there. There, at one time there was a class on vampire mythology or folklore. I really just loved it. I loved being there. I found the place where what I loved to do and the things that drive me can be of value to the world. And that sounds crazy that it's ice cream and that I got ice cream from studying vampire folklore, but I really did. So, I was also working at a French bakery and, um, more and more I was getting into scent, and I um just trying to figure out like, "Could I be a perfumer?" I don't like synthetic perfumes necessarily, but I love scent so much and I started to re-, research and realized that there's a whole career, there's a whole bunch of stuff you could do in scent, it’s very similar to art in that sort of sensorial experience way…

Alicia: Right!

Jeni: And then one day it hit me, that ice cream is a perfect carrier of scent. And I knew that because I'd been researching what ancient perfumers used to carry scent, which is fats that are solid at room temperature, but melt on contact with your skin. Not all fats are like that, but butterfat happens to be one of those fats. And I could infuse just cream or milk and cream with scent and then lock it in in the freezing process, and as soon as it hits your tongue, it melts and blooms all of that scent. And, and all ... Everything like hit me all at once the first time I did that.

Alicia: Mm-hmm [affirmative] .

Jeni: And when I started making ice cream, everything that I'm doing today, 25 years later, hit me all at once. It was like, "Oh my goodness, ice cream is amazing and it can be so much better and more interesting." And if I can make ice cream that sets the standard in America, there's opportunity there.

Alicia: You start your business in the market, boots on the ground, learning from so many people. How did that first ice cream business go?

Jeni: Well, it was like a lot of things, uh, when you try it for the first time. I thought it was going to be easy, um, or at least easier. And I thought I was going to be really good at it and I wasn't. I didn't have any help. So there's the burnout factor that comes into it. I began to learn by the end, some of it. But most of my mistakes I didn't even understand until after I closed. One of the big ones was that I was still thinking like an artist, I thought that I could make any flavor that I wanted to and that everybody would be really excited. And truly, you can make someone's day by just being excellent, by having what they came for.

Alicia: Yeah.

Jeni: So, it was a lot of stuff like that. Like finally realizing, um, you know that I thought I was serving people, but I really wasn't. And I had to find a way to really bring together what my talents are, my vision, and my passion. I had to merge that with what people want and what people expect and their standards.

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: And so in that way, entrepreneurship is an act of co-creation with your community. And that's your community of customers, people who work for you, and your suppliers, and just everybody in that whole sphere.

Alicia: And so what did you do then? I mean, you had this reflection, in terms of what you didn't want to do again. But then how did you get back on it?

Jeni: Once I figured that out, I started writing a plan. And I, tried to think about how I was gonna get the money to start this up. Because I knew I was gonna need about $30,000. And I was very scrappy. I'm still very scrappy. But like, you know, um, I didn't have credit. I didn't have a way of going to the bank and getting an SBA loan.

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: And I also didn't have family who was gonna give me enough to be collateral for that. So, I had to just kind of think differently about it. So I had a family that I was nannying for. I mean I was there all the time. Stayed there when they went out of town. I mean, three wonderful children that I- I was with constantly. And they were the only people that I knew that had any money. And they said, they would love to give me the money And I rejoiced for one quick second. And then they said, "But don't take it. Don't take money from us or anyone right now. Because if you do, they will own your company. And you need to- hold onto that."

Alicia: Wow.

Jeni: They were just giving me the best advice that they knew. The most real advice. They said, "The money is here. You can have it whenever you need it. You can think of it as a rainy day fund. But exhaust every other option first. Try to get it from the bank." And I thought, I'm never gonna get it from the bank, and I cried the whole way home. I was like, this was like my only chance. It's the only one I knew that had any money. So, I went home and then, um, and then what happened is I had this boyfriend. Well, he ended up being my husband for 20 years. And that's Charlie. Wonderful human being, and Charlie knew how much passion I had for this. And he was like, let's- let's try to go to the bank together. Maybe if we go together we can- we can get what we need. It's not that much. You know. And he had like a real job. You know, he was like a- a- a not a librarian, but a data scientist working for like the- library you know. So. So we did that. He went to the bank with me. We went in together. And uh, and that was how I was able to get that- initial loan.

Alicia: It sounds like this community that you created around you was supporting you all the way, in their own ways.

Jeni: That's right. And, um, and I would say that is the same as it is today. You know, when you are an idea person or like, um, a generator kind of person, you need people in your life that support you. And you have to support people back. It's this beautiful relationship that you make with this community you build around yourself. It becomes this beautiful fellowship.

Alicia: I love that word fellowship. Is that a model you use? How does that translate to how you run your business?

Jeni: It is everything for me. It actually comes from Tolkien. It's the Fellowship of the Rings. I had read Tolkien as a kid. Or- or my grandmother read it to me. I love all sci-fi, fantasy that's just the way that I think. I like imagination. But I also love how sci-fi and fantasy are very- very philosophical. These are really big stories, but they are, um, taken from the small everyday things that we as humans are always overcoming. And so they serve as these big inspirational — gosh, almost roadmaps. I mean, that's how I always looked at them in a way.

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: Just, I mean, everything from like Star Wars, you know, to the Lord of the Rings, to Star Trek and all of that. So fellowship to me was- everybody brings in their uniqueness, their talent, their awesomeness, and together we make something greater than the sum of its parts. And we're on a mission, we're united by our values. So yes it has become a model.

Alicia: Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of fellowship, I understand you source the majority of your ingredients I think from- from the state that you're in, from Ohio. Is that right?

Jeni: All of our dairy, a lot of our, um, produce. But for us, really - it goes back to having relationships with people. Because we know that, um, if the Hirsch family is growing sweet potatoes and blackberries and strawberries and blueberries for us — like one year, Mike Hirsch realized that we could space out our strawberries over a six week period instead of a two week period if we did three different varieties. And that way we didn't get 6,000 pounds of strawberries in our kitchen in over one week or two weeks. It was just a lot to have to process. So there's just little quality improvements that you can do when you work directly with people and when you knew each other and what each other is going through. Same is true fr whiskey. We can't use whiskey, finished whiskey in our ice creams because it has too much alcohol. So, we just went to our whiskey distillers, who are right down the street from our kitchen, and we asked them, "What can we do?" And they were like, oh, we can interrupt the process at this point, it'll still taste like super strong whiskey, but it's less alcohol. And so, you can do various things when you know each other. Human relationships are very, very important to us. That goes back to that fellowship.

Alicia: And the co-creation uh that you've been talking about.

Jeni: Yep.

Alicia: And I'm wondering, Jeni, for you, how has the practice of sustainability, how has that evolved over the years?

Jeni: Well, of course, it's evolved — you know, it's sometimes hard to figure out what the best most impactful thing we can do today is. And so those are questions that we're always asking. What I love about being a certified B Corp, which means that we are certified by an independent company, a third party, basically we just believe that business can be a powerful force for good in the world. But the cool thing is that we're held accountable by this other company. The B Lab. And they come in and do a very long, very intense audit every two years. And they look at stuff that's not marketable, that's so behind the scenes that you'll never be able to convince somebody to buy your ice cream because you do this. And they give you a number, kind of like if you're a LEED certified architect.

Alicia: Ah.

Jeni: And the great thing that I think about this system is you're expected to grow that number every year. You're not expected to stay the same.

Alicia: So constantly improve.

Jeni: Constantly improvement. And I think that's really cool. So we can kind of rely on them, and there's a lot of different areas we can- we can tweak. But we can rely on them. We can choose the areas where we think we can be the most impactful. And um, and then go deep on those and make a- make a vision for that.

Alicia: A vision that is monitored. A vision that is measured. And then you're able to see the progress and deliver on that.

Jeni: Yep. It's a process just like anything else we do in business. And um, you know, you can't- it's like a garden, you can't be lush and green everywhere. You're gonna be drying up and withering up over there while you're lush and green over here but you're always trying to manage your resources in the best way you possibly can. And uh, and I would say sustainability is very much like that as well. Composting is important, and so we will call up, you know, and find the local small business that's enabling composting in any given community. I mean, it's a big thing, um, but, also, of course, in how we hire and our, like, diversity initiatives, of course, um, but that also goes back to fellowship for me. Like, you know —

Alicia: Right.

Jeni: — you have to have different voices at the table, and that's just so important, and so, uh, can we be a company of actual flavor? You know ... Sometimes, when I think about sustainability, I think of environmental, but it isn't just that. It's, it's ... For me, it's community.

Alicia: It's your fellowship you're talking about, it's —

Jeni: It really is. And if you put people first, you naturally then want to do things, like composting, or how can we continue to get better dairy, like grass pasture dairy or, or, you know, whatever and even our sort of shift into really gorgeous botanical-based ice creams? Um, so, so always being open to, to possibility and the potential really important. I think that that — first of all it's a hard thing to fake as a company, but second of all it's a hard thing to be.

Alicia: Yeah, and you foster that as a leader, I can tell.

Jeni: Mm-hmm. I mean, we have to take care of our resources because, otherwise, we're nothing. So that is where those two sort of sides of our mission come from.

Alicia: Hmm.

Jeni: It comes from a long, uh, time being an ice cream lover and then a long time being an ice cream maker in a market and just listening.

Alicia: Well, thank you. You know, I think I knew in researching you, I might get a masterclass in ice cream, but I don't think I knew I was gonna get a masterclass in how to think about life, Jeni. So, thank you so much for joining us.

Jeni: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. It means so much for me that you say that and see that. So, thank you, and thanks for having me on today, too.

ALICIA:

In her quest to make the best ice cream in the world, Jeni Britton also discovered what makes a business truly great: people working together to be more sustainable, health and supportive. The value of that "fellowship," as she calls it, has become the inspiration for her life's work.

What would you like the power to do?

You've been listening to Bank of America’s “That Made All the Difference”. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Alicia Burke and I’ll talk to you soon.

What if where you were born inspired your life’s work? Hear how growing up in the rural South drove Catherine Coleman Flowers to become one of America’s top advocates for environmental justice. From clean water to climate solutions, Catherine has fought tirelessly for the place she calls home.

Catherine Flowers: It shows you that if you plant seeds, they will grow, and sometimes they grow in unexpected ways.

Alicia Burke: WHAT IF where you were born inspired your life's work?

Catherine Coleman Flowers is a celebrated advocate for environmental justice and a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. She’s the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, where she works tirelessly to raise awareness and find solutions for the lack of clean water and adequate sanitation across the rural south. Her book came out last year, called Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret. And it describes her quest to bring sustainable living conditions to rural areas of historic poverty.

I asked Catherine to kick off our conversation by explaining just what "environmental justice" means to her...

Catherine: Well, to me, environmental justice is when the community that's impacted has the opportunity to be at the table and make decisions about anything that will come in their midst that will impact the environment and that will also impact their health. Oftentimes when we talk about environmental justice we don't think about health. I think that COVID has helped us to underscore the importance of health and how it impacts the entire public in terms of choices that we make. And generally, in environmental justice communities, they do not have the opportunity to decide, you know, whether or not they are near a super fund site. Those are decisions that are taken out of their hands. And a lot of times these communities are poor communities, or they're communities that have been marginalized in other ways.

Alicia: You've written about how Lowndes County in rural Alabama bears a number of these challenges. But it's also a place of great beauty and strength.

Catherine: I spent most of my growing up years in Lowndes County, just being out, being a country girl. It was very community oriented. Everybody was so close to each other. Miss Ida who lived behind us would always give people things from her garden. Miss Nell who lived down the road from us had a pump, a manual pump. You know, it was one of the relics of my childhood was seeing people going there to carry water to their homes, because most people didn't have water inside their homes. They didn't have indoor plumbing at all. But it was a real strong sense of community. The children from the area where we lived — we would get together on Sundays and walk to church. And that was at least five miles one way. I think that's a part of the experience, you know. If you can walk and see corn fields, pick an ear of corn and sink your teeth into it or be able to pick plums offa trees. I mean, we didn't have to worry about going into the house to get a snack, it was all around us.

Alicia: Lowndes County, Catherine, is also called “Bloody Lowndes.” Why is that?

Catherine: Well, it was called Bloody Lowndes because there were so many people that were killed in Lowndes County. The county was majority black and this was at the end of slavery and the way the white landholders kept political control, especially at the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, was through violence.

But Lowndes County was unique as well because a lot of the killings that took place there are — you know, people knew about it. They became famous as a result of it. And so, against the backdrop of all of that was developing, you know, my outlook and my social consciousness that I think is very much a part of who I am today. I came from a family that was not afraid.

Alicia: And your parents, JC and Mattie Coleman — they were both activists themselves, right?

Catherine: Yes. My mother was very gregarious and people liked coming to our home because she was going to cook them a meal. She had been, uh — a lot of people are now talking about, especially with the COVID vaccines, people are talking about Tuskegee and the Tuskegee Experiment.

But also, women were sterilized at John A. Andrew Hospital in Tuskegee, and my mother was one of them. So she became one of the persons to organize women who had been sterilized, so that they could get some justice.

And then my father was a veteran who flew a flag out in front of our house every day. He talked about his service. And he felt that he had the right to fight for all the benefits that went along with being an American citizen, because he had served his country five years, four months, and 17 days. We heard that all of our lives. [laughs]

Alicia: You actually followed in your father’s footsteps and joined the military. You met your husband in the Air Force and you actually got into health advocacy because of something that happened to him...

Catherine: My husband — we were married for two months, two months to the date, when he was injured in the military. And they, they were not trying to offer any help to him. Ultimately, I had to do a lot of research. I found out about a group that did a lot of research on head injuries. They sent me a lot of information. And that was before we had computers, there was no Google — I had to do through letter writing and phone calls. Being an advocate for him — that was just another way in which I was able to sharpen my skills by applying them to a real life situation.

Alicia: So you’ve got this deep, family and community background in activism. And then you apply it to what happened to your husband. What was it that ultimately drew you to environmental justice?

Catherine: Well, when I grew up in Lowndes County we were living next to a lot of cotton fields. And they would spray those cotton fields with DDT. We would see dead birds and dead snakes, even, whenever they would spray the DDT. And it made me wonder how did it impact us, because some of those people, they live like right in the middle of those fields.

And, and this was being done with a plane that was flying over us. No way it could control where it would eventually go, and then later, of course, we found out that DDT was poisonous, and could potentially cause cancer. And they, you know, they outlawed it. But we were exposed to it as children.

So my journey started off as a young person just loving Mother Earth and nature, to seeing that we have gotten to a point, a level of selfishness in the world that we have extracted and destroyed so much that that garden that was provided for all of us to share is now in jeopardy. And we have to change the way we live so that we can make sure that generations to come will have something that will sustain life.

Alicia: One of the things I noticed, Catherine, that's a throughline in your life: you're always bringing people to see something for themselves.

Catherine: A lot of people don't understand it unless they actually go and see it. And once they see it, then they can't shake it. And that's just Lowndes County. There's a lot of people making policy for communities that they have never ever been in. They don't know how the policies may negatively impact those communities. There's the environmental justice issues, with sanitation. And then of course, there's the poor housing stock that's there. And people should have access to sustainable housing, because climate change -- it's not gonna get better. There are families that are going to be dislocated or die because they're in homes that are just simply not sustainable, and Alabama has become tornado alley. Last year we had the highest death toll from tornadoes in the United States. And Lowndes County is full of mobile homes. And these mobile homes, are not resilient when it comes to weather.

Alicia: In your book, Catherine, you tell stories of the people for whom all of this has come together in an incredibly difficult way. People like Pamela Rush. Would you share a little bit here?

Catherine: A lot of people in Lowndes County are living in extreme poverty.

And Pamela Rush, she represented that. She lived in a mobile home and she was still paying on it, because her family had been part of a predatory lending situation. And there was mold and mildew throughout the home. Her daughter was sleeping with a CPAP machine. Uh, it was terrible, but there was no way out. And she was straight-piping, which means when she flushed her toilet, it was going out on top of the ground.

Alicia: And that's a common situation there?

Catherine: I remember going to a place where, the health department had called me because they wanted to put this woman in jail. She was in her 20s and she was pregnant. And they had threatened to put her in jail because she could not afford the on-site septic system. Just outside the back door of her mobile home was a pit full of raw sewage, and it was teeming with mosquitoes. I had on a dress that day because I took with me a reporter from the AP, and as we went out back the mosquitoes just bit me. I had so many bites on my leg. And it was later my body broke out in a rash. I went to my doctor and she couldn't figure out what it was. It stayed on my body for close to six months.

Alicia: So, just by going to someone’s house for a few hours you had your health impacted… How do you begin to address something like that?

Catherine: I've been fortunate to be able to work with and learn from people like Dr. Peter Hotez, who now has become a staple in talking about COVID and how we deal with that. And he was a person that I reached out to many years ago.

Alicia: Right — and I understand that one of the things you ultimately discovered was that something was going on in the South that people thought we’d gotten rid of a long time ago...

Catherine: When I read Dr. Hotez's op-ed in the New York Times about tropical diseases being in our area, he also talked about wastewater and I went and Googled him, and told him about what I suspected in Lowndes County. That's when I asked the question to Dr. Hotez, "Is it possible that we have something here that American doctors are not trained to look for, because they don't expect to find raw sewage on the ground? And he said, "Catherine, I'm gonna send my parasitologists there. We're gonna look for hookworm." And he was able to use his knowledge as a medical doctor and a scientist to know what resources we needed.

And we basically did this community-driven project where we collected the fecal samples.

Alicia: So, I know that hookworm is a parasite that people can get from living around raw sewage. And nobody was thinking that rural residents were contracting hookworm anymore these days. But you proved them wrong!

The straight-piping that you mentioned before — was it the culprit in people getting hookworm?

Catherine: Straight piping is part of it, and some of the people that tested positive were straight piping, but we also found people that were paying wastewater fees because of failing sewage, failing technology, they're coming back into their homes and their yards!

The vision in the short-term is to see, uh, investment in new technologies to address wastewater treatment because the current technologies are failing, and they're not just failing in Lowndes County, they're failing around the US. The liability should not be transferred to the homeowner because then there's no incentive to create a better product. A lot of the technologies that are out there are not dealing with climate change. They don't deal with frequent rain. They're failing more frequently now. And that's why I'm pushing for, legislation that will provide warranties, service and parts warranties for these, these technologies, because that's the only thing that's going to push the type of research and development necessary to make sure that these systems don't keep failing.

That's where the health inequities are coming in. But now, people are speaking out that were silent around the country, even places like the Hamptons. They're talking about their failing wastewater treatment systems too, because they have on-site systems. You know, more recently I went to Mount Vernon, New York, which is about 30 minutes from Times Square. And I saw just as much raw sewage, more raw sewage there coming into people's home than, 'cause you have more people. You know, they're more densely populated.

Alicia: Right. And when you think of the long term — the bigger picture — is your approach different?

Catherine: What we're doing, uh, we're not waiting. My organization has been inspired by the space program, how they treat wastewater in outer space. And we're working to flip the engineering paradigm to bring together impacted people and aerospace engineers to see if we could come up with some technology that can work right here on earth that is affordable, that takes wastewater and turn it into something that we can use, and also, uh, will be, uh, something that we can see in most homes and will not be a big pipe system that can ultimately end up polluting our rivers and streams. We have to research and find this technology, and we're looking for partners to help us with this effort.

For those of us that plan to have children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, we have to leave a livable planet for them. Everybody's not going to be able to get on a spaceship and go somewhere else. I mean, we have to seek those solutions. And climate change is something that is manmade, but we also, we're, we're not at a point where we just give up, throw our, our, up our hands, and don't do anything about it. We can do something about it, and that's where the hope come in.

Alicia: Well, your work gives hope to a lot of people, it’s given me hope. But sometimes, you know, the problems just seem so big it’s easy to feel like throwing up your hands.

How do you keep your spirits up?

Catherine: You know, of course, I, I, I have fear sometimes, but I also have faith. And my faith balances my fear. I think that I, I am blessed to have the talent to pay attention to what's going on around me. And I try to read a lot of, lot of different sources, I talk to a lot of different people, and I think that some of it comes with age, you know. I'm 63 and a lot of this is wisdom.

One of the things my father taught us is that God gave all of us common sense, but he also gave knowledge to other people that can help us. There's a lot of people that have no trust in science. I have a lot of trust in science, because just like God gave me the talents that I have, He gave somebody else different talents, and I have to respect and trust that. When I don't know something, I'll reach out to people that know more about it than I do. I'm trying to deal with solutions, so what I've tried to do is go in with an open mind.

Alicia: Catherine, you know, I am so moved by your openness and your fearlessness. And your tenacity! It makes me think of what you've said about your parents. I imagine you got so much from them.

Catherine: I always — I run into people, when they find out that I'm JC and Mattie's daughter, they open their doors to me. The people that work with me, the work that I do around wastewater, uh, in Lowndes County, — I, I'm just finding out that some of the people that work with me, that my mother, um, she worked with. It shows you that if you plant seeds, they will grow, and sometimes they grow in unexpected ways. Lowndes County is still one of the poorest places in the United States. But it also breeds some of the most forward-thinking activists, because we have had to make do out of nothing. At the same time, with our eyes bent toward justice.

I'm building upon the trust that my parents built, and I'm continuing their legacy.

Alicia: Catherine, I really appreciate the passion, sand the grace you bring to this crucial challenge. You're such an inspiration.

Catherine: Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to bring about the change that we need not only for ourselves and our children, but as I said in the book, for seven generations to come.

Alicia: Catherine Coleman Flowers took the lessons of her family and her community, and built a powerful network of neighbors, scientists and policymakers. Undeterred in her quest to solve the clean water and sanitation issues of the rural south, she’s a source of inspiration for moving forward with hope and determination during challenging times.

What would you like the power to do?

You've been listening to Bank of America’s “That Made All the Difference”. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

I’m Alicia Burke and I’ll talk to you soon.

That Made All the Difference – Season 4

Hear from our Season 4 guests:

SEASON 4: EPISODE 5 Andrew Heinrich, Founder and Executive Director, Project Rousseau

SEASON 4: EPISODE 4 Matt Damon and Gary White, Water.org and WaterEquity co-founders

SEASON 4: EPISODE 3 Jeni Britton, Founder & Chief Creative Officer Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams

SEASON 4: EPISODE 2 Catherine Coleman Flowers, Environmental Justice Activist

Other seasons

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

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