Let's Give A Damn

Rachelle Lefevre is an actress, activist, life coach, and so much more! You may know  Rachelle from the Twilight saga, Homefront, Edge of Winter, Law & Order, or her dozens of other film and TV roles.

Last week while I was in LA, we hung out at her house and recorded this delightful chat. We talked about her non-binary child, the story of how they adopted their daughter, our mutual love for AdoptTogether (a non-profit, crowdfunding platform that bridges the gap between families who want to adopt and the children who need loving homes…run by our friend Hank Fortner), the ups/downs/struggles/beauty of life, and so much more.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Rachelle on Twitter and Instagram.

Check out and donate to AdoptTogether.

Follow Jeffrey Marsh and ALOK for help and education on all things non-binary. They’re both amazing!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

From Ferguson to New York, and from Germany and South Africa to Australia and Brazil, Lisa Sharon Harper leads trainings that increase clergy and community leaders’ capacity to organize people of faith toward a just world. A prolific speaker, writer and activist, Lisa is the founder and president of FreedomRoad, a consulting group dedicated to shrinking the narrative gap in our nation by designing forums and experiences that bring common understanding, common commitment and common action.

Read the rest of Lisa’s incredible bio on her website.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Lisa on Twitter and Instagram.

Buy Fortune: How Race Broke My Family and the World and How To Repair It All from an black-owned independent book store today!

Visit the book website to find many other resources!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Amanda Litman is the co-founder and co-executive director of Run for Something, which recruits and supports young, diverse progressives running for down-ballot office. Since launching in 2017, RFS has identified more than 100,000 young people who want to run, endorsed nearly 2,000 and elected more than 650 across 48 states, mostly women and people of color. Read the rest of Amanda’s incredible bio on her website.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Amanda on Twitter.

Buy Run for Something: A Real-Talk Guide to Fixing the System Yourself.

If you want to run for one of the 500,000 elected offices in the United States, contact Run For Something today and get started. We need you!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis is an author, activist, pastor, public theologian, and the first woman and black person to be a pastor at Middle Church in New York City. The is a huge deal given that Middle Church was founded in 1628! Read the rest of Jacqui’s incredible bio on her website.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Jacqui on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Buy Fierce Love and check out her other books!

if you are looking for a spiritual community that is inclusive and multi-cultural, check out Middle Church.

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Scott Erickson is an artist, author, performance speaker, and creative curate who mixes autobiography, mythology, and aesthetics to create art and moments that speak to our deepest experiences.

AND Scott is the most repeated guest on this show. This is his third appearance!

Scott’s new book, Say Yes: Discover the Surprising Life beyond the Death of a Dream, comes out on January 25. Preorder it today! This book is “an illuminated manuscript about how our darkest moments are actually doorways to a deeper conversation about who we are, why we’re here, and how the future bursts with possibilities if we are willing to say yes to the gift of life on the other side of a death of a dream.”

In this conversation, we talk about dreams that die, what the voice of giving up on yourself sounds like, how to incorporate a death practice into our lives, and how we can Say Yes today and every day.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Scott on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Buy the newest book and all of his books! They’re amazing.

Go see Scott on tour.

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

This week, the best of 2021! We had dozens of incredible conversations last year but these are some of the moments that stuck out to our host, Nick Laparra.

In today’s episode, you’ll hear clips from our conversations with Reshma Saujani, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jedidiah Jenkins, Justin Baldoni, Baratunde Thurston, Sharon McMahon, Taylor Schumann, Pedro Adrade, Rais Buiyan, Katharine Hayhoe, Kirsten Powers, and Shannon Watts. Enjoy!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

One week ago, a 15-year-old domestic terrorist walked into Oxford High School murdering 4 students and injuring 7 more. Why does this keep happening? Why aren’t we doing more to stop these things from happening? Why are there more guns than people in this country? These and so many other questions have been rattling around in my brain over the past week. Shannon Watts joins helps us navigate these important questions today.

Shannon Watts is the founder of the nation’s largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence, Moms Demand Action, with chapters in every state effecting change at the local, state and national level. Her book, Fight Like a Mother: How a Grassroots Movement Took on the Gun Lobby and Why Women Will Change the World, was released in May of 2019.

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Shannon on Twitter and Instagram.

Follow Moms Demand Action on Twitter and Instagram.

Buy Shannon’s book immediately!

Visit Moms Demand Action to see how you can get involved today!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Diego Saez-Gil is our guest this week! Diego is a climate entrepreneur from Argentina and based in San Fransisco, CA. He founded Pachama—an incredible company that focuses on leveraging data, artificial intelligence, and automation to protect ecosystems, restore forests, and improve carbon markets.

From Pachama’s website: “Our co-founder Diego grew up in northern Argentina, at the tip of the diverse rainforest covering most of South America. After a decade of building technology companies abroad, Diego returned to his roots and traveled to the Amazon rainforest. There he saw how much was cleared to deforestation. There he realized the potential of forests to solve climate change. Diego moved to California and joined forces with Tomas, a fellow Argentinian and a machine learning engineer, who was thinking deeply about the role technology could play in protecting and restoring Spaceship Earth. The two partnered to create a company to restore nature to solve climate change.”

NEXT STEPS:

Follow Diego on Twitter.

Follow Pachama on Twitter.

Visit Pachama’s website to see how you can get involved today!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Playwright, director, and filmmaker, Tina Satter, joins me on the podcast today to talk about her incredible career and her amazing broadway show that is currently on Broadway until November 27!

Here’s Tina’s bio: Tina Satter is a playwright, director, and filmmaker based in New York City and Vermont. She received a 2020 Special Citation Obie Award for conceiving and directing her play IS THIS A ROOM which had its Off-Broadway premiere at the Vineyard Theatre in fall 2019; its sold-out run was followed by an encore production in winter 2020 and a groundbreaking engagement on Broadway in fall 2021. The play originally premiered at The Kitchen in New York City in January 2019. Tina is Artistic Director of the critically acclaimed theater company Half Straddle and a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship in Playwriting, 2019 Pew Fellowship, 2016 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Award, and a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Impact Award. With Half Straddle, she has written and directed 10 full-length plays, smaller performance pieces, and videos, and re-imagined them for a range of spaces at numerous theaters and festivals in the U.S. and internationally. She has taught writing and directing at Brooklyn College MFA Playwriting, Hunter College MFA Playwriting, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of Michigan, in addition to leading workshops and guest teaching at a range of other colleges and universities. Tina attended Mac Wellman’s graduate playwriting program at Brooklyn College and received an M.A. from Reed College and a B.A. from Bowdoin College. She grew up in Hopkinton, N.H.

Read the article Tina read in December of 2017 introducing her to Reality Winner’s story.

Follow Tina and her theater company, Half Straddle, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and on their website.

If you can, go see Is This A Room on Broadway before November 27!

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Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.

Joanne Molinaro—aka The Korean Vegan—is on the podcast this week! Joanne is a marathon runner, a best-selling author, a trial lawyer (until last month, anyway), and the creator of The Korean Vegan!

From Joanne’s website: "With over 3.5 million fans spread across her social media platforms, New York Times best-selling author Joanne Molinaro has appeared on The Food Network, CBS Saturday Morning, ABC's Live with Kelly and Ryan, and The Rich Roll Podcast. She's been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, and CNN.”

Why do people flock to Joanne’s content? Because she blends the making of gorgeous, amazing food with beautiful storytelling. I told her during our chat that a food video has never made me cry before…until her content came around.

During our chat, we talk about complicated family histories, why and how she became vegan, activism vs. action, and so much more. You’re in for a treat!

Follow Joanne on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Buy her NYT best selling cookbook!

Visit her website for all things TKV!

Reach out to us anytime and for any reason at [email protected]. Follow Let’s Give A Damn on Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter to keep up with everything. We have so much planned for the coming months and we don’t want you to miss a thing! If you love what we’re doing, consider supporting us on Patreon! We can’t do this without you. Lastly, leave us a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Have an amazing week, friends! Keep giving a damn. Love y’all!

Edited and Sound Designed by Sound On Studios.