Reality Changers: Breaking Barriers, Building Futures with Tamara Craver

In this transformative episode of The Good For Others Show, we sit down with Tamara Craver, President and CEO of Reality Changers, an organization changing the game for first-generation college students in San Diego. Tamara shares the incredible journey of empowering students with less than a 2.0 GPA to become college-bound leaders and agents of change in their communities.

Discover how Reality Changers provides academic coaching, mentorship, family support, and even home-cooked meals to help students succeed—not just academically but holistically. From heartwarming success stories to the vision for breaking cycles and creating a future where every student has a seat at the table, this episode is packed with inspiration and actionable insights.

🎧 Tune in to hear Tamara’s wishes for a world where “firsts” are no longer necessary, and nonprofits like hers can work themselves out of a job. You don’t want to miss these stories of resilience, equity, and transformation.

#RealityChangers #BreakingBarriers #GoodForOthers #EducationForAll #FirstGenSuccess

Transcript

0:10 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Welcome to The Good For Others Show. I'm your host, John Valencia, and with me today is Tamara Craver, the president and CEO of Reality Changers.

0:19 - Unidentified Speaker Welcome to the show.

0:20 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Thank you for having me. Today we are super excited to have you. You are a powerhouse of change and with over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit space, you have amazing experience. Here it says you've built an impressive career driven by purpose and relentless passion for equity. You are a staunch advocate for first-generation college students. You have dedicated yourself to breaking down barriers and opening doors to life-changing opportunities for young people to deserve the chance to shine. Your work goes beyond traditional mentorship. You help empower youth to dream big, equip them with the tools dreams into reality. You have an unwavering commitment to creating accessible pathways to education and opportunity, inspiring, making not only leaders, but true catalysts for change. And you believe in a world where every young person, regardless of their background, has a seat at the table. Well, thank you for what you do. Thank you.

1:24 - Unidentified Speaker That's amazing. So welcome to the show.

1:26 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 So to kick off our show, we like to ask you a few lightning-round questions to get to know you. Okay, sounds wonderful. Okay, so would you rather travel back in time to meet your ancestors or travel to the future to meet your descendant?

1:43 - Unidentified Speaker I think I would actually go back in time to meet with my ancestors.

1:48 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Would you rather be able to teleport anywhere or be able to read minds?

1:53 - Unidentified Speaker Teleport anywhere. That'd be fun. You're like, I'm in Paris.

1:57 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Yeah. I like to travel, but I hate rivaling.

2:02 - Unidentified Speaker Exactly, me too. Specialty import is exactly what I need.

2:06 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 I just want to be home. Would you rather always have a great story to tell or always get a good night's sleep?

2:16 - Unidentified Speaker Oh, a good night's sleep.

2:18 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Yeah. Would you rather have a personal chef or a personal assistant?

2:23 - Unidentified Speaker Personal assistant. So much more. They can also help. Ordering food, too, works.

2:28 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Would you rather spend a month without your phone or a month without talking to people face to face? A month without my phone. Would you rather have unlimited free flights or unlimited free dinners at your favorite restaurant? Unlimited free flights. And on a more serious note, who or what inspires you?

2:52 - Unidentified Speaker Oh, my goodness. Cliche, but I'm gonna say my family I think I have an absolutely amazing rock star family even back to some ancestors that I was saying I would love to go back and speak to But I look at my family as a testament of what can be and what's possible And so I feel like I have a responsibility to continue that legacy and pay it forward So I really put that on my family of instilling that inside of me.

3:18 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 I love that So tell us a little bit about you. How did you get to reality? Where has this career of yours brought you here? So I'm originally from Ohio.

3:27 - Unidentified Speaker I spent the majority of my life in Los Angeles. Came to California to go to UCLA because I didn't want to shovel snow ever again in Ohio. And I've never gone back except for visits. But so I spent my majority of my career there and just been kind of fell into the nonprofit world and really realized that it was probably my calling and my passion to serve and be a servant leader. And 2019, I heard about this wonderful opportunity at Reality Changers and took a chance and applied. And it was everything that I had wanted in a job, really thinking about grassroots support of first-generation students starting early in the eighth grade. So I made the decision to leave Los Angeles to come to San Diego and have never regretted it. So came here August 2019, right before the world shut down for the pandemic, right? Not how I envisioned starting my new career as the president and CEO or my new time in San Diego, but I think it taught me a lot about resilience and it taught me about how amazing people are in San Diego.

4:31 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 So I made the great decision to be here. That's amazing.

4:35 - Unidentified Speaker So tell us what Reality Changers does. Yeah, so we support first-generation students to become first-generation college graduates and agents of change in their community. So you say, Tamara, what does that really mean? We start recruiting in the 8th grade who've historically had a GPA of lower than a 2.0, which usually shocks people that we're not looking for the cream of the crop. We're looking for those students that just need a little bit more support, guidance, and encouragement because that 8th grade is very pivotal. That's when high schools begin to track how they're going to track these students when they get to high school. So if we can get in and disrupt that narrative very early on in the 8th grade, we can literally change that student's academic trajectory by the time they enter high school So we work with those students with those lower GPAs all the way through high school so that by the time they hit 12th grade, they at least have a 3.0 GPA that it gets them to allow them to be able to apply to colleges, especially right here in San Diego. Very rigorous program with academic coaching, tutoring, mentorship. They come to our office once a week. They come at 4 and they leave at 9.30. Wow. Huge commitment for the students. And people say, oh, that's a lot. But they're really working on their academics, and we get their syllabus. We work with them to really make sure that they're strong academically in school, but we also work with our families. We have a family and parent coordinator that really supports our families, and what does it mean for your student to be a first-generation college graduate and begin to have those conversations about what that support is going to look like for our students. We also serve our students a hot meal every night they come to us, which is funded and supported by the families. We don't charge for our program, so we ask our families to provide a hot meal a home-cooked meal for our students. I know, it's a little bit different than- Chill. I know. Really? Yes. So we have their, like, it's amazing. Every night we have, like, the most amazing cultural foods. It's absolutely amazing, because you think about it, though, our students, the last time they would have eaten was around 11 o'clock. So by the time they come to us between 4 and 4.30, they haven't had anything to eat. So we serve them a hot meal at 6, so that they're ready, that their minds are full, their bodies are full, so they can really work and support their academics. How many participants do you have? So we have anywhere between 60 to 90 kids a night. So that's Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. And then we have some programming on Saturdays. And that's just our A through 12th grade program. That doesn't include our students on college campuses.

6:54 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 OK. Wow. Yes. I knew this program was amazing. I didn't know that you do that. OK. So the students come from after school. They come to this facility. How big is your facility?

7:05 - Unidentified Speaker So very large. We actually share a high school campus with Urban Discovery Academy, which is on 1400 Park, right across the street from San Diego City College. So we have the entire lower level of the high school. So we work in partnership with Urban Discovery Academy that their students are automatically enrolled into our program. So we're embedded in their everyday programming, which is awesome to have, in partnership also with UC San Diego. So UC San Diego also provides accredited programming for students to Urban Discovery Academy and Heart of Reality Changers. So it's a really nice collaborative hub right there in downtown.

7:43 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 So you basically create this culture of you go to school and then you come to this program. They're doing homework, they're building community, they're being fed. I mean so you're doing basic needs and everything else.

7:58 - Unidentified Speaker And we have a part-time social worker that's with us so that's students if there's anything happening in their family or their personal lives. They can talk to a social worker, but we also provide that service to the families as well. So whole mind, body, and spirit for the students and their families.

8:14 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Do you just go to this space and just feel? Yes.

8:17 - Unidentified Speaker Every day I feel like I have one of the best jobs in the world that I get to go to bed every night feeling really good about what I do. We're really changing not just the students' lives, but their community's lives. We've parents go into college because they saw their kid go through the program. We see cousins and neighbors. We don't advertise for enrollment. We have a waiting list for our program because it's word of mouth. Students will tell their friends, they'll tell their churches, they'll tell their communities. And that's how we find our students.

8:48 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 They come in to us from word of mouth. Okay, I need to come visit.

8:52 - Unidentified Speaker Please, we'd love to have you.

8:54 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Okay, so that's the after school portion.

8:57 - Unidentified Speaker And then you have the other program with colleges. So then we start in the 12th grade, then the curriculum changes a little bit, becomes even more robust because then we're really focused on their college applications, their essays, their financial aid. Our team really sits with the families and the students to help them with their financial aid packages. And I'm not sure if you kind of paid attention to what happened last year with the financial aid crisis. It really affected the student population that we serve, but really happy that we were able to support all of our students through that process. For our families, but we really walked hand in hand with them, spending countless hours on the phones trying to help figure out what was this mess that was happening with financial aid. And so then we helped them apply for scholarship. We have this really, really cool program in the month of February. We challenge our students to apply to at least one scholarship a day in the month of February. I love that. Yes. So they get prizes, they get awards, they get gift cards for applying. And so with that is what we're trying to do is help them go to with little to no debt. So they're thinking of it as this fun, competitive activity, and we're thinking, we're helping you get your... You have no idea what we're doing. What we're doing on the other side.

10:02 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 You will love this down the road, but it doesn't make sense.

10:05 - Unidentified Speaker Exactly. That's great. And we have amazing partnerships with our colleges and universities and in the community that will support our students once they get on college campuses. And so that's the other thing. It's like our program is not just a one and done type thing. It's really, I say once reality changes, always reality changes. Because once they're on college campus, we are meeting with them, helping them with their academics. We have ambassadors, which are Reality Changer students that will support the younger students in terms of how to select your classes. We go to campus and meet with the students and meet up with administrators, again, so they see that there's a community of people that are supporting them. Wow. Because we know that a lot of colleges and universities are actively searching for first-generation students. And so when that pound the table part that you mentioned about me is it's not enough just to want first generation students. You have to be able to be prepared to serve them. And just because they got into college doesn't mean that people should be done supporting them. And so we really push the envelope to make sure that there are caring adults on campus that will also help walk them through that process. Because then we also think that the next step of that is they'll become first generation employees. So what is the next step for workforce development look like for as well. Our students don't necessarily come to the table with an uncle who's an attorney or a bank president, but through Reality Changers, we help give them that support system and help them build that network with those caring adults, the mentors, the tutors that come in, the volunteers that come in to show that there is a world out here and caring people that will really support you through your journey. Wow.

11:38 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Wow.

11:38 - Unidentified Speaker How big is your staff? There are 17 of us. 17 of us, yeah. Doing all this work. Doing all this work, yes. We really try to focus on being heavier on the boots on the ground staff, the staff that serve the students, because they're doing the heavy lift, working with the students every day, visiting the high schools, home visits need to be, that they're doing the heavy lift, working with the students every day. So we really try to focus having more staff doing that piece of the work.

12:05 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 What types of roles do you have?

12:07 - Unidentified Speaker On the staff? Yeah. So on the administrative, we have HR, we have finance, and then we have our which does all the fundraising, of course, and communications and marketing. And then we have a person that handles our volunteer efforts, because we do need a lot of volunteers for our program. And then from there, the rest of it is all of the staff that work directly with the students.

12:28 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 What kind of volunteer roles do you offer or need or solicit?

12:31 - Unidentified Speaker Yeah, absolutely. So their academic tutors are always very welcome to our program, writing coaches to help with the students when they're doing their applications for college, which is coming up right now. November is college applications. Application season. So helping writing those essays is very helpful. We also look for career coaches, mentors for our students that are on college campuses, again, to begin to talk about what does the summer internship look like, How do you prepare for it? What does your resume look like, So mentors, volunteers for those are, well, we do have several events. We're always looking for volunteers for our events to come out and help kind of with the logistics and the moves. And then we have an amazing board. So people that are interested in serving on our board welcome to think about that as well.

13:13 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 That's great. Yeah. You know, I think in our training program with Goodfathers, we are always trying to help one, kind of there's these myths that people run these nonprofits and it's, Oh, it says nonprofit, so you must not make money. Right. So helping people to understand that, but also understanding how many different roles and right. You say HR, you've got marketing, you've got communications. You may not want to do fundraising, but there's so many other. Roles that we all, you know, we are running businesses with just really cool missions and really good work. That's exciting. Now, what are some of your like future plans for your organization? One, I want to get to the point where we don't have a waiting list.

13:51 - Unidentified Speaker I want to be able to serve all students that want to be served. And so because we're so hands on with our students, we have to be very careful of the ratio between students and staff because we want to make sure that students are not left behind. So to add more students, I have to add more staff. So we try to balance that. But I would love to get to the point where there's no longer a wait list. Anybody that wants the program should be able to have the program, because that's that equal access. I don't want to push somebody out because of whatever. I want to make sure that we can serve those students. As the economy is tightening up, I think even the dinner portion, our parents sometimes have challenges with being able to provide dinner. So finding more resources that will help families with that piece, even if it's providing the food and making and do the preparation of it and still serve. But I just think the economy, the way we're seeing some effects of that with our families, that makes me sad because they want to participate. They want to contribute. But it can be challenging for people. And I think we've been in San Diego 25 years, and I think we're the best kept secret. And if I had my way, I think one day we would be able to expand and have different offices. Even in San Diego County, there's still so much more that we could do in this So I think having more satellite offices, serving more students would be my dream come true. Yeah, I think that's really, and really continuing to find pathways to workforce development for our students. Getting the door is probably the biggest battle for our students. And so finding more pathways where we can just get them in the door and create opportunities for them for internships and full-time employment. How long have you guys been around? Since 2001. Yeah. We started off as a gang prevention organization. Our president and founder, Chris Yanov, was working with eighth graders. And he said that he got tired of going to more funerals than he was graduations for eighth graders. And so that's how the program started. So he really just was trying to find a place to keep these kids safe because he was teaching in eighth grade and now has grown into this amazing youth development college access program. And I even asked him when I first started, like, is this what you always had hoped it was? No, so much more than I could have ever imagined. So that makes me feel proud that I can carry that baton for him and continue to make this organization a gold standard for San Diego.

16:14 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 So, wow. Well, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for Reality Changers existing. Thank you. When you talk about some of these needs that these participants go through, what are you finding is kind of the most common, you know, I think a lot of times people don't understand, like, what happens in other families' houses, right? You think, oh, it's okay. Like, sure, we all struggle, but I'm guessing you see some really interesting things.

16:45 - Unidentified Speaker What are some kind of common things? So I think one of the things that became very apparent for us during COVID was Safer at home did not mean safer at home for everybody. And so because we worked so very closely with our students, like we knew who those students were. And because we worked so closely with them and the families trusted us that we were still able to drop by and check on them, even during COVID, drop off bread, peanut butter, something so that we could lay our eyes on our students. And I think that made me feel really proud because that goes beyond just the academic piece that again, the whole human, the whole human, We have students that have mixed status families, which I think was hard for them to navigate through with what was happening with the financial aid applications last season. I think students and parents now are a little bit nervous with the election about what some things are going to mean for them. And I think, too, when the world shut down during COVID and everyone was at home, there might have been a computer at home, if you have multiple people at home, the internet couldn't withstand people trying to study. So we saw a lot of students struggling with technology. So we had a great partnership with AT&T, and they donated laptops to all of our graduating seniors this past season. Thank you, AT&T. I know. Just to make sure that, again, you talk about the things that we take for granted, that maybe the students, they get laptops at school, but they have to turn those back Again, there's not bears. And so to be able to send students off with laptops to college was, again, something we're very proud of So I think some of, just like you talked about earlier, the basic needs that we oftentimes take for granted.

18:32 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 I mean, even the hygiene. Yes. All the things. Peanut butter, as you say. We just don't think that there's families and humans that in our own neighborhoods who are really struggling.

18:42 - Unidentified Speaker And these kids are just trying to go to school and do well. We all know that you can't study on an empty stomach. And again, I think that we take that very seriously to make sure that we have snacks and things like that for students. So, we're always looking for healthy snacks and options for our students to be able to have just, as soon as they arrive, the first thing they're looking for is something to eat, right? Even before dinner's served, they look for it. So, those are some of the common themes that we're seeing, but I think- Do you guys take donations for food? Yes. Yes, we do. Where is it? The theme that we always see is the resilience. They're gonna show up and do it anyway. And that is the piece that I think, when I go to bed at night and I think about the amount of hours, and you know, we all work a lot in non-profit, we work a lot of hours, you work when you don't feel good, but those are the reasons why, when you see those students be resilient and do it anyway, that makes the work matter.

19:39 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Wow. I'm sure you have a lot of really great success stories. Can you think of one that you want to share?

19:46 - Unidentified Speaker Oh, yes, absolutely. And I always say that he allows us to share his story. We have an alum of our program named Sal and he came to us in eighth grade and he had, I mean, I don't even think it was like a zero point something GPA when he came to us. And one of the things that became very clear when he came into our program is that he was actually deaf but had not been diagnosed yet. And so people are like, well, he's not listening. Well, it wasn't that he wasn't. He could not hear at the time. So he got hearing aids and later got some cochlear implants. And so academically, he just started blossoming and such an amazing human being. And he went to Berkeley engineering and just graduated and landed his very first job. And he spoke for us at an event recently, and he said something that brought me to tears. And I'd never heard him share this piece of his story. And he said that getting that first job, making the amount of money that he made coming fresh out of college was more than his parents had made combined in 20 years. So when you think about what this program does, not only for that student, what does for his family and his community is truly a reality change. And I had to turn away at the event because I had never heard him say it that way. And so you think about what that does to and for a student to go to college at Berkeley, engineering, already prestigious, graduate on time, and he did it in four years, and then be able to make money that he's now supporting his family in a very powerful way, again, makes me feel really good about the work we do. Mm. And talk about transformational work. Absolutely. Wow. We also have another one of my favorites is one of our alums. Guillermo came here from Ethiopia and now owns two restaurants right here in San Diego, one in City Heights and one in downtown. Wow. Yes. What other restaurant? Ali's Chicken and... Okay, I have to go. You have to go. It's amazing. Obviously, that's amazing. So now he hires Reality Changers students to work for him, employing people in his community. That again is that shift of changing because ultimately for me, when I think about the legacy of Reality Changers, it's the students, of course, but I would love to get to a point where I can continue to point to of how our students have changed the economics of this city. That now what they've done academically, the support they received, the scholarships, the college degrees, how now they're impacting the economy of our great city. And so that's the piece again, I'm like, that's the next piece of Reality Changers.

22:42 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 That's amazing. You know, I've worked in education for a while, when I was at Grosvenor-Cremack as a Vice Chancellor, and we always did our impact report, right, about how many billions of dollars would, you know, doing the education pathway for individuals and what that does to our local economy. But specifically for you guys, that would be, that would be amazing to find out. Right. And I guess, Yvonne, just, you know, in general, these nonprofits, all this work we're doing is benefiting so much. Yeah. Wow. I love that. That's really exciting. So, you know, we talk a lot in our training program about burnout.

23:19 - Unidentified Speaker Mm-hmm. We all wear mini hats. Yes, we do.

23:23 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 We work endless hours. What do you do for yourself and for your staff to try to help minimize the burnout? Because you can be inspired, I'm sure, by these stories, but then you're like, ugh. Ugh. Right? What do you do?

23:39 - Unidentified Speaker So one of the things that I did coming out of COVID is we went to a unlimited vacation policy. Thanks. Heard of for small nonprofits. We do too. High five. High five, yes. Love it. And I really thought, you know, if you need to go do something, I want you to be able to do it and not have to worry about, oh, I don't have enough time in the bank to go do it, or a family member is ill. I want you to be able to go do that. So that was one thing. But we also built in some, like, great time off. So one of the things that we did was we take the entire week of July 4 off as a summer pause. It's our break between the end And before we start on the summer and if everybody, the entire org shuts down, no one's working because so that you can take a breath before the summer starts. And we do a lot of check-in with each other, you know, pulse check. How are you doing on a scale of one to ten? Where are you? Really checking on the staff, really caring about the people. It's, I like to think of it as, you know, we take care of the caretakers and make sure that they're okay. And if you need to time off, take the time off. Do what you need to do to refuel. The social work of being on staff I think also helps, because people can tap into that as well. For me, I think as a president and CEO, sometimes I feel like I carry all of it. And that can be hard at times, but I've been doing much better about self-care for myself. Not having a lot of family here, I try to go back home to Ohio a lot to visit my family. And I love the water, which is a great perk of being in San Diego. So I try to spend some time out by the water, early morning walks, just to kind of reset myself. And I've always in my life been a journaler, always. But there's been some amazing people in my life have lately said, you need to turn that into a book. And so, yeah. Coming soon.

25:37 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Thank you. Congrats. Thank you. Wow. Thank you. They still have chills, this is very cool. I'm thankful for you and what you do and your staff and the volunteers who are literally changing the reality of so many humans. On a daily basis. On a daily basis, yes. Okay, so we're gonna go to our next segment which we call Three Wishes. So, okay, let's imagine that there's a genie in this room and this genie is gonna give you three wishes. What would your first wish be?

26:11 - Unidentified Speaker My first wish would be that we could financially be in a position where we don't ever have to worry about staffing structures or not be able to serve students that want to be served. I would love to have just enough money in the bank to not have to worry about those things. My next wish, and this is going to sound crazy, is I would love to work myself out of a job. And because I think we're 25 years into this and the fact that we're still needed is sometimes frustrating for me. When is the educational landscape going to change so that organizations like this may not ever be needed again? So if I could work myself out of a job, I would be so proud.

27:04 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Yes, say it again. Exists because we're Band-Aids. Our system is broken. Something's broken. And I would love for us all to go out of business one day because it means our system's working. Yes. And everyone is cared for in an equitable way. Yes. And getting everything they need to flourish.

27:23 - Unidentified Speaker So I love that. And my next one again might sound a little strange to people is I would like to get to the point where the term the first doesn't exist anymore. When do we get to stop saying that? And it's just become, that's an expectation. I'm a college graduate. I am a this, I am a that, without having to have always the first. Because again, to me that means something didn't happen previously.

27:54 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Well, and it means that the cycle is existing.

27:58 - Unidentified Speaker That's break cycle. Breaking cycles. All day, every day.

28:02 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Breaking barriers. Okay, so if people want to learn more about your program, I'm guessing go to realitychangers.org. Yes. Probably volunteer opportunities there. Everything is there, yes. Ways to donate for those who want to support so we can make one of your wishes come true one day that you could have, you know.

28:21 - Unidentified Speaker And I'm always on LinkedIn, so reach out to me on LinkedIn as well if people have other questions about the organization. I love to tell the story day about reality changers.

28:32 - Conference Room (Speaker 1) - Speaker 1 Well I just want to say thank you for being you. If you haven't hugged yourself lately I hope you do because I just know that what you're doing is magical work and I appreciate your leadership in creating sounds like a really great environment for not only your participants but your

28:53 - Unidentified Speaker staff. Treating them as humans with the respect and dignity that they deserve so they can continue to do this magical work for those that you serve, so thank you for your leadership. I appreciate that and thank you for believing in us and the work that we do to have me here today. That means a lot to us as well. Of course, we want everyone to know about it, you know, so it's not this thing that's this unknown, right? Like, get the word out. You're doing really cool work and continue to do that for years to come. So, well, thank you for being here. We're super excited to, I'm excited to learn more. I can't wait to come visit your facility. I would love to have you come over. And see it all in action. So, all right. For those of you who want to learn more about Reality Changers, please go to realitychangers.org and learn more about the great work that Reality Changers is doing. So, all right. Well, thank you so much for tuning in today. We're super excited that you're here. And again, as always, we hope that you've learned something today that inspires you to do good for others.