I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about a program that works with kids over the summer to help them maintain and improve their reading skills. Project Transformation brings together college-aged young adults, children and churches to transform entire communities.

Chris Pepple reads an original short story from her first published book, Look to See Me. "Shifting the Bowl" is a story of mothers and daughters and family memories...a glimpse of grief and the things we cherish as we heal.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about a special place that helps kids find healing from abuse and become kids again. I’m focusing on the Memphis Child Advocacy Center. Let’s look at what the mission of the Memphis Child Advocacy Center is…their goal is to work in the community so that children are safe and families are strong. Their mission is to serve children who are victims of sexual and severe physical abuse. They focus on prevention, education and intervention.

I’m Chris Pepple and today I’m going to talk about some people who are changing the lives of homeless families—specifically I’m going to talk about the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality in Memphis. The mission of the Dorothy Day House is to keep homeless families together as they are struggling to overcome poverty and homelessness.

In this episode, I’m going to introduce you to some people who are changing the lives of children who need schools supplies. I’m going to focus in on one group who has been doing a great job of helping kids start back to school with the supplies they need since 1995. I’m talking about the Kids in Need Foundation.

In this episode, I'm talking about some of the people who are changing the lives of survivors of domestic violence: YWCA Nashville's Weaver Domestic Violence Center and volunteers that work with the YWCA through a group called Re-New. The staff members at the YWCA and the Re-New volunteers take the time to really see the needs of domestic abuse victims. They hear their stories, then they help victims write a new ending.

Since I can’t get to the Café for a few weeks to eat there, I decided to just change the order of my podcasts and talk about them. Thistle Farms Café is located in Nashville, Tennessee, located along West Nashville’s revitalized Charlotte Pike corridor, and is tied into the Thistle Farms complex with their headquarters and social enterprise facilities. Thistle Farms is a nonprofit organization that lives out the idea that “love heals” through all of their projects. The organization was founded by Reverend Becca Stevens twenty years ago and serves to offer a place of hope and healing to women survivors of prostitution, sex trafficking and addiction.

I was recently part of a group of people who visited a Memphis neighborhood for the Neighborhood Walking Tour as part of the Binghampton Stories Project. This Project created an opportunity to do just what I talked about in the intro to my podcast—take time to really see other people and hear their stories. This project is a collaboration between The Center for Transforming Communities, Caritas Village and the Theatre Memphis Department of Outreach and Education. It was made possible by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Welcome to Look To See Me, a podcast which invites you to hear the stories of other people in your local or global community. Through hearing stories which historically have been untold or ignored and through taking time to truly see another person, we can work towards peace and healing in our communities. There's a beauty to the diversity around us--a diversity we can choose to explore.