Episode 3 of the Unsung Stewards podcast features Samantha Shaak, PhD, Executive Director of The Leonard Parker Pool Institute for Health and Vice President, Community Health, Lehigh Valley Health Network. Samantha illustrates how stewardship begins with connecting the dots within communities, understanding partners and people, and nurturing these relationships to build a healthier, more resilient region. In this thoughtful conversation, Samantha reminds us that even amid constant change, purpose and the people we work alongside are what truly keep us moving forward.

Discover the power of listening in this episode featuring Yvonne Pacheco, a lifelong resident of Laredo, Texas, and Community Connector with Methodist Healthcare Ministries (MHM).

As a Community Connector at MHM, Yvonne’s work involves building relationships in communities across South Texas to understand what residents need to thrive, and support their unique efforts to expand the vital conditions for health and well-being. She shares how growing up in a vibrant, tight-knit border community shaped her approach to stewardship, inspiring her to show up consistently, listen deeply, and create space for honest dialogue around the stories that define a place. Stream Episode 2 to learn how these practices are essential for building trust and cultivating meaningful relationships in South Texas and beyond.

Special thanks to our guest host, Dr. Ruth Thomas-Squance, Co-Executive Director of the Building Healthy Places Network, who is also deeply committed to advancing racial equity through cross-sector partnerships and fostering community-centered solutions.

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Arvind Singhal, a professor of communications and Director of the Social Justice Initiative at The University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Singhal has been a teacher, advocate, and organizer for many years. We consider him to be a kindred spirit within the Movement to Thrive Together and his work on the positive deviance approach–a way of developing community-driven solutions by honoring successful outliers and out of the box thinking–is a strong example of shared stewardship in practice.

Season 4 of the Unsung Stewards podcast kicks off with Kellie Easton, President and CEO of Action4Equity, an organization working to transform the education system in her hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In Episode 1, Kellie starts off by grounding us in Action4Equity’s whole-school, whole-community, whole-child approach, demonstrating the connection to the other vital conditions, and how we can do systems change work at multiple levels so that everyone can thrive—in Winston-Salem and beyond. Our conversation with Kellie reveals an approach that is deeply rooted in racial justice and strong shared stewardship, heard in her call to, “build a table that's big enough and long enough for everyone to have a seat.”