Papa Joe on Underserved Communities
In this episode, we sit down with Papa Joe Bradford, founder of Elijah’s Heart, to hear his incredible story of transformation and service. From a promising career in computer programming to serving time in prison, Papa Joe’s life took a dramatic turn when he and his wife moved into one of Nashville's most impoverished neighborhoods. There, they began supporting children in need, which led to the creation of the Walk of Love program. Papa Joe shares how his passion for helping others has evolved into a national movement, his fight against poverty, and the impact of the Hollywood film Unconditional, which is based on his life. This episode highlights Papa Joe’s journey from hardship to hope and his mission to spread love and change lives.
About Papa Joe
Joe Bradford, known as "Papa Joe," grew up in poverty in a small town west of Nashville. His challenging experiences—including a difficult childhood, imprisonment for computer hacking, and a battle with kidney disease—shaped his heart for the poor and oppressed.
While living in one of Nashville's poorest neighborhoods, Joe and his wife, Denise, began helping local children who came to their door seeking support. This led to the founding of Elijah’s Heart in 2005, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting underprivileged children and families.
Joe's life inspired the 2012 film Unconditional, which has touched audiences worldwide. He also released a autobiography called, A Walk of Love, sharing his journey and encouraging others to find purpose in adversity.
As a motivational speaker and director of Elijah’s Heart, Papa Joe inspires individuals to embrace their unique callings and take meaningful steps in their own walks of love.
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Spencer 0:06
Papa Joe, founder of Elijah's heart and walk of love. Welcome to signature required.
Papa Joe 0:12
It's great to be here. Spencer and Carly.
Spencer 0:16
We are so thrilled to have you and to hear your voice for even a second, and certainly to see you is to know immediately that you have a very special heart, and a heart that I am so excited to showcase today, known by many as Papa Joe. You were born and raised in Nashville. You moved into one of Nashville's most impoverished communities, where you and your wife, Denise, began supporting dozens of children who sought your guidance and care. Embracing this role, you founded Elijah's heart and walk of love nonprofits dedicated to providing resources and food to children in need. You were an honors student at UT in an early hacker which ultimately landed you in prison. That's a good one to start with. Two, Napier pseudocom, where you live and work, is one of Nashville's largest food deserts. Number three, walk of love, led by you and Denise for over 20 years, is a hunger relief program. Number four, your story was adapted into the Hollywood film unconditional in 2012 and five, you battled a rare kidney disease, and are a kidney transplant recipient.
Spencer 1:32
How does one go from hacking to food deserts like what is the journey there?
Papa Joe 1:38
As you said, I was one of the as you say, in the early 80s, I've been young for a long time. Guys in the early 80s, I was an honor student, and my senior year at UT, I two to three programming languages. And so by day, I was an all American kid, but by night, I was one of the original computer hackers and had a job waiting on me at IBM, high paying job, and I wrote a program for an airline to determine how many flights to overbook, you know, I mean, seats over book a flight. And so they, you know, my I got interviews all over the country because there was successful programs. Saved millions of dollars for this airline. Okay, so they wanted to hire me in various places, but on a dare, right before I graduated, I hacked into a bank. Is when the ATM system first came out. And I just wanted to, you know, it was a dare. And so the dare got me in trouble. I got caught not in the hack, but there was a hidden camera, so, yeah, so I didn't get to go to college. He ended up going into doing some time. Wow. And it changed the whole trajectory, trajectory of my life.
Spencer 2:48
That is an unbelievable twist of a story. So you're hacking in the 80s, that's like when computers were the size of rooms. Oh, yeah, exactly. How did you have that background and knowledge and interest to become a hacker?
Papa Joe 3:06
I was a co op student at Eastman Kodak and the systems manager for their computer system. Eastman Kodak was in Kingsport, 14,000 employees at the time, so I basically shadowed the systems manager, and everything on the computer just about was on the IBM mainframe. So I became very inept at the IBM mainframe. Yeah.
Spencer 3:30
So you did time, and then you came out. And what was next for you? It sounds like you didn't go back to coding or hacking, a life of hacking, what was your next step?
Papa Joe 3:42
Well, irony, one of my first jobs, when I got out was a computer operator at Sony's Incorporated. I literally programmed the computer system to print the checks nationwide for Sony's Incorporated. I printed ten million in cashable checks every week. The irony behind I mean,
Spencer 4:07
coming out of prison for having hacked into a bank server is pretty funny.
Spencer 4:12
Go right back to computing and sending out millions of dollars of checks. That's
Carli 4:17
exactly Wow.
Spencer 4:18
What was that like in the moment of being caught on a dare, did you feel like the punishment that you received was commensurate for what had happened? Because I kind of hear this in some way of saying, all right, you're a young man, and you're clearly brilliant, in this case, more brilliant than your own good, I think, and you get caught doing this, and how long did you serve?
Papa Joe 4:48
I was given eight years, or 30% now I served a year and a half. At one point in one of the jails, I taught the sheriff how to use their computer system. So I was giving good time to everybody, and so I got a lot of favor, you know that, you know, in that and so, but I don't believe, I believe I got the amount of time not because of what I did, but for the potential what I could do. The movie called war games came out during that time, if anybody's ever seen that, yeah, and let's just say judges didn't like hackers,
Spencer 5:23
yeah, because that was especially mysterious of like, you don't know if you could hack in and launch nukes, right? I mean, that's the war games. Whole concept is just exactly, what could you do? Okay,
Spencer 5:37
so you're working for show knees and printing all of the checks. What brought you? Where were you living? Were you back in Nashville? Yeah, I
Papa Joe 5:46
was in Nashville at the time. This was in Nashville. I moved to Nashville from Knoxville, because my grandmother was who raised me more than my mother. Actually, she was dying of cancer as soon as I moved to she died within months. So I'm here in Nashville by myself, but I did meet my what was going to be my wife at a temporary job, because I worked at Shawnee and a temporary job, I met what was going to be my wife. Her name is Denise, at that temporary job, so I kind of got stuck here in Nashville.
Spencer 6:21
So advance the story from there. What is your career trajectory looking like to ultimately land you into Elijah's heart and walk of love. What's next?
Papa Joe 6:33
At the time, I was working, you know, when I was working at Shawnee in temporary job, I eventually got a job with the state of Tennessee, and it was going pretty well. And my wife and I, well, we ended up getting married, let's put it that way. And had two children, little children, and one day my legs started swelling, and I thought I was just gaining weight. I grew up with chicken legs, so I was pretty proud of my legs, wearing short shorts everywhere. But on my 35th birthday, think it was about that time, it landed me in the hospital, and I was there for two weeks. And this was years later, you know, not too long after we got married, and I had a rare kidney disease, and that they didn't know what caused it or what cured it, so they told me I was going to lose my kidneys in three years. But three months later, I lost my kidneys. Oh, my God, and ended up on a machine nine hours a day. Wow. So that that's where I ended up. So I didn't get to work. I had to quit. I was on disability. So here we are, yeah, just in an apartment about to be kicked out, and that's right before we moved into the inner city.
Spencer 7:50
Wow, so like a second iteration of all the promise in the world, unbelievably brilliant, strapped to a hospital bed nine hours a day. Is that dialysis? It was
Papa Joe 8:01
dialysis, yeah, peritoneal dialysis. So, yeah, nine hours and 24
Spencer 8:06
hour period with two little kids. Now you have eight children, but at the time,
Papa Joe 8:10
at the time, we had two little children, and, yeah, and so if I moved on eventually, you know, I was on that machine for a year and a half, and a kidney transplant came available, but the doctor suggested I didn't take it because I had a sclerosis disease, which is a killing of the kidney cells. So they say, if you get a transplant, it's going to kill the new kidney. And so I had a dilemma. I had a dilemma, because I was very, very sick. I was getting kidney stones, all kinds of things, you know, over and over they wanted to remove both my kidneys that were not working because of the kidney stones. But a transplant, a kidney came available, and it was a poor match, a very poor match. So I had to choose between getting my kidneys, having that operation and both of them taken out, I getting a new kidney. That was a poor match. That was my choice. But there's a reason why I chose to get the kidney. Tell us my oldest son, who my old son? Now, he was three years old at the time, and if I can say this, I'm just gonna say it. He said, Daddy, Jesus will heal you. And so I said, I'm sorry, son, but you don't understand, I can't be healed of sclerosis disease. And he said, Jesus will heal you. So everything, everything, every time I came back with the debate, he would say, Jesus will heal you. So I went on the faith of my three year old to get the transplant
Spencer 9:41
from the mouth of babes. So how'd the transplant go?
Papa Joe 9:45
I got the transplant. You know, it took several hours laparoscopic surgery. I don't know if I had it that time. That's not what I got. I'm a country boy. They cut me from here to yonder.
Carli 9:58
What year was this? Approximately? This
Papa Joe 10:00
was like 1999 Yeah. So,
Spencer 10:03
yeah, they've cut you side to side, top to bottom, open you up, yeah.
Papa Joe 10:08
And so what happened? They checked my my blood the next day, and for 25 years they hadn't found the disease again. Wow, I'm the longest running kidney transplant Nashville with what was called a poor match,
Spencer 10:28
my goodness. But after being on a machine for a year and a half, and then, if they cut you from here to yonder, I imagine recovering from that wasn't a walk in the park. Oh, it
Papa Joe 10:38
wasn't. It wasn't a walk in the park, because it was a new set of circumstances. I was on 50 pills a day when I initially got to transplant. I had pills that were to help me with the side effects of other pills, literally, 50 pills a day. Now this come way down to about, I don't know about 10 pills a day now, which is a lot to most people, but yeah and so, but, yeah, my body was turning upside down, inside out from all those, all those pills, so I had to walk through that. But I, you know, in during that time, we had moved into what was called, you know, the projects, and that's when things started changing.
Spencer 11:21
So what was your healthcare situation like and that you had to quit your job. So how did you have any ability to afford all of the surgery and pills? Sounds like losing your residence and moving to the projects. What was taking care of you during that time?
Papa Joe 11:43
Well, I was on disability, which is not a lot of money, and we, we were musicians, and my wife and I had worked in churches. Churches would hire us to be you know, directors and musicians were for choirs, so we did that for a long time. It's our longest running ministry. It's music. And so, yeah, I'm a saxophone player. She's a keyboard player. Her uncle was Ray Charles's band leader for like, 35 years. So it's music all in her family. And so I tricked her into going to an audition, you know, to play for a church early on, and she knew how to play one song. I'm looking for a miracle, this name of it, and we got a miracle because they hired
Spencer 12:30
us. So then where does the story go from there? I just I'm hanging on every
Spencer 12:34
conclusion of life. Have to know what's next. Okay, so
Spencer 12:37
you've got a new kidney, and you're looking now at a third chance at life. I'm
Carli 12:45
looking for another miracle. Yeah. So
Spencer 12:47
what do you do there? You're coming out, going back to your place in the projects. What's the future? Well,
Papa Joe 12:55
the first day when we moved into the inner city community, I call it that this girl that cannot speak came to our door, and my wife gave her a piece of candy. We found out there were 50 children living on our street. What happens when you give one child a piece of candy? They all come running, all of them, and so we made a choir out of them. Literally. Wow. We made a choir those kids. We started tutoring the children, and that's when life changed for us. As a matter of fact, parents would do drive bys not shooting, but dropping off the kids. Okay, literally, some parents would drop the kids off as if we were a daycare, like, Who are these people? And I'm totally serious. And so the kids were flooding our home, and that's how we got started with inner city ministry.
Spencer 13:50
So when did Elijah's heart, when did walk of love come about?
Papa Joe 13:55
Well, during that time when we got that many kids coming to your house, y'all know, kids get hungry,
Spencer 14:01
yeah, and they're not as pleasant when you don't feed them, yeah. And so we
Papa Joe 14:06
were given a lot of food. We lived in the project, not outside now. And so my wife was like, these kids are hungry, why don't we take flyers throughout a 300 plus home community and see what other children are hungry. Now I know what I said made no sense. It's like putting a cart before the horse, right? But that's exactly what we did, because we felt like we were led to see who else needed food, even though we didn't have it. So we took flyers and had a team go out with us, because people called our number and said, We need food. So what do we do? We started going to businesses and churches that we did not know. You know, he's like, you know, the vacuum cleaner salesman, he said we were trying to get food for children. That's literally what we did and people, and that's where the walk of love started.
Spencer 14:58
So we as a family. Have done walk of love, and it was just the best day to spend with you guys and your team and your family. But for those that haven't had that privilege, can you explain a little bit about what walk of love does?
Papa Joe 15:11
I sure can we've got two types of Walk of love. We got the door to door, which is how we started, and we got what we call the fresh market. Now the door to door is when we take resources, food, personal hygiene, things and other things to entire communities. I mean, every home in a 300 400 800 family community, that's what the walk of love is, yeah. And so I'm talking about pulling in, you know, big box trucks and semi trucks. Yeah, we didn't do that initially. We didn't go to the entire community initially, but within a couple of years, we did that's the door to door, and that's when we're using, you know, non perishable food, you know, canned foods and stuff like that. Now Fresh Market is when we get perishable foods. Foods is a lot of waste in our country, so foods from like Whole Foods, Panera Bread, places like that, what you would have been eating yesterday, we would get today, you know? And so we take that, and we have a system of screening the food, yeah, and bagging it, and we give it to the community and to the homeless. They come in. They come to us on those Yeah, yeah.
Spencer 16:27
Where did the mission specifically addressing hunger come from? Because when you see the brokenness that are in the inner city communities, that quickly spiral into hopelessness. There's a lot of different things that you could choose to say, I want to focus on this or that. Where did hunger come from? As your passion and mission to say, let me address this
Papa Joe 16:56
before you drive your car, no matter how old it is or new, you have to have a key, and hunger is like the key to a reach to people. I can't go to a single mom's house and say single mom, because the majority of these families are single moms, single grandmothers. I can't go in there and talk education. And we do that also if their children are hungry, no, they want to know what you know, give me some food first, then I might listen to you. And so we visited a single mom's house. When we started this, she had six children. We went to the refrigerator. My wife went to the refrigerator. There was half of a store bought pizza in there, and that's all they had. I went to the restroom. There was no toilet paper. There was a third of a Yellow Pages phone book in there, and that's what they were using this toilet paper. Now, if you ask me if this is unusual, 20 years later, I'm gonna tell you no, because I'm in inner city America, not just Nashville. I've been all over the country, and we're talking about people, women who have been through domestic abuse, and they move into one of these apartments that were built in like 1940s literally, and they have almost nothing, no furniture, no cooking utensils. That's the type of poverty that we're talking about in inner city America? Yeah, one of the
Spencer 18:23
things that struck me in talking to you when we did walk of love is the longevity of your program. Can you speak a little bit about the consistency that walk of love has had in this neighborhood, and why that has mattered, why that has resonated? It's so
Papa Joe 18:40
strange. It's just, I think I found a revelation in something. Kids are hungry tomorrow too. Go figure. They're hungry every day. Yeah, and so, yeah. Consistency is just a necessity, and it builds relationship. You know, if I come in there one and done, it just tears the community apart, because and also, this brings down violence. A parent is going to feed their child some kind of way. When we come in with our program, that's consistent, violence goes down. Yeah,
Spencer 19:20
speak to that a little bit more in that we know in these communities that the weakest often are preyed upon, that whether they're preyed on by gang leadership, drugs getting arrested, there's a lot of ways for those already that have very little hope to be just eliminated from any chance of a future. Yeah. So your role over how many years
Papa Joe 19:49
it's been? This is our 20th year anniversary of this type of program, yeah,
Spencer 19:53
so for 20 years in the community, maybe speak to some of those relationships where you've had to befriend. And the good and the bad, yeah, in order to accomplish what your goals are, yeah, yeah.
Papa Joe 20:06
There it is. Everybody knows just gangs in these communities, you know, to hang out there, and some of the well known gangs and some others, some, I call them homemade gangs, okay, so yeah, and so I make connections with the gang leaders, and I have to, because I'm feeding their children, yeah, and I need to be able to come in there in peace and and that's what's happened over the year. I get favor to the point there have been times where we've told some volunteers not to go in specific areas with, you know, alone, and they, my grandma used to say, hard headed. Give one example, one a youth minister, one youth pastor went in an area by himself, and it's just an area where they deal drugs. You know, it's, it's just a reality, right? And so this was a white guy, this totally black area, and they they either think he's a drug dealer or he's got a bunch of money and he's just in the wrong place, which is, you know, I don't know what the answer. I know we got money or not, but he's a white guy in the wrong place without somebody with him, right? And so, God, they were sticking him up, you know, put a gun on him, you know, give me all your money. And so what he did would say, I'm so sorry. I'm here with Papa, Joe. There's no accolades to me, but the guy put his gun away and just walked, walked off. Wow, because we have a community over there. It's a family. So if you come in there with me, the police, the policeman from Nashville, will tell you when we come in with our teams, that's peace during that time. Because, you know, because of our consistency, not just in the community that we are, but throughout Nashville, yeah, you know, if Papa Joe's in here with the walk of love, they're in here to help us, and they're going to come back again, and they're going to bring other people with them, not just the hung relief program.
Spencer 22:08
So tell me a little bit about Elijah's heart, because you have two nonprofits going tell our audience a little bit about that
Papa Joe 22:15
one. Yeah, Elijah's heart was a original nonprofit, and walk of love. What's happening now walk of love International is a non profit raising up, because after the movie came out, after my movie came out, I connected with people literally all over the world. Let's just say they connected with me, because my movies in 121 countries, and there have been orphanages that have, people have started in Africa, you know, place things like that. It's one guy from Ghana, and I have a way not to answer the right question sometimes. Okay, give you an example. This guy from Ghana called me, you know, right after a movie came out. He said, Papa Joe.
Carli 22:56
Papa Joe.
Papa Joe 22:57
I started an orphanage. I said, I'm that's great. And you know, who are you? You know, you know, he told me his name it well, he called me again recently, years later, he says, Papa Joe, we got like, 300 keys. Now, keys, you got that many kids, and so I'm an actor too. Y'all, yeah,
Carli 23:16
that's great work, right there.
Papa Joe 23:18
He said, Coach, I show your movie to people who got money, and they give me money for the kids, okay? And so, yeah, yeah. And so Elijah's heart got started from the last two verses of the Old Testament. It has to do with the hearts of the fathers given to the children and children to the fathers. Fatherlessness is one of the biggest reasons of what we see. So that's how we got that original name. And so since we started the walk of love and expanded. So people think our name is walk of love anyway, right? And so that mission of Walk of love is just, it's just going viral. You split that way.
Spencer 23:53
So papa Joe, I've got a couple hard questions that are just my nature is to be a fixer, and what Carly and I and our family saw when we were down there with you for walk of love just rips everybody's heart out. I mean, to see it reminds you in life you have no problems, the things that you think are issues are not issues. People would give anything for your issues to be their issues. And there's this concept of, you know, a white savior wanting to come into communities and, you know, volunteer and throw money at it. And there's really good literature out there that says, you know, what happens when you're helping? Actually hurts. And I struggle because I hear these stories, you know, using phone books for toilet paper and. Starving kids, and I want to end the podcast and go and help, but I wonder, from your perspective, how you view that, because I think I can address a community of a couple 100 people that are hungry today, but like you said, they're going to be hungry tomorrow. So how do you speak to people like Carly and I, and the world that hears this is horrified by it, but doesn't really know what to do about it? Well,
Papa Joe 25:35
thank God I'm a nerd and I like systems. And when I was younger, I was an athlete, they called me a jock, and some people called me a nerd. So I'm pretty much was a jerk. But I say that because I like systems. And so like I said, the hung relief is the key. Hunger Relief involves clothes too, because kids grow out of clothes, okay? And so that's step one, and you can set up an assistant way where people can get that for example, most of the families are on SNAP program. Food Stamps is so to say, food stamps only going to last two to three weeks the most okay? And so what we would do, we will supplement for that final week. Let's put it that way. Yeah,
Spencer 26:22
so in a 30 day month, the food stamps are going to get them through 14 to 21 days. But then there's a 10 to 15 day stretch where they've got nothing right
Papa Joe 26:32
in the door to door. Walker was a supplement for that. You know, what we do every week is just to help anybody, because it's homeless people too that we help. Okay, so systematically, even just looking at time during that month, you got there right now, they got SNAP benefits, and they got the supplemental food, which is what you know, organization like us do, and we just do it on a mass basis, okay, so that's covered fairly well. And then, okay, that's giving a child a fish. We want to teach them how to fish and which they love that, right? And so educationally, you know, there needs to be something that teaches the kids like, let's just say literacy. The biggest challenge with school is being able to read well. And you can ask any of the teachers in the inner city if you can read well, you can probably do fairly well in school, but mostly kids can. So I would bring in literacy programs like, for example, Dollar General has a foundation, you know, for example, one of the ones, and it's very successful, because kids learn to read better, and they do better in school. They do that. They can get an education and go to college. If they don't go to college, they can go to some, you know, some other type of school, you know, at least, to get some kind of a trade. Yeah, the other thing I have to introduce them to people like you, people who who had ambition and had a way to get ahead, but they need to see you, that you actually exist, a you, a type of you, because all they're seeing is mainly the drug dealers who have money. So I gotta What do I bring in? I bring in people who have been successful, introduce them to the children to build their aspirations. So you got the food, you got education is going to, you know, literacy, different types of education, is going to enhance what they're doing, okay? And they've got something to, uh, to aspire to, you know, and I see you, well, I don't want to be like them. I don't have to be a drug dealer here over and get in trouble. You see how we putting all this together? Yeah, I
Spencer 28:39
think that makes so much sense, because the individuals that you meet, they each have their own stories, and some of them are just stories that represent the face of brokenness that feels in some ways irrecoverable for a future for them, and it seems as though part of Walk of love's mission is to say, for some, we're going to serve you by feeding you and making sure that there is some ounce of dignity and humanity that we're able to offer you. But for the kids, where really our future is held, we're going to feed them too, but try to equip some of them with the chance to be able to get out of the kind of gravitational orbit of the inner city, which claims most of those that get in that orbit. It's not a good percentage for what comes out of there. And I think that's such an important message, because what I was getting at some earlier too, is that. That if people that are not like you, that are living in the community with every ounce of passion you know you're there, you're a fixture everyone knows you, you're able to make lasting change, rather than be a flash in the pan that appears one day is gone in the next, and reinforces the truth that while most people might care for a Saturday, they don't really care. And I think you show a really incredible example of how care done consistently can really generate results. And let
Papa Joe 30:43
me say, me say, let me, we actually don't live in the community people think we do, because we don't metaphorically, metaphorically, yeah, we did live in there, but, you know, so metaphorically, you're right, because I'm there so much. But another thing Spencer is the walk of love is a door, so to speak, for other things to come in. People are afraid to go into inner city America, and so the door, meaning we'll do an event on site, on the spot. It might be hot dogs, hamburgers, and the community will come out hungry. People eat. I'm saying that because they're going to come out for the food, but when they come out, we'll have canopy set up with other organizations that can, you know, bring other types of resources to them. Yeah,
Spencer 31:32
so how are you You said you've been traveling a lot and you've connected with people all over the world because of your movie. How is the walk of love influencing other community programs, not just in Nashville. Yeah,
Papa Joe 31:46
the walk of love is like a cookie cutter. You know, anybody can do it, and you just have to, you just have to know how. If you know how to do it, then it can be taken anywhere. And we've had volunteers from all over the country, some from other parts of the world. There was a lady that came this summer, if you ask my team, she was from China, and she lives here in America, but she saw a movie in China. Yeah, she didn't even know it was a real Papa Joe. She was coming to see Yeah, but she said, I learned so much, you know, from watching the movie. And so that's why I'm giving back. She didn't even know it was me. Okay, ask the question again. I told you how to win the question, yeah,
Spencer 32:29
walk of love impact these types of programs in other cities. You say there's a cookie cutter. Are you guys mentoring other community programs? Maybe in the state and outside
Papa Joe 32:39
the state? Yeah, on my on my site, papajo.org you'll see me on the Good morning American interview. They had me on their show just for this, just to talk about the walk of love, so it can kind of, you know, ignite a fire, you know, nationally. And so I get on Zoom calls with people all over the country, just showing them what our system is. And, you know, and I've been able to visit some places in the country, you know, to do the walk of love form. And they just, they just just run with it. Yeah,
Spencer 33:06
I was a father of eight Spence, and I have long conversations about what it looks like to raise kids with a generational impact, right? Like we're trying to raise our kids to be generous and want to do hard things that serve other people, not just themselves. How have you seen this life's work impact your kids and what they're up to now,
Papa Joe 33:28
we definitely know a tree by the fruit that it bears, right? And so we wanted to make sure, Lord, please let us bear fruit. You know, through our children, we don't have a legacy with our children and other children that come and volunteer. And so our kids have grown up in this, it's better to give than receive. They know that, and so that's what they do. They're team leaders. Now. They are better than I am in a lot of this stuff. I don't have to show up, because my team and my kids, they can do it too. And so, like I said, it's a legacy and, you know, and they teach others what we do. So just wonderful.
Spencer 34:07
I saw your kids in action. It was really impressive. Enjoy that, Papa
Spencer 34:12
Joe, we've had the opportunity to have legislators on our program, people that are making the policy decisions that really impact your community, that you're serving in a way that if you have the opportunity to speak to some of those legislatures, the legislators, what would you say? Because I hear various call outs that you say we've got these structures built in the 1940s I mean, approaching 100 years old. We've got a SNAP program that lasts 14 to 21 days, but not 30 days. A lot of other pieces that you've called out, education, recidivism. Them. Can you talk about what policies you see working well, or policies that really don't work well, that could really serve this community? Whatever
Papa Joe 35:14
the policy is, it has to trickle down to the individual I have spoken I've been called in. I was at house in Colorado, so national. It's a state conference day. I was a keynote speaker there. Lieutenant Governor of Florida called me in. I spoke to a big crowd. I've been in conversations like this. Whatever the policy is, can I go to one of the residents and ask them, has this affected you? Here? I put that because policies sometimes have a way of getting funds into the community, but it might not touch directly that individual you know, like, for example, I know we were having a conversation privately about these devices that have the blue lights on them to kind of deter, you know, violence. I would bring that in. That would be one of the things that so that's one of the foremost things I would do, because people are afraid to come out of their homes because of violence in inner city America a lot. Okay, that's one of the things I will make sure that's there, because it's affecting them directly and
Spencer 36:25
very low cost. I mean, on the spectrum of things is super low cost.
Papa Joe 36:29
I talked to, you know, we've been talking about food, I'm gonna say again, if, if a policy doesn't touch the basic necessities, do you know, what have we done? Because the people are still fighting, they still steal and they still selling stuff at a store that they were given through a non profit just to make ends meet. I will look at the basic necessities first. Yeah, that that's, uh, yeah. So any policy has to trickle down to that individual.
Spencer 37:04
If you saw changes to the SNAP program where the funds available for food was meaningfully increased, whatever that number is, if we just put ourselves in that world for a second and say legislative change happens in 2025 where snap is meaningfully expanded and walk of love, specifically as a hunger fighter, is diminished in some way, because hunger is not as big of a challenge at Napier, what's your next thing that you say? All right, I've turned the key to use your analogy of hunger. I finally got this addressed in my community. What's the next step that you would take?
Papa Joe 37:57
If I can use a quick analogy, let's just say a field is out there. That's a landmine field. Okay to get through that, that landmine field get from one side to another. You need some kind of information. You need you need knowledge. You first need to communicate with whoever laid the minds, or you need to communicate with whoever has successfully, successfully went through that minefield. Okay, so I would talk to the individuals out in the field with those people. Okay, that that's, that's the first thing I would, I would do. And if somebody like me who's been out in that land mine, number one communication, and a lot of people don't know what I'm about to say, I will put some type of money into telephones. I know this sounds crazy, but telephones that don't end at the end of the month, and then you gotta get another one, because one of our biggest problems is communicating with the parents to come out and do anything. Remember, I'm in I'm in there all the time. Give you example, our summer program we would, we get a spreadsheet list of names. We had about 300 literally, like 300 names be part of a summer program two weeks later, maybe, maybe 60% of those families had the same number. Wow. Because if you can't afford food, can you afford a telephone? In war? What the first thing they try to do is kill the communication system. Well, it is a war in inner city America because the mothers don't have a phone. A basic thing that simple, you would never know that, unless you out there. So I would put some money into phones that stick around. You know that they don't have to try to replace that way they can communicate. If I can communicate with you, I can tell you about the other resources that are coming to you.
Spencer 39:57
I think that's exactly COVID. So that's the answer. Is, often the solutions come from those that are living it every day. It's not an outside huge change of like, we've got to do all these things. It's like, hey, Spencer, how about we have a telephone and a number that stays the same for more than two weeks at a time, and that has reaches into so many respects that for schools, right, for getting kids to show up and keep showing up to school, they don't show up, you got a phone number, and you at least have one chance to be able to try to get them, but if you don't have a working number,
Papa Joe 40:43
and that's for real, I'm talking about mothers with 678, children, it's common. Yeah,
Spencer 40:52
I would be remiss if I didn't ask for any other ideas. I know I didn't ask you to come prepared, but I just would feel awful. Is there anything else you
Spencer 41:01
have, any more fruit, more jams, that you just need to get out?
Spencer 41:05
I mean, that was incredible idea, and that's okay, if that's the one for now. But is there any other ones that you'd say, All right, if we can get that done, here's another because that just feels so doable. Papa Joe, like the phones feels doable. Yes,
Papa Joe 41:24
you know, to get, it's been such a challenge to get past that one, to even get to, yes, that's like a you can't even get to be without that one, you know. So, yeah, getting a communication line, you know that that's like step one, and then I would teach them, you know, just about the digital world. Okay, yeah, because if you don't have a phone, you probably don't have a computer. I was gonna
Spencer 41:48
say, if you don't have a phone, you don't have internet. And so much of schools and next level learning, you have to be able to get online. So when
Papa Joe 41:57
COVID hit, they got internet in inner city communities. But you know, that policy, whatever has ended so, yeah, so I don't know how to get an internet. Very few people have internet. So imagine you don't have a phone or an or internet. How
Spencer 42:12
did they get the internet? Was it Wi Fi that they set up during? Yeah, they set up Wi Fi
Papa Joe 42:16
during, during COVID, because, you know, you had you they had to do school remotely.
Spencer 42:21
And then, once COVID was declared over, did they pull the Wi Fi out of
Papa Joe 42:27
the communities? You win, wow. And they lost.
Spencer 42:32
And are they? Were they school issued devices, I guess, laptops that they were bringing they were
Papa Joe 42:36
at the time, during COVID, during COVID, yeah, but now, yeah, they've got to get some new policy in there to get to get Wi Fi again. Can
Spencer 42:46
I ask you, you talked about literacy and the need? Are you guys addressing that right now, or is that something that you're hoping to address?
Papa Joe 42:55
Yeah, future yo is yes and no, that's what I was like. What was that? I use that one?
Spencer 43:02
Alix, yeah, that should be on your T shirt. Yo, yes, yes. Because,
Pap Joe 43:07
because communication line is so hard to do that we've been working so hard to get communication going consistently, it's hard to keep a literacy program together if you don't have phones and internet, and so, yeah, we've done it, and we still trying, but yeah, it's here and there, because you got to give. And
Spencer 43:28
I think that's the consistency element that is there too, is that if we know the world in which we live in, is that phones are not much of a reality, internet's not much of a reality. But there's a literacy program that has been showing up every week at the same time on whatever day of the week, and they've been doing it for three months. All of a sudden, now the community has enough time to spread it word of mouth, yeah, I mean, that's ultimately the only thing that's left. It's word of mouth and flyers that can get distributed. But doing it for one weekend or two weekends and then being gone, I can appreciate why an organization would say, well, we didn't get a lot of people showing up, or we didn't see a lot of impact, and it has to go deep and be sustained and partners like yourself is what makes that even possible, not only from a safety standpoint, I mean, so practical there, but from a community standpoint, and knowing what has to be addressed. Who is your legacy, if you get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow, your decades of life work, who's there in the gap?
Papa Joe 44:52
Yeah, we've got, we've got a team of people who have been with us for years. And. And we got some young and, you know, and some older, and so they'll keep the ball rolling in what we do. And I've trained people all over the place. So the principles that we're talking about, you know, I've been training people for years, man, the basic, foundational stuff that we've been talking about on this podcast that people don't know. That's right in our face, that people just don't know. Yeah, I've been training people for years, and we continue to do it, and we have a team that will carry that on,
Spencer 45:31
just educationally. Papa Joe for Napier, pseudocom, that's a community that has about 800 residents or buildings. It has 800
Papa Joe 45:44
buildings or apartments. It's the largest inner city community in the state of Tennessee, like that.
Spencer 45:49
So when you think about other communities in Middle Tennessee, or if you look wider at the whole state of Tennessee, how prevalent is a community like this. Would you say Spencer? This is one community out of 100 that have the exact same story. Is it one out of 1000 help me understand the scope and the magnitude of the problem in Tennessee? Yeah.
Papa Joe 46:15
Well, here in Nashville, if I looked at Nashville first, you got Napier sudokum, you got what's called the traditional homes run by the housing authority in every city, in major city in our nation, you have a housing authority, and they're responsible for most of these communities like this. And you got some, some income based communities that are not, course, housing authority, and they're scattered throughout Nashville. They scattered throughout inner city America, and so with the traditional homes, the red brick ones like that, y'all got to visit, it's about six of them, you know, with about, you know, three to 400 families per home. And then you've got the other ones that have been rebuilt but are still income based, okay, you got, you know, maybe five or six of those and so, but yeah, there could maybe be two dozen or so in Nashville, scattered throughout the city. And, you know, just in the ones I told you, the traditional homes. It could be like 10,000 people in just those five that are traditional, not, not counting the other MDH Housing Authority one so it's 1000s man. What
Spencer 47:24
happens when you look at a city like Nashville, where the growth of the city has transformed communities that used to look one way and feel one way and have certain statistics that now looks real different, and you see inner city communities that once had a development that's gone and gentrification happens to where these families are displaced. Can you talk about a story or two of really saying Spencer. It's one thing to just see it as the growth of Nashville, but here's real life, like what this does to families when they're displaced.
Papa Joe 48:10
Now we're jumping into the motel homeless, because when buildings where you got impoverished, people are torn down, the people have to go somewhere. Yeah, the homelessness. Homelessness is an epidemic, not just in California, where you see a lot about it, but in Nashville and other cities too. Homelessness is really grown in our city, but you've got the motel homeless, and that's what I call them. That's what a lot of people call them, these they don't have a residence other than trying to pay for a motel. They're not in a motel. They're in the car. And that's really shot up in Nashville, Tennessee.
Spencer 48:48
So if Napier sudokum was leveled tomorrow and they said, All right, this is closed and done, there's 800 families. Obviously it's not going to happen. But if that was to happen tomorrow, yeah, then their only option is sleep in their car. Many of them will go homeless. Try to find some other community that has space,
Papa Joe 49:11
yeah? But it's good. The waiting list is long for other communities like so there's not even space, so you can't even get in, yeah? And so, yeah, it's very limited to where you can go for income based homes and so they end up cousins, move in with cousins, cousins illegally, you know, like that, which causes a big issue.
Spencer 49:35
What would you say to someone that has never worked with the walk of love that had no idea that some of these problems persisted. What is the one thing you wish that if you had the giant megaphone and everyone had to hear you say something, what do you wish people knew?
Papa Joe 49:55
I wish that they were aware of the issues that we. Talked about here, I believe when people are made aware, then they know how to help. People don't know how to help, then they know there's a reason to help, because we typically go about our life, day to day, and we have our routine. You can drive by these communities not even notice them. There's 1000s of children and families, yeah, that are going through this. So I would be, I would, I would make it a way, or I'll put on a post of what's going on, and please come on out. It's going to be fun. I would have people who have big hearts, like you. I would videotape you more and more, put you on a billboard. I was there, y'all, because they will listen to you. I was there. Come on. Come on. Now. Let's go help these kids. Yeah, they might not listen to me, you know, but they will listen to you.
Spencer 50:58
That's a really powerful message, and exactly what Carly and I and our girls as we drove home, it put life in a really different perspective that breaks your heart. And I think what's so appreciated in your message is there's not an ounce of victimhood, of blaming, of excuses. You are all practicality. And to be clear, we could spend plenty of time to talk about any of that stuff, but you're using your time to say, here is how you help. It starts with being aware there's a problem, and then there's actually some really achievable solutions, things that advance the ball forward. Because what I see in this is there are generational cycles that are going to have to be broken Exactly. There are some people that are in line at walk of love that you and I both know are unemployable and will likely be unemployable for the balance of their lives. And to say anything different is not being intellectually honest for the majority, but in that same line are those kids and the potential to say, this has been a life that was in some Ways sacrificed their parents, their grandparents, for the future of their kids to be able to give them a chance to make something of themselves in life, and you are laying out a really clear and consistent pathway to do that. And I just can't tell you how proud I am to meet you, Papa Joe, your story of overcoming, coming through prison, coming through kidney failure, and managing to have a story that to spend a second around you is to see God's Love, to see someone that is living for not this place. This is not our home. It inspires me to no end, Papa Joe. And I just want to say thank you.
Papa Joe 53:30
Thank you for giving me the privilege to share, man, what's going on.
Spencer 53:37
We're going to shout it from the rooftop and as loud as we possibly can so that people can hear and learn you.
