Beautiful Strength: The Podcast

In this episode we sit down with 18 year old cancer survivor and amputee Tyler Jones and his mom April. If you weren't inspired to live life to the fullest before this episode, you will be when it's over. Tyler is an energetic and polite young man enjoying the college life and making plans for the future. He's bright, encouraging, and his smile lights up the room. Tyler is an athlete, a devout Christian, and a survivor of cancer that took his foot, but it didn't even come close to taking his spirit.

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Shortly after BrandiLee and her family moved from Syracuse NY to Nashville TN in the summer of 2016, her son Finn was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma after doctors found a large tumor inside his bladder. After 2.5 years of aggressive treatment which included 9 different chemotherapies, 7 cumulative weeks of radiation, 4 major abdominal surgeries, and 3 relapse, Finn was out of options and out of time. He passed away in early December 2018.

Despite the immeasurable loss of Finn, BrandiLee joined the SHEPHERD Foundation on the undying mission to save the lives of rare cancer patients.

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Makenzie O'Toole is a 14 yr old Rhabdomyosarcoma of the soft palate survivor/fighter. Makenzie was diagnosed at the age of 2 after a suspected abnormally large uvula closing off her airway ended up being a tumor. Kenzie underwent chemo and radiation and was one of two Rhabdomyosarcoma's in the head treated at the University of Michigan Mott Children's hospital. At the time of diagnosis Kenzie's cancer and area was extremely rare and her treatment experimental. Unfortunately as time has gone by many more cases have been found. Kenzie's case is used in teaching at U of M and many colleges around Michigan with both the oncology specialists and also speech pathologists. Kenzie sees 14 specialists and continues to fight the everlasting effects of treatment that saved her life. She wants to pursue a career in medicine and wants to help other kids find their voice and advocate for themselves. Kenzie has found her voice and learned to voice her needs in the medical community and also in school --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Alli Bimson is absolutely hilarious. She makes us smile with her everyday commentary on motherhood of 3 year old Kai. A fun loving, little boy currently fighting against leukemia. He just turned 3 and he is already one heck of an entertainer. Alli is just taking it one day at a time, laughing as she goes, and just trying to survive being a single mom, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a full time employee AND help Kai beat cancer. She's a tough cookie and a big heart and when you meet her, she welcomes you in just like you're one of the family. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

What are you Living For? We all have different responses and our why to this question. Our answer is deep and personal and the reason why this nonprofit exists. At the age of 2, our daughter Arlie was diagnosed with cancer, Leukemia. We started the hard uphill battle to getting her healed. She made it 1 1/2 years into treatment and unfortunately the cancer came back. The only option for relapse was a Bone Marrow Transplant. It is an understatement to say it was hard, it was hell. But we did everything we could to get her into remission and recovered from such an aggressive thing. During the long 6 month hospital stay, we had too much time to think of all things we were going to do after we got out of that place! How we were going to make a difference and not take life for granted. Live our life to the fullest and help those going through what we did. That's when Living For Everything started. In the hospitals walls of room 6309. I ordered our 1st batch of shirts with some of our Gofundme funds, handed them out to people and families on our floor and started listening. For those key words that would help guide us to what we were supposed to be doing. And the word that kept coming to mind was comfort. We need a little bit of that during hard times. We didn't know what we were doing, but you don't have to have all the answers to take action! Just show up. That's what we try and do for our community and families of pediatric cancer patients. We make comfort kits for pediatric cancer patients, focusing on the caregivers, showing up where we are needed.

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It's that time again, a Sunday Snack episode. Basically just two friends recapping the week and discussing a few hot topics, the Non Profit organization Beautiful Strength, and shouting out Kudos to people we see doing great things!

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Through the hurt, there is still healing and love In this episode, Chrissi talks about very difficult subjects with such pose and clarity. The child of two addicts, abused by her father, sold for sex acts, drugged and manipulated. Chrissi's childhood was far from perfect. A life of abuse led her into a lifestyle of drug and alcohol dependency. She battled through abusive relationships, relapses, parent's overdoses and the removal of her son and fighting to get him back, and a recovery house that caught on fire, killing three women, leaving her without a home, and grieving the loss of her friends. Chrissi is a fighter. She is not giving up. She uses art, poetry, and writing as a way to heal. She has found her inner Goddess and is now a shining light on both herself as well as others around her. She is using her past to help other's futures; comforting survivors and overcomers of human trafficking. Chrissi truly believes that compassion can take any person from broken to Brave --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

If you've been following Beautiful Strength for the past few months, you have seen and heard us talk about Brian Craighead and his search for a kidney donor. Jacie heard the calling for help and knew it was her! Jacie Fouts gave her kidney to save Brian's life.

In this episode we sit down with Jacie and learn her story.

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Aaron Grayum received his BFA from Middle Tennessee State University in 1999. Inspired by drawings he made as a kid, his work features memorable imagery such as birds, umbrellas, and jellybean trees – mixed with handwriting, mark-making, and abstract backgrounds – to create a dialogue familiar to both children and adults. His work has been published in The New England Review, Bartleby Snopes, Artists & Art Galleries of the South, Voyage Atlanta, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as featured on the hit television show Nashville. Aaron was a 2018 participant in Nashville Arts and Business Council's Periscope Artist Entrepreneur Training cohort, and won first place in the Periscope Pitch competition at Oz Nashville. He lives and works with his wife and son in Fairview, Tennessee. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In this episode Isaac and Annette chat about what's going on with the non profit Beautiful Strength. From bus builds, to registering with Amazon Smile, current collabs and future plans. They then roll into discussing handling social media negativity, recognizing powerful movements and not using them against each other, and then dive into the importance of voting. This week's Kudos shout outs Annette: Jacie Fouts for being a life savor...literally! She gave up one of her kidneys to save Brian Craighead's life! Isaac: Sidney Keys III. is a St. Louis, MO, 14 year-old native and rising entrepreneur, who decided to take his love for reading to the next level and create Books n Bros at the young age of 10! Having multiple meet ups with different boys, ages 7-13 years old, as a way to advocate for African American literacy, he is paving the way for change. (www.booksnbros.com)

--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app