Let's Give A Damn

My guest today is the incredible Blythe Hill. Whether or not you’ve heard of Blythe, you’ve probably heard of Dressember — a community of international advocates utilizing fashion + creativity to help end human trafficking. They’ve raise over $7.5m since 2013 and this is shaping up to their biggest year ever with a $2.5m goal. If you’ve ever participated in Dressember, you know that you participation directly impact the fight to rescue, protect, and restore the lives of trafficking victims and survivors worldwide.

Join Dressember now by becoming an advocate. You'll wear a dress or tie every day in December, you'll raise money, and you'll change the world along with thousands of others!

Follow Dressember on Instagram. Follow Blythe on Instagram. 

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

Dan Simpson—the CEO of Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe and an all around badass, damn-giving human—is on the podcast today! For those of who don’t know what Taziki’s is, by the end of this episode, you’re going to wish you had one nearby. Taziki's has 92 locations and 2000+ employees. In this conversation, we talk about caring for our environment, fresh food, the importance of fostering community over meals, their HOPE program, and the ways in which they are giving a damn by hiring veterans, refugees, and other often marginalized groups of people. 

Learn more about Dan here. 

SPONSOR:

Today’s episode is being brought to you in part by The Russell—a historic East Nashville Church transformed into a one-of-a-kind, boutique Hotel. The Russell’s mission is to give back to the Nashville community through their Rooms for Rooms program by donating a portion of your stay to local organizations who provide a safe haven for those in need in the Nashville community. It[s an absolutely beautiful space with an incredible mission. If you’re ever in Nashville, consider staying there! Visit RussellNashville.com to book your experience today.

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

Molly Burke is on the podcast this week! Molly is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cycle Connect—a company that connects clients in Uganda with the necessary tools to propel themselves forward out of extreme poverty. They do this through giving their clients the opportunity to continuously invest in their futures through Cycle Connect’s portfolio of products that are proven to increase income. She leads a team of 30 full-time employees that serve their 5,000+ clients in Northern Uganda.

Follow Cycle Connect online and on Instagram. If you really love what they're doing, give today! 

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

My guests today are Scott Erickson and Justin McRoberts. This is good news, y'all! You may remember Scott from a few weeks ago. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, push pause now, and go listen to that one first. As a reminder, Scott is an artist, speaker, and storyteller from Portland Oregon.

My other guest is the incredible Justin McRoberts. Justin is a pastor and a storyteller, and a musician, and a podcast host, and much more. He has put out 18 musical projects over the last 20 years and is the host of the @ SEA Podcast.

We talk about so many things but we focus on their brand new book that is out TODAY called May It Be So. It's a "simple yet profound guide to facilitate the instinctively human desire to pray." Their other book is a must-read, also. I promise! They've helped me so deeply.

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

Arrested for murder at the age of 18, Rahim Buford spent 26 years in a variety of prisons in the state of Tennessee. While he was incarcerated, he completed course work for Lipscomb University, Ohio University, and Vanderbilt Divinity School, he co-founded the Schools for Alternative Learning and Transformation, and he self-published his own book, Save Your Own Life.

When he got out, he became a decarceration advocate, he founded the Unheard Voices Outreach, and he became the Nashville Community Bail Fund Manager. Rahim gives a damn! 

Follow Rahim on Twitter and keep up with the work he's doing at Unheard Voices Outreach. 

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. And this is a bonus episode of the Let's Give A Damn Podcast! We already had a fantastic conversation planned for release on this day with Bethany Haley Williamson (you should definitely go listen to it) but we didn't want to forget about the importance of WSPD19. 

800,000 people die by suicide each year. That’s one person every 40 seconds. For each death, there are an additional 25 attempts. That's why WSPD exists. That's why we keep talking about it. 

Our guest today is my sister, Leah Laparra. She's a wonderful human that has survived, anxiety, depression, anorexia, and multiple suicide attempts. We've cried together many times over the struggles she has gone through and continues to go through. She is such a warrior, y'all. I wish you all could meet her. But hopefully you'll get the chance to get to know her a bit via our conversation today. If you'd like to say hi to her on Instagram, follow her here. 

If you'd like to get involved with the amazing work our friends at TWLOHA are doing, consider helping them hit their $150,000 goal for #WSPD19!

Bethany is the Founder and CEO of Exile International — an organization providing holistic rehabilitation and art-focused trauma care to rescued child soldiers and children orphaned by war. She also has a PhD in counseling psychology and a license in clinical social work which means she has over 20 years of experience working with emotionally wounded children.

She is the author of The Color of Grace. In it, and in our conversation, she talks about her own trauma journey that ultimately led her to into literal war zones to love, care for, and rehabilitate children that have been abused, kidnapped, and turned into weapons of war.

We laugh and cry and learn together for an entire hour. I hope you're ready for it! 

Follow Exile International on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And follow Bethany on Instagram!

Madison Mikhail Bush is the Founder and CEO of Point. She runs Point while splitting time between Columbus, Ohio and New York, New York. Point is a platform that helps people and organizations do good. In a recent interview, she said, “Charities who want to do good but spend so much time with data entry or managing volunteers, we want to get them out from their desks and help them fulfill their mission.” That resonates so deeply with the vision and mission of LGAD.

Follow Madison on Instagram! She is always sharing little ways to do good in the world. 

Follow Point online, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Download the app to join the Point family! And if you know anyone that lives in/around Columbus, tell them about Point. 

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

Shane Claiborne is on the podcast today! If you don’t know him, you’re in for a treat. A little over a week ago, We met at the State Capitol in downtown Nashville where he, his wife, and a group people were camped out to ask Governor Bill Lee to intervene in the execution of Stephen West by electric chair that was to take place last week. Sadly, Stephen's state sanctioned murder did take place last Thursday evening. I, for one, will not stop fighting for the abolition of the death penalty and I know Shane Claiborne won’t stop fighting, either. 

In this conversation, we talk about so much more than the death penalty but that is a huge chunk of it given the circumstances under which we were recording this chat.

Follow Shane on Twitter and Facebook. And check out his website to learn more about what he is up to and where he is going!

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!

My guest today is Jean Paul Laurent. Jean Paul was born in Haiti and came to the United States in 2004 with a dream and a desire to change the world and to do something bigger than himself. He found out what that something was after he returned to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake that decimated so many parts of Haiti and took the lives of hundreds of thousands of lives.

As a result of spending time with his people and his home country in the aftermath of that tragedy, the Unspoken Smikes Foundation was born—an organization that envisions a world where every single human has access to great dental care.

Jean Paul and I met in NYC a few weeks ago to record this conversation at their office in the financial district of Manhattan. You’re going to love this guy. He is such a sweet human with a deep passion that I think so many of you are going to identify with. 

Follow him on Instagram! You'll be encouraged. 

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Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with all that is going on. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! And if you want to follow our host Nick Laparra on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter.

Support Let’s Give A Damn by giving $5 per month on Patreon. 100% of the money you contribute will go to making more podcasts. Not a dime goes into our pockets! Or you can leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts! Every little bit helps. Thanks for all your help.

Have an amazing week, friends! Love y’all!