Let Me Tell You This About That

Rise from the Ashes: A Journey of Love, Hunger, and Community

• Hess and Delbert • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Hess, broadcasting from Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas, and Delbert from the green couch in her living room, dive into stories of love, memories, and community support. This episode highlights the journey of creating Carole’s Kitchen, addressing childhood hunger, and the difference it makes in the lives of students in Louisville. They also reflect on adventurous family moments and the importance of giving with an open heart. Tune in for an emotional and uplifting episode filled with hope and inspiration. What can you do to make a difference?  It starts small, one step at a time.  Or maybe it starts with just sitting with the person next to you?

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools.





Hess:

Welcome back y'all. Thanks so much for joining us again. This is, Let Me Tell You This About That. And I'm Hess

Delbert:

And I'm Delbert again, live from the green couch and Hess you're still live from Green Turtle, right?

Hess:

still live from green turtle key in the Abaco of the Bahamas. Yeah, we get we're here for another week.

Delbert:

That's awesome.

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah.

Delbert:

I was going to say that you posted a picture on Facebook of Cathy's family leaving. And I'm like, there's a lot of love on that dock.

Hess:

Whoa.

Delbert:

lot of love on that dock

Hess:

yeah.

Delbert:

boarding the boat. You all hugging each other. I can tell you all had just an amazing, fun family time together.

Hess:

And I told you all on the pod last week my mom just has short term memory. Now ask me if my cousin, Nancy, who is Dewey was coming down with me this trip and I swallowed and I said, yep, she is. It's Dewey that's passed. And she brought Delbert and I, who have known each other for 60 years, brought us back together on the day that she died. We were by her bedside and Dewey came down here to the Bahamas with us frequently. And the Bahamas is not an easy place to get to. And most of the time we would drive down to Fort Lauderdale and catch a puddle jumper across. I didn't say this about that is, is Dewey would ask my dad, Uncle Jesse can you pay for me for my flight with Hess to go to the Bahamas? And my dad always would, it was so sweet taking care of her.

Delbert:

He did. She loved it. And she'd say she said uncle Jess is going to be my sponsor again for this year's trip to the Bahamas.

Hess:

So to say more about this, about that is very special people have come here

with us. Cathy's brother's

Hess:

been here a lot with us. And her sister. Has always lived in Fresno, California. And this is the first year that her sister and her sister's family, her son, she has two kids, but her son was able to make it with his two kids, his wife and his mother in law. So it's the first time that they came all the way from the West coast of California to, to this little place. And they loved it. They ate it up. It was such a good time. And it was, it's just an adventure. There's no TV here at the house. There's just the ocean out front, the beach, the coral out front, and just slow time. We sat around the fire last night. Cathy makes a fire out on the beach every night. We sat around the fire, and they each said what their high was, and what was so good about it. And it was really wonderful to hear how it touched them. And Delbert it is always difficult. We, it was they came on a red eye to be able to get here the next day. They left at four o'clock in the afternoon and then they got here at 2 30 the next day because it takes so long to get here. And when things are hard, it's worth that effort. And when thing, you got to put in the effort it's not sweet without sweat is what Bunny Doherty always said coach Doherty, our basketball coach. And you're about to go tomorrow to New York with one of your darlings.

Delbert:

I'm getting so excited about that and I'll have a lot more talk about next week. Yes, we're going to go see Luna, which is this really incredible art installation. a lot, a number of artists are involved. Salvador Dali is the one that comes to mind a lot of artists and it's it's an amusement park that they designed. And so that's the main theme. And, my little darling's learning about that in school and was really interested in it and had been reading about it. And so just decided that's a great thing to do for Christmas and for sweet 16 birthday combined. So we're gonna. to New York, early tomorrow morning, stay at the Chelsea Hotel, and then again run, Rudolph. We're gonna, we got like a huge itinerary for tomorrow. Then Luna is on Sunday. It was gonna be the closing day, but they actually extended it because so many people wanted to see it. So it's really cool. They just uncovered like these containers of all of this art Everything from this exhibit, in January of 2022. And so they've been working put it together. So it's going to be at the shed in New York city, or it is at the shed in New York city right now. So are super excited and just, packing and, like we said, it's so great to plan. It's so great to look forward. It, all those things in your life that. Are so wonderful, the planning, the doing, the believe in the dreaming, all of those wonderful things keep us going, keep us thriving

Hess:

Yeah. So podsters, usually we have our coffee conversations on Sunday morning. So since Delbert is leaving at 6 AM tomorrow, which is Saturday. We are, she's leaving the fourth Saturday morning, January 4th. We're doing our little pod today, this afternoon because she won't be here Sunday morning. So we'll put this out a little bit early. For you. It's

Delbert:

and that person who asked when it was scheduled to go out. Hey, it will go out early. There you go.

Hess:

Yeah. So looking ahead and planning, let's go back. If you wouldn't mind, you talked about the hard stuff that you went through after your sister's death. The accident that was caused by a woman that was on. So on, she was addicted to opioids and she had a drug concoction in her blood that even made a third drug, you'd said and talked about going through that hard time and how you flipped over that hard rock that hit you and turned it over to being able to serve and to do some good in her name. So go ahead, Delbert. Tell us more about carole and what you all, the family helped make happen after that bad accident.

Delbert:

Well, 1 of my favorite stories about Carole's kitchen is right after we. Filed for our 501 c3 and got that letter back. We we're really just saying, no, we can't really imitate the Carole's kitchen at Marshall because that's just a really special thing. And we knew from our involvement with blessings in a backpack that we wanted to serve. Children and families in need and that very basic human need that the food very 1st, the very 1st thing that you need to live and to thrive is to have nourishment. And I really was just for a place for Carole's Kitchen, I think I mentioned that I served on the board for a while at Blessings, for about three years I served on the board there, and that's really how I learned a lot about childhood hunger, the best way to address it is generally in the schools, that you can, first of all, the kids are there, and second of all, you can send it home with them. Over the weekend, which is when they really have that gap when they're not getting breakfast and lunch at school. so I was at a board meeting and gentleman, Robert Holmes, the III from Seneca High School, came into that meeting and he sat down next to me. And about halfway through it, we broke off and started talking. He said, I don't even know if I'm in the right place or not, because this sounds like this is all for elementary kids. And I'm, I work at a high school. He said, but I've got a big problem. I've got the highest homeless population any school in Jefferson County right now, and I've got kids that have come to school passing out. They're so hungry.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

and I looked at him and I said, you are in exactly the right place. I said, God brought you to me because I'm going to start feeding the kids at your school. And that's how Carole's Kitchen started at Seneca.

Hess:

So Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky had the highest homeless rate of students. Wow.

Delbert:

And that year that we started it, which is incredible because people like Diane Sawyer and Wes Unsell and, back in the day, the school was just thriving. And it was, 1 of the really popular high schools to go to in Louisville when we were growing up. And so that was really shocking to me. And it's the homeless rate has dropped since then. There are other schools that have a little bit higher rate than Seneca. But I really didn't have any money to speak of. And my account, my Carole's Kitchen account, we had a little fundraiser that year. at Saints Bar and we raised about 2, 500 I had a food drive. I asked my bosses if I could have a food drive at our office and that was just overwhelming. I had a whole room full of food at the end of the week and it was something I just put together right after I met him. This was like maybe in November and we're headed into the holidays Two of my friends from Kentucky Select, Logan Omerod and Ryan Davis, drove two carloads of food to Seneca High School. And that's how we started our pantry. Drive, with zero money. And so that's been going on really strong. We got alumni involved and we started having a golf scramble. In the years shortly after that, and today we raise, over 20, 000 at our golf scramble every year to feed Seneca that just to tell people, if you don't have a lot, don't give up, we started very humbly. our first fundraiser only made a little over 2, 500, we had very little in our account and I didn't know how I was going to feed a hundred kids, but I just trusted and believed and told people, really have to talk about in the world because people need to be aware of them. People need to know about them, and I post a lot about childhood hunger just because I want people to know that it's real and it's out there. Like you and I were talking how you know, a lot of this epidemic got started, this opioid epidemic got started because people were in pain, and they were trying to numb that, that's okay if you just had surgery, but it's not okay for everyday life. You got to feel it. You got to live it. You got to push through it. And you've got to grow from it. That's when your biggest growth comes, when it's hard, when you're pushing pain.

Hess:

Delbert, I've been involved with the Foster Care Review Board in Kentucky for about 18, 19 years now. And our kids that are in foster care in Kentucky has grown so much because of this opioid epidemic where, you know their parent has OD'd in the car and they're in the backseat and so forth, things like that. There's so many more kids in the state care now that because of this epidemic. How do kids even get to school if they're homeless? What's, how's, explain more about that to me. What did you learn about that? The homeless kids?

Delbert:

The high school kids are a little bit luckier than the elementary school kids. The person who started the pantry who went to the, Robert Holmes was the truancy officer and also the athletic director at Seneca at the time. That, how we found out about everything was that he was. chronically late he was, he played on the football team. So Mr. Holmes knew him and he just said, what is going on? What's, and he said, I have to get all my brothers and sisters up and get them ready for school and try to find them something to eat. time. I do whatever I need to do to get everybody fed and get everybody to school. Like he was I think he was a junior or senior and he drove everybody to school, got everybody ready. His mother was in prison. He was really the catalyst that started, but you wouldn't believe it. Some of these kids walk to school by themselves. They get their selves on the bus. Even the elementary school children, a lot of the kids at, One of our elementary schools here in Louisville that's very close to the Wayside Christian Mission. They walk to school from the homeless shelter. So you see them just walking across the field, The shelter to the school. And here's the thing, even these little bitty, I call them babies they're five, they're in,

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

That's where the love is. They know that's where the warmth and the food is, and they find a way to get themselves to school. They really do.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

They get themselves up. They get themselves dressed. a lot of times they come to school without having a shower. And so there's a lot of things that we implemented after getting the food in, like hygiene products and a washer and dryer. So kids who maybe don't have clean clothes can wash their clothes at school.

Hess:

Nice. Nice.

Delbert:

A lot of kids,

Hess:

A little clothes pantry there at school where they could wear something else while their clothes are being washed.

Delbert:

Almost all the schools have these wonderful counselors, the family resource coordinators, they do, work in all of our schools, and they make sure the kids have clothes. They have food. They get to clean up if they need to. All of these basic necessities before they can even start their day Even start and My brother talks about one time being Santa Claus for blessings in a backpack. It's at a school and little boy The only clean place on his face was where his tears had

Hess:

Oh,

Delbert:

brother just said

Hess:

wow.

Delbert:

need to tell me anything? Are you okay? What can I and he couldn't speak he was crying so hard but my brother hugged him and we loaded him up with food and gave him a candy cane and,

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

That sometimes that's all you can do. But

Hess:

Yeah. During the presidential campaign we heard the vice presidential candidate on the Democrats, him talking about how in in Minnesota he started that, that free breakfast, free lunch. For everybody or anybody you didn't have to prove anything about qualifying for it. Cause that can be embarrassing sometimes that kind of paperwork or these

Delbert:

exactly,

Hess:

to fill that stuff out. That how can anybody learn if they're hungry? Where's your mind? If you're hungry,

Delbert:

exactly

Hess:

how do you think, how, where's your energy come from? If you haven't had that protein?

Delbert:

right. And just even beyond that, behavioral problems stem from it. Your bones and your muscles aren't developing, your brain's not developing you start reacting to things, irrationally, and you lash out and, people, young kids and teenagers have behavioral problems due to hunger.

Hess:

And. I'm sitting here I know that feeling of being hangry, and that's only after I haven't eaten, after five hours, not less, a few days.

Delbert:

And we have a local newscaster here, Don G on wave three, and she's a real friend to that works to end childhood hunger. And she asked a little boy 1 time, what he did. If he was hungry, and he said sometimes he ate paper

Hess:

Whoa.

Delbert:

and I told that to one of my friends, Regina, she said, Oh, yeah, she said, we have kids that just chew on the sleeve of their coat or their sweater

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

hunger pains. So it's real. It is real. And. you've ever looked into the face of somebody that's hungry it will change your life and it'll make you want to do whatever you can to end the cycle. And really, if we all work together, we can I said, we've grown from just that one pantry at Seneca to where now we serve, anywhere from 5 to 11 schools at a time making sure kids have things to go home with over the weekend. Our website is caroleskitchen.Org

Hess:

And Carole is spelled, go ahead.

Delbert:

I was just going to say we're revamping it. It'll, but at the very least it'll tell you our history and how we started and our mission statement and

Hess:

So Carol, C-A-R-O-L-E, Carole's Kitchen, s Carole's kitchen. And that's Carol with an E, caroleskitchen.Org.

Delbert:

And you can go and see some of the articles that have been written and like I said, my cousins, it's a family affair. My 1 cousin is our CPA. I have 2 cousins that are in marketing that take care of the website. My daughters helped me in so many ways. Creatively. They helped me with advertising and marketing and just cooking and coming up with recipes. And it's just our whole family gets involved and serves. And I was so proud over Christmas. We had 4 generations that worked on everything

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

to make sure everybody had everything for Christmas. But I, I want to just say. From all of those ashes, we arose. Out of the ashes into a Phoenix, and that's that's an inscription. I'm just loosely quoting it. That's at the gravesite of the Marshall University team they have a huge there. At Marshall University to the team that went down on their plane and how fitting, that, that saying is there because it's, my family feels the exact same way out of something that happened in the exact same town.

Hess:

Yeah, so that's a back story, a Marshall University that the entire team went down in a plane crash. And there's a movie about that. You all can look that up. So Carole's, caroleskitchen.Org and anybody that's listening to our pod, everywhere that you are, anybody, wherever you are, this is happening around you somewhere. How can people find out where they, what they can do, where they live, Delbert? How can they look into childhood hunger and

Delbert:

There's so yeah, there's so many great organizations and I love and dare to care because they both started here in Louisville and they are great organizations that are really organized in, feeding, multiple people. Also no child hungry is a great national organization. So I would just say, look in your community and see, what's going on in your community. What organizations are there and and you'll. You'll be changed forever if you serve at one of these, one of these charities for sure.

Hess:

And I have to attest to, we need more good foster care parents,

Delbert:

Oh, yes.

Hess:

healthy foster care parents that are in it for the love of the child.

Delbert:

Yes. Yes. So many. Yes. And there's so many children out there and a lot of the teenagers And high school, they get to a certain age and they're in an abusive home, they're just emancipated. A lot of our kids live like it boys and girls haven or, in an apartment independent of their family. And sometimes have, just like a hot plate or a microwave. And I don't like to embarrass somebody, but usually I'll say, do you have some place to cook this? If we're all shopping together. But another thing that I really like that we started saying at the pantry my friend, Patty, that helped me started it. Seneca, she went to school there and she's just Patty Frank Cantliner. She's just a go getter. She just, if you tell her about a charity, she knows everything to do to get it up and running. And so she was my cohort in the very beginning with Mr. Holmes getting it started. And we had teachers sometimes, or people that worked in the school saying, now, I know that kid doesn't need anything. If they came to the pantry and she'd say, Hey. It's a judgment free zone. We're yeah. If you come to us and tell us that you want something to eat, we're not going to ask you for your backstory.

Hess:

Amen. Amen.

Delbert:

judgment, free-zone. So I have another good story. We can tell on another podcast about Patty and I, how we started it and

Hess:

Great.

Delbert:

funny inside jokes,

Hess:

Great.

Delbert:

I think it's just a great testament to the human spirit and just to hang in there.

Hess:

Yep.

Delbert:

it, baby. Friday's coming.

Hess:

And also a testament that you can make a difference. One person can make a difference in how you were sitting next to him. You were the blessings in the backpack. You were sitting next to Mr. Holmes and. It starts like the Phoenix. It can it just starts out of

Delbert:

ashes.

Hess:

ashes.

Delbert:

And too, you don't have to be rich, you don't have to be famous, you don't have to, really have anything. If it's in your heart to help, you can do something.

Hess:

If it's in your heart, you have something to give.

Delbert:

Exactly.

Hess:

Amen to that. All right. That's beautiful. I feel like I know Carole so much better with your stories like this to Delbert. I love you and I'm so glad that you've made a Phoenix rise. You've made a Phoenix rise.

Delbert:

I love you, Hess. I hope that you're going to go back out to the beach with Cathy and have a beautiful day. Oh

Hess:

I was already out there snorkeling at high tide today with a friend on the island, Jessica Canada, and we were out there snorkeling, saw a big turtle, small turtle, and we're just scooping in and out of the coral out there looking, and then she saw an eight foot shark, and she pointed it, and she says, okay, let's make a left here and go back to shore.

Delbert:

daddle, oh my goodness.

Hess:

Don't skedaddle fast, don't make a big scene out of it, just swim.

Delbert:

Just swim.

Hess:

Sure. Yeah.

Delbert:

Go back to shore.

Hess:

Y'all love you out there. Thank you so much for listening and

Delbert:

stay away from sharks everybody. and love.

Hess:

yeah, give something from your hearts. We love you and talk to you next week. Delbert have a blast in New York city.

Delbert:

You know it. I feel like Buddy the Elf. I know. First running through the city.

Hess:

Okay. Peace and love you all. And listen to our song. It's so beautiful by Carla Gover and she's got an album. She's making, getting ready to come out. Carla Gover, G O V E R. Look her up. Peace and love. Take care.