- This month on The SPARK, our theme is "Service, Strength, Story".

We'll learn about a department of the state honoring and advocating for veterans, a nonprofit focused on raising awareness for perinatal care and providing essential resources to support and strengthen individuals and families.

And a mission-driven storytelling company with an owner helping leaders ask better questions.

We'll also share a special moment from our SPARK Awards 2025.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

- (male announcer) Additional funding for The SPARK is provided by United Way of the Mid-South, EcOp, the Memphis Zoo, and by the Medical Education and Research Institute.

- Have you ever been excited by a new idea?

Inspired by watching someone lead by example?

When we talk about creating change, we start by sharing the stories of everyday heroes who are making a difference in their own way so we can learn and do the same.

I'm Jeremy Park and this is The SPARK.

They're a department of state honoring and advocating for veterans.

We're here with Stephen Bell.

He is the director of state operations with the Tennessee Department of Veteran Services.

And let's start out, Stephen, give us a little bit of the mission and some context for the Tennessee Department of Veteran Services.

- Obviously, what we do the best is we file claims and pension for our veterans and our service members and their families.

And we also give honorable burial.

And right there in Memphis, Tennessee, we have a great state cemetery there in Memphis, but we're starting something new and it's called the Tennessee Veteran Ready Business Recognition Program.

What is this?

This is just basically a initiative that the governor set forth a year ago to recognize that those businesses that recruit, hire and retain our precious service members, veterans and their families.

- Talk about why supporting our veterans is so important for the state of Tennessee.

Hopefully everyone knows this, but go ahead and lay it out.

- You know, well, there there's a lot of obvious things, but you know, just the leadership qualities, just the fact that, you know... what they bring to the table.

And biggest thing is, is that we have so many veterans leaving active duty on a yearly basis.

I don't wanna get into the numbers 'cause I'll say something wrong.

However, we wanna keep them here in Tennessee because in Tennessee we value our veterans and we wanna keep them.

How do you keep 'em?

You give 'em a great job.

- And so talk about the different tiers, because there's different levels, obviously a lot of recognition that goes into this, but there's also some structure for the businesses to be able to help make it easy.

So talk in a little more detail.

- You know, when we first started this program and we started doing the sausage making as they call it, you know, we didn't wanna leave no business out in Tennessee.

So we have 'em all the way from the bronze level, which would be typically your smaller family-owned business, all the way up to the gold tier, which would typically be your corporations.

You know, obviously the higher you go, the more that you are asked to do for our service members, veterans and families.

But we didn't wanna leave anybody out.

So if you're just a small business in Shelby County or the surrounding, or anywhere in the state, you know, you are able to qualify for this program and hopefully grow your business into silver and gold eventually - Dive into a couple of tips and recommendations, especially regarding providing access to benefits during work hours.

- You know, from Memphis to Bristol, I had to get involved in this.

Why?

'Cause I just didn't know.

I didn't know what was going on.

But this is not, as I stated in my last broadcast, a gotcha type program.

It's a program that we want to build businesses up.

We've had so many businesses that said, "I didn't know to do that.

But now we're starting."

And I'll give you just a simple, simple thing.

It's for the military spouse when her husband or when his wife or whatever, when their spouse deploys, take care of that spouse, give them alternative work hours, let them work from home when they don't have a babysitter, you know, and do not lose these precious commodities that we have as employees across the state.

- Touch on some of the other advocacy and services that you all offer.

- Across the state, we have 13 field offices in the state, where we do compensation and pension.

Obviously with over 400,000 veterans in Tennessee, that's not enough.

But one thing that we do do, we partner with every county service officer in the state and provide them training so that we're all on the same sheet of music.

So one of the things that we do is and we want to, is to apply for compensation and pension.

What does it cost?

Just like the business recognition, it doesn't cost anything for you.

And then the final thing that you talked about is our cemetery as a burial.

You know, what does that cost?

Nothing.

What does it cost your eligible dependent?

Nothing.

We wanna be able to honor these veterans in their final moments, you know, the way they should.

- What's been the feedback?

What's been some of the testimonials from the veterans in terms of what this means to them and their family?

- Oh my lord.

I mean, we don't have enough time for that, Jeremy, but you know, some of the feedback that we've got is that I think that a lot of businesses just did not think about it, right?

I mean, but there's been so many businesses from Memphis to Bristol that when they look at our questions on the online application, matter of fact, there's 14 of them to be gold, they're like, "We did not even think about that.

But, you know, we're gonna start a policy to do that."

Basically what we can do as well as an organization, we can give you example policies.

Not that you have to adopt them, but it gives you just some type of thinking.

That way, you know, you can be able to adopt something that fits your business.

- Touch on some ways the community can support your efforts.

And obviously you've got the Tennessee Veteran Ready Business Recognition program.

That's one piece of it.

But touch on some other ways the community can support your efforts.

- You know what?

One really simple way is when you have an employee, let 'em go during office hours to do their quality pensions and the compensation that they've so much desperately have earned throughout their military career.

I'm telling you, when you do that, you make a happy employee.

I believe I told you our last time we spoke, there was a company in Nashville and obviously every company can't do this, but they opened their doors up to veteran organizations for two days and employees could come in and do their compensation benefits right then during work hours.

Now if you can't do that, just make it where it's available that these veterans that work for you, these spouses that work for you, they're able to go out and get the great benefits that they have desperately earned.

And one of the things that you can do is join our program, get involved and basically get the information that we can put on your bulletin boards in order for a veteran to know where to go to in order to get whatever they're wanting answered.

- Well wrap up with contact information.

Where do we go to connect in with your team at the Tennessee Department of Veteran Services?

- Well, you can go to www.tn.gov/veteran or simply you could call our customer inquiry line and get ahold of one of us at 615-741-2345.

- Well, Stephen, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you so much.

[upbeat music] - They are a nonprofit focused on raising awareness for perinatal care and providing essential services and resources to families and individuals here in our community.

Here with the founder and president of Grind City Cares, Chima Onwuka.

And let's start out, give us some background on Grind City Cares.

- Thanks, Jeremy.

Thanks for having me.

Grind City Cares, honestly, it was founded through just me as a person and who I am of giving back to the community Grind City Kicks, which is the online business of the Grind City kind of umbrella things of what we do here.

Grind City Kicks, it is an online shoe and sports apparel brand where we partner with different organizations to impact the community through sports and through team apparel and through fashion.

But when we were doing that, I continued to do a lot of community work with Grind City Kicks.

So one good friend of mine, one mentor of mine, asked me if Grind City Kicks is doing great on the business end, then you might need to start a nonprofit from it.

And from there on out, 2020 before the pandemic even happened, didn't even know the about, you know, COVID-19 and everything, but timing was impeccable because we were able to help the community do so many different things, Grind City Cares was founded and was formed.

And ever since 2020, we've just done so many things in the community, so many different works, so many different projects, activities, where it allows Kicks to do its thing on the business end and a little bit still more community works with Kicks, but for the most part, Cares is able to take care of all of the community projects.

- And talk about the mission for Grind City Cares.

- So Grind City Cares, again, who I am as a person.

We literally provide resources and provide the needs for anything of the community and not just the Memphis community, any community.

So whether if it's hunger or if it's homelessness, education, where we give school supplies to different schools and students that are attending schools or if it's health initiatives, everything.

And the umbrella of Grind City Cares is what we provide.

It's nothing... It's not a specific niche, which is what some people used to tell me when I first started.

And I just... I didn't wanna do that.

I wanted to do something that was more open, more widespread, because for me as a person, I give back wherever the needs are in the community.

So Grind City Care's mission is to help the community, providing resources, providing the needs that we need and whatever community is possible.

So that's where Grind City Care's mission comes from.

- Well, when you talk about this being a very personal mission for you, it's also a personal mission for your family.

And so when you talk about raising awareness for perinatal care, there is a very personal storyline.

So talk about your twins and talk about this adventure to raise awareness for perinatal care.

- So perinatal care came about because in June of 11 of 2025, my wife was able and blessed enough to give birth to our twins.

Upon that, you know, our twins came early, thirty-one weeks early, and they were in the care of the Baptist NICU Hospital while they were in the care, we started to realize, and I always say this, you know, my wife and I are very knowledgeable when it comes to community services and different resources and different things that happen, just in the nature of like community and giving back and different just, you know, community events or whatever the case may be.

And but this whole world of perinatal awareness, you know, we knew about the NICU, we knew, you know... We just did our research about twins and the babies coming early, but we started to find there's more than the scope that we knew.

So when they were in the NICU care, we realized, my son was there for four weeks.

My daughter was there for 80 days.

And of course, it was a struggle for us as a family, even more so with my wife, with my daughter being there because she just could not take food from the bottle.

So, you know, every time she would take it, she would spit it up or she just would just not eat it from the bottle.

And that time period, it was just so frustrating for us as a family.

But realizing that other families were going through things similar, even worse in some cases, that I wanted to provide awareness to other people that might not have even known about this world of perinatal awareness.

So I thought about what is a way to get this awareness out?

What is a way to get this type of information and this experience out to other people that might not have the same resources that we have, the same village, the same support.

So the event that we're gonna talk about is the Grind City Cares Mid-South Race for Perinatal Awareness.

I figured that the best way, the most fun interactive way, was to do a walk/run.

And then again, very appreciative of Shelby Farms.

That race is June 6th.

So what's so significant about that date is we have three kids.

Our daughter, which is our oldest, her birthday is in June 3rd, the twins, their birthday is June 11th.

So Shelby Farms was grateful enough to give us June 6th, which is in the middle of those two birthdays.

So it's almost like a full circle moment.

And then the biggest thing, it's not just a walk/run race, it is more so like a community fair, community event, because we want all participants to come out, get the resources from hospitals, clinics, if it's physical therapists, clinics, if it's organizations that provide childcare, diapers, wipes, whatever you need that's related to perinatal awareness it's gonna be there.

And that's why we formed this event because we wanted to provide resources for those families, for those moms, for those dads that may not have ever known about the resources that's out there in our community.

- Talk about how the community can play a role in the event.

- If you wanted to partner or if you wanna partner, sponsor, volunteer, provide donations, you can definitely go to the website.

I made it easy for everybody, www.grindcitycares.com and on the tab you can find the GCC.

I wanna say it's the Mid-South Race for Perinatal Awareness.

If you can go on that tab, you can either volunteer, you can donate, you can be a sponsor, you can be a partner, whatever you want to do for this event will help us.

And it's just not just us, it's everybody else that's in this community, that's in this scope of awareness.

So that is the first thing I would tell people to do.

And then email is GrindCityCares@gmail.com.

Again, everything's so simple.

- Well, Chima, thank you for all you and your team and family do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you, Jeremy, for having me.

[upbeat music] - The SPARK Awards annually recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the community.

The 2025 Individual Youth Award went to Keiran Barlow.

- My name's Keiran Barlow, I go to Houston High School, I'm a junior there.

I play soccer for both club and at the school.

I also volunteer with the Red Cross for their youth division.

My mom works for Blood Services and also volunteers with the Red Cross.

So I naturally also wanted to volunteer with the Red Cross.

I started volunteering, I guess, with the little things a while ago, like 2020, 2023.

And I've started to get into the bigger things in the recent years, like 2024 and this year.

The American Red Cross of Mid-South Tennessee focuses on the disaster relief like frequent tornadoes we usually get throughout the area.

We have a disaster trailer that will go around the Mid-South area and we'll provide relief for the areas that are affected by a tornado and they will set up cots and everything, tents, anything you need, food and water.

And we'll also provide like medical services for anyone that has been injured or affected from a disaster.

I've been able to play the role of repacking and inventorying the disaster relief trailers.

So we take all the items out, count what we need, and get rid of all the bad items, replace 'em with the new items, and then repack the trailer, so it's ready to go for when it's needed.

You try to get all the work you can get done in a short amount of time.

So you have to prioritize the bigger things first and then you work your way down to the smaller things that take less time.

One of my favorite experiences is the Veterans Golden Age Games that was held down at the Renesant Center.

And my experience with that was I was an umpire for disabled veterans who were stuck in a wheelchair 'cause of their actions that they did for our country.

And I think my favorite part about that was meeting all of 'em and them telling us their stories and when we did a friendly match with them, they beat my butt.

The veterans, looking back on it, they all love to do what they do.

So I think volunteering, leading into that, would also help by giving back to your community, starting with the small things and leading up into the bigger things like joining the military.

I'm hoping to apply to West Point and hopefully get into West Point.

Volunteering, giving back to community, is one of their top priorities they look for in their applications.

The Spark Award, it means that I've done a whole lot of volunteering, but it also means I can still do a whole lot more throughout our community.

[gentle music] - They're a mission-driven, storytelling company and she's helping leaders ask better questions.

We're here with the owner and principal storyteller with Forever Ready Productions and her book is "Ask Like a Leader", we're here with Lauren Ready.

So Lauren, let's start out.

Give us some background on Forever Ready Productions.

- Well, thanks for having me, Jeremy.

It's so fun to be on the show today.

Forever Ready Productions started in 2014 to serve nonprofits here in the Memphis area.

I was a journalist at the time working in TV and I really wanted to tell stories that called people to action.

I felt like I was chasing headlines, chasing crime tape, you name it.

And over the last, more than a decade, we've helped nonprofits raise more than $20 million in mission-driven video fundraising.

And that can look like documentary work, brand storytelling for them, but really we focus on the people doing the work and the people impacted by the work so that hopefully we inspire people to either volunteer, donate or support a cause they haven't before.

- Give us an idea of what makes an impactful, you know, show storyline, program, documentary, feature.

What makes that impactful as a story to help nonprofits?

- One of the things I always say is, what's the untold story here and what's the story we should be telling?

So I like to challenge our partners, "to take people places cameras aren't allowed."

I'm using quotes when I say that.

You know, a place that they can't necessarily take a whole group of donors, a place that they may not fully understand because it's not their lived experience.

And those places start with the people who are in those places.

So we usually follow a person-centered story and take people to a place and an untold story that's not something they're expecting.

We like to surprise audiences sometimes with either, you know, something that happens as a result of their work with a nonprofit or the work that they've done or give them... You know, sometimes the work is is hard, right?

And it's not an easy story to tell.

You don't wanna glorify poverty, you don't wanna glorify the problems we're trying to solve, but you also have to balance telling people, "This is the need, "this is the problem we're solving, and here's a success story."

That of course, comes with challenges.

So for me, I'm always like, "What's the untold piece here "and how can we show it to your audience like they're seeing it for the first time?"

- So what led you to write "Ask Like a Leader"?

- Well, I also do speaking and so I've got a speaking consulting business alongside what I do at Forever Ready with video storytelling.

And I was trying to make this connection between how leaders lead their organizations.

And I was finding a lot of us have the same problems.

We might have a different organization or mission, but the problems we have as leaders often start with us and trickle down to our team.

And I realized there's a parallel between the questions and the methods that I use in my documentary work when I'm sitting down to interview someone for the first time and how I showed up as a leader and the commonality was the questions that I asked and the method I used to draw out deeper connection, build trust quickly and really by the end of a conversation, give us both a sense of, we have a lot more in common than we do different.

So that's sort of why I turned what I was doing in the film side and the storytelling side into a tool that leaders can use in the book "Ask Like a Leader".

- Film, focus, all of that plays an important acronym in the structure, the model.

Share a little bit about the model that you've created as a part of this book.

- So it's called the Question Lens Method.

Yes, it is a camera lens.

I had to really lean in to this fully, you know, it is a whole bit.

So within the Question Lens, there are different tiers, just like a focus on a camera, it spells out the word OSCARS.

So I challenge leaders to ask open-ended questions, specific follow-up questions, clarifying questions to make sure we're on the same page, actively listening, reflective questions, which are often deep and take time and often involve you first, and then I ask folks to share a little bit of themselves because when we share, just a tad, I don't have to tell you every detail, right?

When we share just a little bit of ourselves, we give people permission to do the same and sort of lighten the feeling in the room.

So it's a tool that leaders can use.

They can think about it like a camera lens.

You know, when you press focus or you move the focus ring, everything becomes clear.

And so the idea is when you start asking more questions, when you are a more curious leader, you lead with more clarity.

And so that's sort of how I lean into it.

It's totally based off of a camera.

I felt like I really... I needed to lean into that because that's my first expertise, but I realize it's rooted in curiosity.

- How can this make our community stronger?

How can storytelling and asking better questions make Memphis stronger?

- Well, we all know that we are divided as a country right now.

There is a lot of division.

And I think the only path towards us working together and making a difference is finding ways that we have things in common.

Finding ways to meet in the middle, finding ways to have true discussion, not just like fighting on the internet.

And I think questions are the path to that because when you ask somebody at something like, "Tell me what you're seeing from your seat, "or tell me what your lived experience is in this, or what makes you believe that?"

We're not accusing each other, we're being curious.

And I always say, "Pretend like you're Ted Lasso," right?

"Be curious, not judgmental."

It's literally on my desk right below this camera to remind me.

And I think if we approach every problem with curiosity and then start asking, instead of trying to find all the answers, I think we're gonna find, one, we have a lot more in common than we think.

And two, that we can solve problems more innovatively.

We can build trust amongst ourselves and our teams and our communities.

And I think we can all join arms and really believe in a better community by better understanding each other.

And that starts with questions, very simple.

- So where do we go to learn more about Forever Ready Productions?

Where do we go to learn more about the book, "Ask Like a Leader"?

- All right, you can go to foreverreadyproductionsllc.com.

You could see all kinds of examples of our documentary work.

You can see a few Emmys behind us.

We've gotten some really great results.

And you can go to laurenready.com/books where you can find more information about "Ask Like a Leader" as well as the speaking and consulting I do to help leaders and leadership teams really build more trust within their organization and have a real good effect on the rest of the community as a result.

- I love it.

Well, Lauren, thank you for all you and your amazing team do to power the good.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks for having me, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - On this month's episode, we saw how service, strength, and story become catalysts for transforming our community.

Service is the commitment our veterans made to keep us safe and protect our freedoms.

Through the Tennessee Department of Veteran Services, that commitment doesn't end when the uniform comes off.

It evolves into advocacy, into opportunity and services to support our veterans.

Like the Tennessee Veteran Ready Business Recognition program.

Strength is what defines Memphis and is found in the generosity of our people and in organizations like Grind City Cares, which is taking action to provide essential resources to help individuals and families and to raise awareness and funds for causes like perinatal care and story is how we connect it all.

Forever Ready Productions ensures these journeys aren't invisible because when we ask better questions and tell stories of resilience, transition and impact, we don't just inform, we inspire and take action.

We build understanding and momentum.

When veterans are supported, when communities are engaged and when stories are amplified, we create a movement.

So where can you help power the good and become a spark?

To learn more about each of the guests, to watch past episodes and to share your stories of others leading by example, visit wkno.org and click on the link for The SPARK.

We look forward to seeing you next month and we hope that you'll continue joining with us to creat a spark for the Mid-South.

- From Higginbotham's founding in 1948, our insurance agency has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Higginbotham Insurance and Financial Services is honored to be the presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]