Shows
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Prince of a Boy (Pt.2) - Brian McNaughtThis is part two of a two part episode. If you haven't listened to part 1, go back and listen to that one first.When Brian McNaught was in eighth grade, Sister Claire Marie, IHM, a nun at his school in Birmingham, Michigan, pulled his mother aside and proclaimed, “Your son is a prince of a boy.” ‘Did Sister Claire Marie say that because I was well behaved? Nice? Funny? Or did she see in me a vibration as the empathetic soul I aspired and imagined myself to be.” writes McNaught in his new memoir, A Prince of...2025-02-2832 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Prince of a Boy (Pt. 1) - Brian McNaughtWhen Brian McNaught was in eighth grade, Sister Claire Marie, IHM, a nun at his school in Birmingham, Michigan, pulled his mother aside and proclaimed, “Your son is a prince of a boy.” ‘Did Sister Claire Marie say that because I was well behaved? Nice? Funny? Or did she see in me a vibration as the empathetic soul I aspired and imagined myself to be.” writes McNaught in his new memoir, A Prince of a Boy.It was that vibration that led Brian McNaught towards a life of service, a renowned speaker, educator and leader in the fi...2025-02-2750 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesLife Reimagined on the Road to Sobriety - Anthony Taylor"Trust your heart, because in addiction, we lose faith in our own judgement and what we see as right or wrong," says “Taylor”, the name he gave himself after he embraced sobriety After years of struggling to leave addiction behind, he works to help others find their way to a sober life. "Have faith in yourself,” he says. “Believe in yourself because that's the only way that you're going to get sober and stay sober." Born in Sedalia, Missouri in a segregated community, his early years were marked with the traumas inherent in racism. At 10 he witnessed an event t...2025-02-2052 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Passionate Steward: Brian Muegge"We think we're so different across our communities. We may come from a different country. We might work in different jobs. We might work the land, or work in tech, but we're not all that different —we're human,” says Brian Muegge of the divisions so prevalent in society today. “There really needs to be a better way to connect across the urban-rural continuum. I hope it's through food. and I hope it can be around natural resource conservation." Ikigai is a Japanese word that means "a reason for being". It's a concept that refers to something that gives a p...2025-02-1357 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging Timesthe goodness game - Bryan Driscoll“…Give without remembering,” encourages Bryan Driscoll, the creator of the goodness game who prefers to give out of the spotlight. “It’s not about me, “ he says, humbly. Driscoll suggests several “rules” for playing the goodness game. “One way is to be the only one who knows what you’re doing… helping from afar. [The] second is where only you and the recipient knows what you’re doing. There’s no bragging. No posting on social media. The only way you can let anyone else know is if you engage their help.” — the goodness game rulesTwenty five years ago Bryan Driscoll fo...2025-02-0650 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Liliana TaleroThis is part 9 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, a program of San Francisco’s Shanti Project, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.“I think that's the purpose of volunteer work," says Lilian Talero of her work with the HIV/AIDS immigrant community. "We think, ‘I'm going to give my time for free. I'm going to do this for [other] people,’ but all I'm doing is healing. Through the time that I'm giving. Through the work with others. I'm not giving anything. Honestly, we're getting so much."...2025-01-3046 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesRays of Hope: Mikayla Henning, Jennifer Rea and Lee Stumbaugh“Just getting to hear her life story was so incredible, the difficult things she’s been through in her life —it really puts it into perspective… it makes me just want to ask any senior I talk to, ‘What is your story?’ because everyone has a story.” - Lee StumbaughAs we begin the spring semester of From Sparks to Light, I have a special treat for you. I’m joined today by a few of my students, Jenn, Mikayla and Lee, who were a part of my fall semester Careers in Psychology class. One of the assignment...2025-01-2357 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Sticky Note - Matt Eicheldinger“Hi, My name is Matt and I’m a teacher. Today I’m going to tell you a story about a sticky note.”Perhaps, like me, you’re one of the more than 345K followers who tune in to Instagram or Tik Tok to hear one of Mr. Eich’s wildly popular stories about his students. Matt Eicheldinger is an author and sixth grade language arts teacher who has amassed a treasure trove of stories, lessons that help him, and us, learn what it means to be fully human. Stories are, as he quotes author Jason Reynolds, baked-in empa...2024-11-1456 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Vince CrisostomoThis is part 8 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.“I was a reluctant activist,” says Vince Crisostomo of the humble beginnings of his advocacy for LGBTQ communities. He’d done his share of sitting by the bedsides of friends and community members as they succumbed to the deadly virus, but it would be a few more years until he would step into a role he has now occupied for more than 30 years.An invitation to return to his native...2024-10-3158 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Search for Connection - Rabbi Irwin Keller“There’s a longing that runs through our species. People are so hungry for belonging and recognition.”Irwin Keller was in third grade when he knew he wanted to be a rabbi, but it would be many years before he would heed his calling. Along the way he became a lawyer and gay rights advocate and a marginally famous singing drag queen for 21 years with America's Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet, the Kinsey Sicks.With war raging in the middle east and a fractured world around us, we talk about the de...2024-10-241h 10
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesMeant For More - Karen OlsonIt was just a ham sandwich.Karen Olson walked that route hundreds of times. Heading home after a long day of work in New York City at pharmaceutical company Warner Lambert, she noticed a woman sitting in front of Grand Central Station who appeared to be homeless. Instead of walking past as she’d done so many times before, she ran across the street and bought the woman a sandwich and a bottle of orange juice. “Thank you,” the woman said. It was the first time she had eaten since the day before. As she sat bes...2024-09-2651 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesHer Story Untold - Traei TsaiTraei Tsai was 6 years old when her family emigrated from Taipei, Taiwan to make a new start in Vancouver, Canada. New to a country and community where they didn’t speak the language, Traei began school where, for the first time in her life, she began to recognize that she was different. Some othe the children teased her, and to manage the discomfort she found solace in books. She began learning English through reading, even though her grasp of the language was still tenuous. In books she found the power of sharing a story, a way to open oneself to...2024-09-1948 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Power of Women - Manizha WafeqAt the age of 19, Manizha Wafeq traveled to Oklahoma City with 13 women to participate in Peace Through Business, a program to support women from her native Afghanistan to become entrepreneurs. No sooner had they arrived in the United States when it became clear that three of the women did not speak enough English to follow the lectures. Manizha volunteered to serve as an interpreter. She taught them to type in Farsi on their laptops, creating an alternate keyboard to the English one they had. Sitting beside them, she assisted them in writing their business plans, all the while working...2024-09-121h 11
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSeason 4 TrailerDo you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who is giving back to their community? Working to make our world a better place? Send an email to suzanne@suzannemaggio.com. Nominate them for a future episode of From Sparks to Light.To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his website.To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website. To learn more about the inspiration for this podcast, please check out Suzanne's memoir, Estrellas - Moments of Illumination Along...2024-09-0502 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series - Ideas to Inspire with Koen van Rompay - One Small Step (ep. 57)This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with Koen van Rompay, an infectious diseases researcher and the founder of Sahaya International. In this powerful episode, Koen reminds us that action begins with one small step.For the full show notes, please refer to episode 57.Do you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who is giving back to their community? Working to make...2024-08-011h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series: Ideas to Inspire with Wendy Voet - Keep Moving Forward (ep. 53)This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with non-profit administrator and public health professional Wendy Voet. She began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, and in this impactful episode, she reminds us that when the going gets tough, "Keep Moving Forward."For the full show notes, please refer to episode 53.Do you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who i...2024-07-2653 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series: Ideas to Inspire with Dan Glass - Beautiful Trouble (ep. 52)This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with author and activist Dan Glass, whose advice is simple —sometimes you have to get into Beautiful Trouble.For the full show notes, please refer to episode 52.Do you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who is giving back to their community? Working to make our world a better place? Send an email to suzanne...2024-07-1852 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series: Ideas to Inspire with Joey Garcia - Say Yes (ep. 56)This summer we're replaying some of our top episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we're revisiting an episode with Joey Garcia, who has worked to expand literary opportunities to her native Belize. Her advice is simple - Say Yes!For the full show notes, please refer to episode 50.Do you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who is giving back to their community? Working to make our world a better place? Send an email t...2024-07-1354 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Martina ClarkThis is part 8 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.Today on the podcast we're revisiting a conversation from Season 2, with Martina Clark. Author, Activist, and HIV survivor.Imagine being 28 years old, arguably at the beginning of your life, and told you have 5 years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, Martina Clark, writer, teacher, and activist, dove into an activism that led her to becoming the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS in 1996. 2024-06-271h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Greg CasillasThis is part 7 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.“I am an educator, listener, advocate, supporter and challenger,” reads Greg Casillas from his version of the George Ella Lyon poem, I Am From. “I am from the belief that it’s never as bad as it is good. I am from a brother that said the only thing that we are given is a chance.” Greg Casillas knows the power of story. The gift of showing up and listening. O...2024-05-301h 01
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesProject: Music Heals Us - Molly Carr and Dana Martin“I felt as empty as a drum,” says Molly Carr, a Juilliard-trained, world class violist. It was a career she had worked her whole young life for. She travelled the world and performed on some of music’s most iconic stages. From Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center, Molly has shared the stage with some of the world’s greatest musicians and yet, “the constant focus on career and the fear that it could all go away,” sucked the joy from the instrument and the music that she had loved since she was a little girl. When a shattered glass bowl ma...2024-05-021h 09
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Hulda Brown"No matter who other people are, when you peel back the skin, we're all the same," says Hulda Brown of her struggle to find her place in a world that hasn't always been welcoming.The daughter of a single mom, she had a difficult childhood. She was taught that she was not worthy of love. That she had no value. That her voice should not be heard. But despite those early messages and painful experiences, Hulda Brown would not be silent.In 1991 she was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, contracted, she believes, from a needle stick w...2024-04-2542 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesGiving Joy - Joy Kolin“I’m not Melinda Gates,” says Joy Kolin, the founder of Giving Joy, an organization that encourages and strengthens women entrepreneurship world wide through micro grants and mentorship. “But you don’t need to be. What we’ve learned is that you can do a lot with a little. We can all make a difference —and we should.A self described Tex-Israeli, Joy Kolin was born in Texas but spent most of her formative years in Israel. It was those international beginnings that led her to a love of travel. Of a curiosity for exploration that would pave the way for...2024-04-1848 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Pioneer of Change - Mariana Incarnato“I wanted to work in something that could better the lives of my community,” says Mariana Incarnato, an Ashoka Fellow and the Founder of Doncel, an agency in Buenos Aires Argentina that focuses on changing the way youth who leave residential care are supported as they find their way into adulthood. A clinical psychologist, she worked in Spain for a few years before returning home to her native Argentina. “My sense of belonging was very deep,” she says of her desire to return home. “And my sense of working for social justice was very deep as well.”That injustic...2024-04-1150 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Adoptee’s Voice: La Voz del Hijo - Florencia LalorFlorencia Lalor’s adopted family always spoke openly of her adoption. “It was one of the things they did right,” she says. And if she ever wanted to search for her birth mother, she always knew she would have their support. That moment came in 2004, when curious about the mother that gave her up, she grabbed the phone book and began making calls. What she discovered set her on a path that would change her personal and professional worlds.Florencia Lalor has spent her life working to understand the experience of adoption. An adoptee herself, she has spoken...2024-04-041h 09
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Harry BreauxThis is part 5 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.Harry Breaux never thought he’d live past 30. His father died of a heart attack at 50. His mother passed away when she was 51. Now, at 79, he’s outlived them both. Being diagnosed with HIV did not come as a surprise. “You can’t play in the water and not expect to get wet,” he says. When he finally grew sick in his early 50s, he battled three simultaneous infections that threatened...2024-03-2856 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesLook for the Helpers - Cleveland Harvey“I knew I wanted to look at things differently,” says Cleveland Harvey, a social worker who works in palliative care with people who are struggling with serious illnesses. “When I interact with people I want to either help or understand them better.” Cleveland Harvey’s journey to social work is rooted in his early experience as a child in South Central Los Angeles during the mid-eighties when the area was steeped in the gang and crack epidemics. As the only black child in the neighborhood, he struggled to find direction. A chance meeting at a local hospital led him to...2024-03-2153 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesEpisode Rewind: An Advocate for Children - Gary MallonHi folks,March is national social work month. Social work is one of many professional helping careers, but it’s also an identity. I am a social worker, I tell my students with pride. It’s not my career, its my calling. A calling to serve others. A calling to raise up the disadvantaged, the voiceless and the marginalized. To walk beside the people who often walk alone.Today I’m sharing an episode from season 2 with my friend and fellow social worker Gary Mallon who reminds us that being seen for who you truly are is one...2024-03-141h 02
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Write Place - Paula Sheil“I’m very much a proponent of chop wood, carry water. Just do,” says Paula Sheil, an educator, writer, poet and the founder and president of Tuleburg Press. “My sock drawer is incredibly organized.”It’s an old Zen proverb. Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. When it feels like things are tough, we can still wash the dishes. Weed the garden. Clean out our sock drawer.Paula Sheil is a dynamo. As an elementary school teacher she filled her classroom with student created cardboard missions so that they cou...2024-03-0754 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Deirdre "Speaks" JohnsonThis is part 4 of a special series focusing on the work of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with longterm survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.It started like a nightmare. Pregnant, in a toxic relationship and far away from the family she loved, Deirdre Johnson learned she’d been infected with the HIV virus. It was December 5th, a day Deirdre now celebrates. The day her life changed forever. On a Christmas Day hike to the top of a nearby mountain, Deirdre asked for guidance. “I was about 5 months pregnant…, and when I got to the...2024-02-2952 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesAnatomy of a Survivor - Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn“There is no getting over this. You will find a way to use it,” says Dr. Joyce Mikal-Flynn of the traumatic injury that changed her life. “You will find a way to incorporate this into your life. You will make meaning of this pain and you will find a way to exist —sometimes in the loss.”22 minutes. That’s the amount of time Joyce Mikal-Flynn lay on the pavement beside a swimming pool while friends worked desperately to resuscitate her. She’d just swam the final leg of friendly competition when she sank to the bottom of the pool. ...2024-02-221h 03
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesEpisode Rewind: The Importance of Role Models - Dr. Samuel AymerIn honor of Black History month, we revisit a conversation from Season 2 with Dr. Samuel Aymer, a professor of Social Work at Hunter College."How do we hold multiple truths? How do we (as people of color) embrace our humanity when that humanity is not always valued," asks Samuel Aymer, a professor of Social Work at Hunter College. "It's not the first thing that comes up... This is difficult stuff to talk about."This is a conversation about the importance of reflection. Of seeing ourselves when we walk through the world. Having role models to loo...2024-02-091h 16
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Compassion Remedy - Catherine Schweikert“Everyone is looking for the same things,” says Catherine Schweikert, a PhD and Physician Assistant who has spent the past few years researching the profound power of compassion. “We are all in search of what makes us feel safe, happy, healthy and free," she says. “What that means to me may be wildly different than what it means to you,” she adds, but that’s not the point. It is understanding that desire which has the power to heal us. As different as we may be, we have the potential to hold compassion for everyone we meet, even when we di...2024-02-011h 10
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Ms. Billie Cooper“I got tired of being tired,” says Ms. Billie Cooper of her life as an addict. ,Along term HIV survivor and trans activist, she knew she needed to make a change. “I got tired of not being able to eat, of living on top ramen. I wanted a better life.”Ms. Billie has had her share of challenges. But through it all, she has learned to turn pain into purpose. Sober for 23 years, she is a cancer survivor and veteran. HIV positive for more than 35 years, her history with the long term survivor community began many years ago with...2024-01-2743 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Voices of Honoring Our Experience - Carlos FerrieraOn From Sparks to Light, we hear the stories of people who are making a difference. People who are giving back in various ways. What we don’t often hear, however, is the stories of how their actions impact others. What happens because of that work. In 2024, Honoring Our Experience will celebrate its 10th anniversary. Over the next year we will hear the voices of the people who have become integral members of the long-term survivor’s community that Honoring Our Experience has helped create. People who never imagined they would live long enough to look back and r...2023-12-2952 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Culture of Change - Sandy HolmanWhen Sandy Holman was a teenager, she watched as the Klu Klux Klan burned a wooden cross on her high school soccer field. This wasn’t in the deep south, but in the Sacramento, California neighborhood where her family moved when she was in elementary school. It was that experience, as well as several others, that led her to recognize the work she was meant to do in the world. A world that does not treat all people with love, dignity and kindness.Sandy Holman, also known as the Purple Lady for her passionate love of the co...2023-12-141h 01
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesHonoring Our Experience - Gregg CassinBack on the podcast this week is my dear friend Gregg Cassin. Gregg is an HIV/AIDS activist, a public speaker and someone I’ve known since our college days back in Boston. He is also someone who has dedicated his life to serving the HIV/AIDS communities, bringing healing to those whose lives are impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The focus is simple. To bring people together to build community because as Gregg knew intuitively from the very first days of the epidemic, community has the power to heal. Gregg works in San Francisco for Shan...2023-11-3059 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesCalled to Attend - Bill GlennBill Glenn, a retired therapist and author, spent 18 years preparing to be a Jesuit priest before he realized he was being called to something else. “I knew my work was elsewhere," he says, although I had no idea what it was. Two years later, the AIDS epidemic hit. “It was as if I’d been called out of the Jesuits to be present to this epidemic. He realized this was the work he was trained to do, to attend to the pain in the world. This is the journey he writes about in his memoir, I Came Here Seek...2023-11-171h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesOne Small Step - Koen Van Rompay“[The poverty] was a really big shock,” said Koen Van Rompay, an infectious disease researcher who was in India to speak at a conference. Seeing all the people on the streets of Chennai begging for food was painful. “I felt very frustrated. Here I was a scientist… trying to do something about HIV, but these people lacked even the basic necessities in life.” He had to do something, but what?He met a social worker named Mr. Selvam, He showed Koen some hand embroidered greeting cards made by the women of his village. He was selling them to make mone...2023-11-1059 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSay Yes - Joey Garcia“I was in a crisis," said Joey Garcia, author and writing coach. "I’d done all the things I was supposed to do to be successful… but the corporate life was not at all what I imagined it would be.” It was then that she said Yes to an invitation to return to the land where she was born and found herself face-to-face with a people who needed her help. While there, she met the local Catholic Bishop. “If there’s anything I can do for you,” she said, “Just let me know.” “You can put on a teacher train...2023-11-0254 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesEl Patojismo (The Little Ones) - Juan Pablo Romero FuentesWhen he was just 23 years old, Juan Pablo Romero Fuentes opened the doors of the family home in his little village of Jocotenango, to give the children of his Guatemalan community a chance at a different life —one beyond the drugs, gangs and crime that were a part of his childhood. After a brief time teaching in a private school, he recognized that education, as he saw it, could be so much more. The concept was simple. “Everyone is welcome, treat the other with respect, lets talk,” he said, and the beginnings of Los Patojos, loosely translated as The...2023-10-1956 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Mother's Demand - Nicole GardnerWhen her eldest son became a victim of gun violence, Nicole Gardner knew she needed to make a change. She left behind family and friends and the Boston neighborhoods she’d called home and moved with her children to California.But gun violence knows no zip code. A few years after settling in her new community in Marin County, her daughter Ronique was killed in a drive by shooting. Determined to turn her pain into purpose, Nicole joined Moms Demand Action, a national grassroots organization that works to end the epidemic of gun violence through pus...2023-10-121h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesKeep Moving Forward - Wendy VoetSpending a month volunteering at Mother Theresa’s Home for the Destitute and Dying in Calcutta, India was a life changing experience for Wendy Voet, a public health advocate and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. The injustice of “watching people die of diseases that could be easily treated in the United States,” had a profound impact on her. “Everyone deserves the same means to have the human experience they want to have,” she says. Her parents were academics. The academic life was inspiring. It taught Wendy to ask the questions and stay open to learning. In the summer he...2023-10-0552 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesBeautiful Trouble - Dan Glass“Ninety percent of the efficacy of the transformation of activism is relational. It’s how we look after each other on an everyday level… It’s the everyday things that keep us loving each other.” says Dan Glass, an award-winning activist, academic, performer and writer.Dan’s activism is rooted in his experiences as the grandson of Holocaust survivors. Growing up in a family steeped in intergenerational trauma inspired Dan to devote his life to making a difference. He teaches others to harness their pain to stand up for the causes they believe in. To rid the world of the...2023-09-2852 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSeason 3 TrailerHi. I’m Suzanne Maggio, the host of From Sparks to Light —the podcast about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Our third season begins Thursday, September 28. In this new season we’ll be meeting people from across the globe who are making a difference in their communities. People like Dan Glass, whose episode drops next week. He’s a London based LGBTQ+ activist with a powerful story about how his family’s Holocaust survival planted the seeds for a lifetime of standing up for others. And Wendy Voet, a public health advocate who began her career working at Mother Theresa’s H...2023-09-2202 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: When Life Gives You Lemons - Leigh BrennanSometimes a long walk makes all the difference. After her marriage broke up, Leigh Brennan, a longtime yoga and meditation teacher, found herself alone. Faced with an overwhelming sense of grief for a life that no longer was, Leigh bought herself a plane ticket and walked the 500 mile Camino de Santiago into a new way of being. Leigh returned to the U.S. anxious to stay connected to her newly found Camino spirit. She created a virtual home for pilgrims, The Camino Cafe Podcast. The podcast serves as a place where pilgrims can return to the sense o...2023-08-2054 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: At Home in the World - Heidi Pidcoke“My role is not to eradicate pain but to walk alongside people who are in it,” says Heidi Pidcoke, a licensed clinician who specializes in somatic, or body centered, therapies. It is these experiences that we talk about in this episode of From Sparks to Light. Of a calling to serve others that led her to South Africa and then to Kenya. About her work to heal the traumatic effects of generational violence through the mind body connection of somatic therapies.Heidi’s grew up for the first 11 years of her life in Brazil. She is a 3rd cult...2023-08-1058 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: The Healing Way - Rose Hammock“With what I have learned, it’s my turn to pass on the knowledge to the next generation,” says Rose Hammock, a wise young member of the Pomo, Wailacki and Maidu tribes. Despite Rose Hammock’s young age, she’s only 26, she has already made a lasting mark on her community. She dedicates herself to sharing this wisdom with the youth of her community.“Through traditional dance, I have had the honor of learning many things from my elders,” she says. “I have had the honor of learning how to basket weave, bead, sew, and learn about plants. My hopes ar...2023-07-271h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: The Wisdom of the Why - Trevor GardnerTrevor Gardner believes that all students deserve to be treated with dignity, even when they make mistakes. Our school discipline system dehumanizes students, banishing them from the classroom and inadvertently fueling what’s known as the school to prison pipeline. A lifelong educator, Trevor began to explore alternative ways of discipline, a practice we call Restorative Justice. It’s a theory of justice that focuses on mediation and agreement rather than punishment. One that builds on the relationships created with students to extend opportunities to learn beyond the texts and lectures that happen in the classroom. He calls...2023-07-201h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: The Choice to Love - Sylvia GrafYou have $80 dollars in your pocket and two suitcases. and you’re ready to take on whatever comes your way, or so you thought. At 18 you’re ready to spread your wings and try something new. Before you left your mother handed you a name on a slip of paper, a relative you’ve never met. You board a plane to a place you’ve never been before. When Silvia Graf left her home country of Germany to begin a life in the San Francisco Bay Area, she could not know what was ahead, and yet with each bump...2023-07-1452 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: When a Diagnosis Becomes a Superpower - Gregg Cassin“When the world becomes too difficult, you make that difference–with the way you hold yourself and the way you treat the person at the grocery story and at the post office … and it builds out from there.”Gregg Cassin lives to inspire others to be there true selves. An HIV/AIDs activist and motivational speaker, Gregg recognized that calling as a young man as he grappled with his coming out, learning to embrace his own truth. Now he encourages others to do the same.“Their particular light is their ministry, says Gregg, “Every shortcoming. Every experi...2023-07-0651 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten: Compassionate Laughter - Michael PrichardMichael Pritchard personifies compassion. As an army medic tending to wounded patients, his big heart and warm spirit earned him the praise of the doctors he served under. “Even from early childhood I knew I was an empath,” he says. He also knew how to make people laugh.He spent his career as a comedian and inspirational speaker using laughter and empathy to heal some of the most wounded among us. “I get up sometimes and I know my wife has struggled twenty years with cancer. I’ve had heart surgeries and knee replacements,” says Michael Prit...2023-06-291h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top Ten Episodes: Pay It Forward - Joe CuddemiJoe Cuddemi’s mother never went to college, but she instilled in him the value of education. Raised in an Irish Catholic family in Boston, the path was clear. “I grew up in an era when I could be a doctor, a lawyer or a priest,” he says.In high school he had a German teacher who changed his understanding of the role educators can play in the lives of their students. “I remember her asking me how I felt,” he said, “No one had ever asked me that question quite that way before.” She knew what it meant to en...2023-06-221h 02
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top 10 Episodes: Finding Redemption - Elizabeth QuirozElizabeth Quiroz spent 12 years addicted and trafficked on the streets of San Francisco. Arrested and incarcerated multiple times, she lost custody of her three-month-old son. It was more than she could bear. “It broke me,” she says. In jail she entered Starting Point, a program that provides intensive counseling for inmates. “I learned about family addiction, trauma, and PTSD. For the first time in my life I was no longer numb.” Sober for more than a decade, Elizabeth is the co-founder of Redemption House of the Bay Area. She helps others recover from life on the...2023-06-1554 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSummer Series Top 10 Episodes: Planting Seeds - Msgr. Gregory RamkissoonAs Gregory Ramkissoon walked to work at the university in Kingston, Jamaica, he encountered a community of squatters living in such poverty he felt sick to his stomach. Shacks made of cardboard and scraps of tin. Babies wailing. Humans living in filth and garbage. It was 1978 and when Gregory faced his urban planning students in a lecture hall that morning, he told them to follow him. As the group streamed out into the street, he asked them how they could help those who were suffering. “Start where you are,” Gregory told me. With this philosophy, he lau...2023-06-0856 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Confidential Advocate - Susan Pulido“Never judge and always believe.” These are the lessons that Susan Pulido learned in her early years as a rape crisis responder. It was in that work that Susan, now a Confidential Advocate at Sonoma State University, found her calling. Awed by the efforts these young victims of sexual trauma made to continue to pursue their education she set out to change a culture that has become all too common on college campuses all across the country. “1 in 4 women will experience sexual violence in their college years,” Susan tells me. “We have an obligation to stand up for one another.” 2023-05-2554 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWith Love for All - Renee Ho“Whatever you do, lead with love,” says Renee Ho, founder & executive director of Amor Para Todos (Love for All). When a loved one came out as trangender in 2019, Renee vowed to do whatever was needed to love, support, and protect them. There’s a fifty percent chance that a transgender person will seriously consider ending their life. Renee pledged to change that statistic and created a school-based early prevention program that celebrates gender diversity.As you listen to this episode, consider: How do we create communities where everyone is celebrated? What step can you take today to see yo...2023-05-1856 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Role of a Lifetime - Marc ZywaczewskiWhen Marc Zywaczewski dreamed of being an actor, he could not imagine that the greatest role of his life would be — as a social support coordinator for dementia patients. When the loss of his older brother to suicide shook his confidence and left him struggling to find direction, Marc found safety in musical theater. After years abroad, performing on the international stage and as a social director on Disney cruise ships, Marc returned home to Melbourne, Australia where his boundless energy and deep compassion brightens the lives of seniors in his care.As you listen to this ep...2023-05-111h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesOn Learning to See Differently - Paul FordhamBlindness is not a disability. It is an opportunity to see things differently. That’s the lesson Paul Fordham learned from his father, a classically trained pianist who who was blind from birth. It is a lesson that has served him well in the 18 years he has worked to end homelessness in Marin County, California. “Despite different challenges and abilities,” says Paul Fordham, “We all have the capacity to grow.” What does it mean to change? Are we invested in our own views or open to shifting perspectives? Do we see limitations as destiny or opportunity? When challenges a...2023-05-0457 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Missing Piece - Martha EngberYou go about the business of living. Husband, family, house in the suburbs. The ingredients of a happy life. Just like the one you were raised in, right? And then one day, something happens that makes you question all of it. Martha Engber is the author of Bliss Road, her upcoming memoir about the journey to answer those questions. Her efforts to discover the missing piece that was hidden in plain sight and the struggle to find the words to put it all together. It is the story of the heartbreaking pain experienced as the result of b...2023-04-2759 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Choice to Love - Sylvia GrafYou have $80 dollars in your pocket and two suitcases. and you’re ready to take on whatever comes your way, or so you thought. At 18 you’re ready to spread your wings and try something new. Before you left your mother handed you a name on a slip of paper, a relative you’ve never met. You board a plane to a place you’ve never been before. When Silvia Graf left her home country of Germany to begin a life in the San Francisco Bay Area, she could not know what was ahead, and yet with each bump...2023-04-0752 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesHer Life With Lifers - Elaine Leeder, MSW, MPH, PhDElaine Leeder was always drawn to the dark side of life. The daughter of a Holocaust refugee, she spent the better part of her life trying to understand that darkness. The desire to make sense of that which seems so difficult led her on a journey into one of the darkest places in our society, our prison system. Elaine volunteers in a restorative justice program that offers both victims and offenders the opportunity to face one another, not as adversaries but as equals, to engage in conversations that have the potential to set them free.From inside th...2023-03-301h 08
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWhen Life Gives You Lemons - Leigh BrennanAfter her marriage broke up, Leigh Brennan found herself alone and without direction. She’d always dreamed of walking the Camino de Santiago but Leigh had never imagined walking alone. Faced with an overwhelming sense of grief for a life that no longer was, Leigh bought herself a plane ticket and walked her way into a new way of being in the world. Anxious to stay connected to her newly found Camino spirit, Leigh created a virtual home for pilgrims, The Camino Cafe Podcast. The podcast serves as a place where pilgrims can return to the sense of...2023-03-1153 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Importance of Role Models - Dr. Samuel AymerWhat do you see when you walk out your door? When you look at your colleagues, your teachers, neighbors and friends do you see people who look like you? Does your world reflect the diverse world we live in? This is a conversation about the importance of reflection. Of seeing ourselves when we walk through the world. Having role models to look up to who challenge and encourage us to be our best selves. And in the face of difference, to have those conversations that give us a window into experiences we have not lived so that w...2023-03-021h 16
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Voice for Women - Martina ClarkImagine being 28 years old, arguably at the beginning of your life, and told you have 5 years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, Martina Clark, writer, teacher, and activist, dove into an activism that led her to becoming the first openly HIV-positive person to work for UNAIDS in 1996. She captured that life in her memoir, My Unexpected Life, a mix of personal story, travel, humor and an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations that follows her personal journey—emotional and physical—interwoven with her professional path. It is an insider’s view to...2023-02-231h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWhen Inquiry Leads to Compassion - Susan Dunn, M.A.Life is both beautiful and brutal. Tranquil and tumultuous. Filled with joy and pain. Susan Dunn, educator and support manager with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has spent the better part of her life trying to make sense of the duality of existence, the complexity of the human spirit. Susan helps people whose lives are impacted by mental illness, both for those with a diagnosis and those who love and support them.What strikes me most about this conversation is the brutally honest way Susan talks about her own journey, from a little girl looking...2023-02-1657 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSpirits, History, Estrellas And Love - A Camino Conversation With Dan Mullins, The Host Of My CaminoIn 2019, when I set out to walk my first Camino, I did not understand what was about to happen. The importance of the people I would meet or the way that journey would change me. Looking back, I find myself laughing at the things I was focused on. Hindsight is 20/20, the saying goes. Camino veterans are an unusual sort. The Camino family is strong. There’s a kind of psychic energy that seems to draw us together, even years after we’ve made our journey. It’s an experience that never leaves you, as the multitude of podcast...2023-02-0958 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Fight for Justice - Evelyn Wiese, J.D."Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” I grew up a stone's throw away from the New York harbor where Lady Liberty resides. As the granddaughter of Italian immigrants, I always took her promise of welcome for granted. But California native Evelyn Wiese knows a different story. Our immigration system is broken. There are currently has about 20,000 people in detention. We have not always welcomed the stranger. We do not treat our migrants with dignity. As you will hear in this conversation, despite the promise to protect victims of violen...2023-02-0259 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Wisdom of the Why - Trevor GardnerWhat is the intention and purpose of our education system? How well does it meet that purpose? One of the more challenging aspects of education is a discipline system that dehumanizes students, one that banishes them from the classroom and inadvertently fuels what’s known as the school to prison pipeline. Trevor Gardner, a lifelong educator, recognized the need to change that narrative. He began to explore alternative ways of discipline, a practice we call Restorative Justice, a theory of justice that focuses on mediation and agreement rather than punishment. One that builds on the relationships created with...2023-01-271h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe House on Liberty Street - Frances RivettiHappy New Year and welcome to special bonus episode of From Sparks to Light. Today I’m chatting with my good friend and fellow author Frances Rivetti who has just released her second work of fiction, the novel The House on Liberty Street. A story that takes place on Christmas Eve in the northern California community of Petaluma. Frances and I have known each other since our boys were in elementary school. In my early years as a fledgling blogger and wanna be writer, it was Frances who inspired me and when I found myself at a cros...2023-01-051h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Master Class in Adoption - Part 2 - Maris Blechner, MEd, MSW, LCSWHere's part 2 of my conversation with Maris Blechner. If you haven't listened to part 1 yet, hit pause and go back and listen to the first part of our conversation. In this conversation we dig deeper into the adoption experience, about the impact on the child and the family and the things adoptive parents can do to support this important and life changing transition.Maris Blechner is an adoptive and birth parent, a licensed clinical social worker and educator, and an internationally respected trainer and speaker who has spent the last thirty-nine years working for the improvement of...2022-12-0835 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Master Class in Adoption - Pt. 1 - Maris Blechner, MEd, MSW, LCSWToday on the podcast we’re taking a field trip to the online classroom of Maris Blechner, a social worker, educator and expert in the field of adoption. So pack up your notebooks, sharpen your pencils and get prepared to learn at the feet of a master. This episode is so rich I didn’t want it to end. There’s so much to think about here that I decided to split it into two episodes. Be sure to come back next week for the second part.This conversation was one of those where I could literally feel th...2022-12-0149 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesLeaps of Faith - Meghan MurphyWhat happens when we take leaps of faith? When we step into the unknown, holding the belief that we are in the right place at the right time. That whatever comes next, we’re going to be OK. Perhaps even richer for it?My guest on the podcast today is Meghan Murphy, a fellow social worker, college instructor and friend who personifies just that. From her earliest years when her mother and father relocated the family from the beachside town of Santa Cruz, California to the small town of Quincy in the Sierra foothills, Meghan’s journey has...2022-11-1856 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWhat's in a Name? - Jodi Klugman-RabbWho am I? That’s the question our guest asked herself as she stared at the results of a DNA test that she’d taken just for fun. Jodi Klugman-Rabb (Rabb is her married name) was raised in Marin County, California, an only child of her mother and a father she describes as abusive. By the time she was 2 her mother was divorced and a few years later, married Wayne, the man who would become her stepfather. A person that Jodi describes as kind and “generous of spirit”. But it was roughly 8 years later, when Jodi was 12 years old...2022-11-101h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Value of a Moment - Jill SalvinoMy conversation on the podcast today is with Jill Salvino, an accomplished commercial director and storyteller and the director of Between the Shades, her debut feature documentary that examines the power of labels and the transcendence of love with a deep dive into the LGBTQI experience. So much of what Jill understands about life resonated with me. The idea of recognizing that our time here is finite, that life is made up of moments, some that are certain to pass us by if we don’t take the time to notice. Of the idea that listening can heal...2022-10-2756 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Seeds of Learning - Annie BaconToday we’re talking to Annie Bacon, the Executive Director of Seeds of Learning, a non-profit organization that works to improve educational opportunities in rural Latin America. I caught up with Annie in her car, but even though the sound quality isn’t the greatest, I thought this conversation was worth sharing.In 2011, I took my first trip with Seeds of Learning. I took along 18 high school students, two of which were my own to a remote village in El Salvador. For a week we lived in a rustic retreat center, without the benefits of indoor plumbing or h...2022-10-201h 01
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWith Ears to Hear - Mark RimpleToday on the podcast we’re talking to Mark Rimple, a musician, educator, composer, performer, union member, father and all around deep thinker. I met Mark through my brother Robert. They’re colleagues in the music department at West Chester College in Pennsylvania. Mark is one of those people who has a passion for learning. It’s evident from the earliest moments of his life when a young friend introduced him to The Beatles and he never looked back. He absorbed music into his soul, and became an accomplished guitarist with a deep love for medieval and renaiss...2022-10-131h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesCompassionate Laughter - Michael PritchardI met Michael Pritchard many years ago when I heard him speak at a holiday party for a roomful of social service types tasked with lifting up the disenfranchised in our community. That afternoon, he fed our collective souls with a combination of storytelling and humor unlike anything I had ever seen before. After the crowd began to thin, I summoned up my courage to introduce myself to him.At the time I was running a fledgling nonprofit, with not enough money and too much work and a handful of students I was tasked with...2022-10-061h 03
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Mother's Care - Allison MurphyOne of the greatest gifts of teaching is to watch a former student spread their wings in the world. Take the years of education, the life experience, the curiosity and passion they possess and find their place to shine. Today on the podcast we talk with former student, intern, colleague and friend Allison Murphy, someone I first met in the classroom more than 20 years ago. Allison is a clinician, founder and CEO of Mothers Care, a service provider for women during the prenatal and perinatal periods of pregnancy and delivery. In layman’s speak, Allison provides support during some of...2022-09-2955 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Possibility in Story: Shugri Said SalhMy guest this week is Shugri Said Salh, the author of the beautiful memoir, The Last Nomad, Coming of Age in the Somali Desert and the passage comes from a novel she’s currently working on.Shugri’s is the story of a woman who grew up in a culture very different from our own. A “spare daughter” she was sent to live with her nomadic grandmother in the desert at the age of 6. She tells the story of chasing warthogs, standing on termite mounds and listening for the sounds of predators in the distance as she watched...2022-09-2255 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Lessons of Listening - Mark OberschmidtThis week on From Sparks TO LIGHT we meet Mark Oberschmidt, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Thailand. He’s also a fellow peregrino and someone I’ve known since I was in high school. Mark was friends with my brother Michael and because we were so close in age, his friends were often my friends too. Fast forward 40 years - Mark was interested in walking the Camino and we reconnected when my book Estrella’s came out. As luck would have it, we found ourselves on the same journey this past summer, and we were able to rec...2022-09-1559 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesAn Advocate for Children - Gary MallonThis week on From Sparks TO LIGHT we meet Gary Mallon, a fellow peregrino I met this summer while walking the Camino Primitivo in the north of Spain. As fellow east coasters, we bonded right away, and when I heard he was a social worker, I knew I had to have him on the podcast. I had so much fun talking to him about the work he’s done over the course of his career. He’s spent the better part of his life in the field of child welfare, working with kids in the foster care system. He’s warm...2022-09-081h 01From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesSeason 2 TrailerA new season is right around the corner. Join us on September 8th for a whole new collection of stories of people who are giving back. New episodes drop on Thursdays. You will find us on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Just hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.Do you know someone who has a story to tell? Someone who is giving back to their community? Working to make our world a better place? Send an email to suzanne@suzannemaggio.com. Nominate them for a future episode of From Sparks to Li...2022-08-3001 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesBONUS - Walking the Camino de Santiago - Suzanne MaggioLast week we finished our first season of from Sparks to Light. This week I'm sharing an interview I did with Leigh Brennan on her podcast, The Camino Cafe. It was a fun interview about walking the Camino and my memoir, Estrellas, Moments of Illumination Along El Camino de Santiago. As you listen to this episode, I'm off on my second Camino, the Camino Primitivo, that goes from Oviedo, in Northern Spain, to Santiago. I'm excited, nervous and ready for this new adventure.To learn more about Leigh Brennan and the Camino Cafe Podcast, please check these s...2022-05-2653 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Healing Way - Rose HammockMany years ago, when I was a Jesuit Volunteer in Montana, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit several reservations and learn about Native culture and traditions from some of the local tribal members. After a year in Great Falls, I went to work on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeastern Montana. The years there were a mixed blessing. Working with Native children who were victims of child abuse and neglect was not easy and I struggled to find my place amongst a people who have been historically violated by people who look like me.S...2022-05-191h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesCool City Planner - D'Lynda FischerToday we’re talking to D’Lynda Fischer, a city council member for the city of Petaluma, a community in northern California about 45 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. But the truth is, this could be a conversation about any community across America, and many places in the world as well. This is a conversation about climate, about our environment and the steps we can take to make a difference in the world we live in. We talk about honoring the planet and paying attention to the choices we make. It’s about living intentionally so that our childre...2022-05-121h 08
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Living Record - Abby VanMuijenWe’re going to try something different today. I was introduced to the work of Abby Van Muijen by one of my social work students who found a feeling wheel Abby had created in searching for inspiring and powerful content for the local social work newsletter and I was instantly smitten.Abby’s work is extraordinary. It is beautiful on an aesthetic level, but is so much more than that. Abby grapples with complex, social justice concepts and creates moving visual representations that draw the viewer in and invites them to think critically about the material presented.2022-05-051h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesIn His Own Voice - Jimmy Carrethers“The two most important words that you can say are I am”, says Jimmy Carrethers, inspirational speaker, teacher, personal development trainer and life coach. “But be careful with that because whatever you attach those two words to, you become.”When Jimmy Carrethers was a young boy, he struggled to find his voice. He was so afraid to speak that when he was just 8-years-old, he locked himself in the garage, lined up all his stuffed animals in a row and proceeded to preach to them from the Bible as he balanced himself on a stack of milk cartons...2022-04-281h 04
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Heart ForAfrika - Ann Pretorius“If we’re going to do what I believe we need to do for the rest of our lives, you need to go back with me.” - Peter PretoriusAnn’s husband Peter had just returned from Mozambique where he learned first hand about the humanitarian crisis facing the people of this neighboring nation. Peter’s visit was meant to be for a day, but with no means of transportation out, he survived for 10 days, sleeping under a bush with no water, food or shelter. Witnessing the profound effects of poverty, death and disease, he returned to South Afri...2022-04-211h 01
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesPay It Forward - Joe CuddemiJoe Cuddemi and I travelled in similar circles in our college days, although we didn’t know each other well. After graduation we both ended up in Montana as Jesuit Volunteers; Joe was a teacher on the Fort Belknap Reservation while I was in Great Falls and then in Ashland on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. We saw each other at retreats and I remember at least one wonderful afternoon riding horses together, but it wasn’t until this conversation that I had the chance to learn about his journey, about a searching to find his spark, the thing that gave...2022-04-141h 02
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesThe Healing Farm - Carol RathmannFor years I’ve been teaching service learning courses, classes that expand beyond the classroom out into the community, that pair academic learning with hands on community engagement. One of my favorite community partners is Forget Me Not Farm, a place where children who have experienced abuse and neglect get to heal through learning to care for once abused and neglected animals who at one time shared their history. This week I had the chance to talk with Carol Rathmann, the founder and director of the farm that is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Despite growing up in the...2022-04-0755 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesActivism is a Verb - Patti DighMy relationship with Patti Digh’s work began many years ago when I stumbled upon her wonderful blog, “37 days”. Despite the obvious differences, (she was raised in a small town in North Carolina, is a natural redhead and has the most wonderful southern drawl), I felt something strangely familiar in her words as I sat on that first day and read essay after beautiful essay. It was like looking in the mirror. I felt like I had known her my entire life.The title of that blog was inspired by the death of Patti’s stepfather just 37 days after...2022-03-311h 00
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesAt Home in the World - Heidi PidcokeI have known Heidi Pidcoke since the late 1990s, when we worked together at the Family Institute of Marin, a mental health nonprofit in Marin County, California. At the time Heidi was a Marriage and Family Therapy intern, working on earning her hours for clinical licensure. One of the great joys of my professional life is to be able to watch the people I’ve had a role in training go out in the world and build their careers, sometimes, as in the case of Heidi, careers that I’ve both admired and envied. I remember the hours...2022-03-2457 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesA Life of Purpose - Egypt WorthyThat’s the voice of Egypt Worthy, and the little bodies she’s talking about are the third graders she worked with as a City Year Volunteer back in 2016. National Service is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Anybody that knows me knows that joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps myself, after I graduated from Boston College, literally changed the course of my life.Over the years I’ve encouraged many of my students to choose to step into service because I know the impact it can have when you take that leap of faith a...2022-03-1750 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesBlind Insight - Darlene O'BrienFor over twenty years, Darlene O’Brien has been an inspiring speaker, dynamic trainer, and passionate disability rights advocate. She’s also a holistic educator, with a successful bio-energetics practice in both Northern and Southern California. Since going blind in 1998, she has dedicated herself to demonstrating that all people, with or without disabilities, deserve the same considerations and opportunities found through social interaction and competitive employment. After going blind at the age of 35, and with two young children to support, Darlene realized that the career development needs of those with blindness and low vision were profoun...2022-03-1057 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesTuning In - Julie BridgeJulie Bridge is the founder of Mearas Group and Executive Director of The Brego Foundation.This conversation begins with a story about a girl and her horse. About the connection that happened when she first sat on his back and felt herself begin to heal. It is a conversation about the mystical power of nonverbal communication and the recovery that is possible when we tune in to what we know deep inside. In 2007 when she rescued her first thoroughbred from a Washington feedlot and named him Brego, the Brego Foundation was formed. The Brego Foundation pr...2022-03-0354 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesLife Reconfigured - Margo GallagherMargo Gallagher is someone I’ve known since our sons were preschool pals almost thirty years ago. This is an extraordinary conversation about loss, about walking into the tunnel of grief and coming out the other side. It’s about the lessons she’s learned through some difficult years and how she put the pieces back together again. But mostly it’s about sharing what she’s learned to help others.Margo is a mother, artist and activist. She is a co-owner of Vibe Gallery in Petaluma, California. Margo’s own creative work includes beautiful mandalas she calls “Kalei...2022-02-2452 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesFinding Redemption - Elizabeth QuirozFor roughly 12 years Elizabeth Quiroz was addicted and trafficked on the streets of San Francisco and incarcerated numerous times, eventually losing custody of her 3 month old son. But this is a story about redemption. About second chances and what happens when you turn your life around. It’s a story about dedicating your life to making sure that what happened to you, doesn’t happen to others.In the years since her final confinement, Elizabeth battled to reclaim her life. Now, clean for more than a decade, she’s overcome addiction, arrests and incarceration. She’s gotten...2022-02-1753 min
From Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging TimesWhen a Diagnosis Becomes a Superpower - Gregg CassinI can't think of a more perfect way to start this podcast than with a man I've admired since I first met him. Gregg Cassin is funny, compassionate and filled with an energy that is infectious. I felt pulled to him immediately as have so many of the people he’s met along the way. Gregg has spent the past 30 plus years leading retreats and workshops for the HIV, LGBT and Queer Youth communities. He founded the San Francisco Healing Circle and the San Francisco Center for Living as well as assisting with the national AIDS, Medicine and...2022-02-0350 min