Claim OwnershipFrom Sparks to Light - Inspiring Stories for Challenging Times
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From Sparks to Light is the podcast about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. These are the stories of people who are giving back in different ways. Learn what inspires them and what they learned along the way. We hope their stories inspire you to find your spark and encourage you to shine your own precious light in the world.
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This is part 8 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.“I was a reluctant activist,” says Vince Crisostomo of the humble beginnings of his advocacy for LGBTQ communities. He’d done his share of sitting by the bedsides of friends and community members as they succumbed to the deadly virus, but it would be a few more years until he would step into a role he has now occupied for more than 30 years.An ...
“There’s a longing that runs through our species. People are so hungry for belonging and recognition.”Irwin Keller was in third grade when he knew he wanted to be a rabbi, but it would be many years before he would heed his calling. Along the way he became a lawyer and gay rights advocate and a marginally famous singing drag queen for 21 years with America's Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet, the Kinsey Sicks.With war raging in the middle east and a fractured world around us, we talk abo...
It was just a ham sandwich.Karen Olson walked that route hundreds of times. Heading home after a long day of work in New York City at pharmaceutical company Warner Lambert, she noticed a woman sitting in front of Grand Central Station who appeared to be homeless. Instead of walking past as she’d done so many times before, she ran across the street and bought the woman a sandwich and a bottle of orange juice. “Thank you,” the woman said. It was the first time she had eaten since the day before...
Traei Tsai was 6 years old when her family emigrated from Taipei, Taiwan to make a new start in Vancouver, Canada. New to a country and community where they didn’t speak the language, Traei began school where, for the first time in her life, she began to recognize that she was different. Some othe the children teased her, and to manage the discomfort she found solace in books. She began learning English through reading, even though her grasp of the language was still tenuous. In books s...
At the age of 19, Manizha Wafeq traveled to Oklahoma City with 13 women to participate in Peace Through Business, a program to support women from her native Afghanistan to become entrepreneurs. No sooner had they arrived in the United States when it became clear that three of the women did not speak enough English to follow the lectures. Manizha volunteered to serve as an interpreter. She taught them to type in Farsi on their laptops, creating an alternate keyboard to the English one they had...
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with Koen van Rompay, an infectious diseases researcher and the founder of Sahaya International. In this powerful episode, Koen reminds us that action begins with one small step.For the full show notes, please refer to episode 57.To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer o...
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with non-profit administrator and public health professional Wendy Voet. She began her career as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, and in this impactful episode, she reminds us that when the going gets tough, "Keep Moving Forward."For the full show notes, please refer to ep...
This summer we’re replaying some of our favorite episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we’re revisiting an episode with author and activist Dan Glass, whose advice is simple —sometimes you have to get into Beautiful Trouble.For the full show notes, please refer to episode 52.To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out his we...
This summer we're replaying some of our top episodes from season 3, episodes that offer inspirational ideas to help you get involved in making a difference in your community. This week we're revisiting an episode with Joey Garcia, who has worked to expand literary opportunities to her native Belize. Her advice is simple - Say Yes!For the full show notes, please refer to episode 50.To learn more about Robert Maggio, the composer of "Where Love is Love," our theme music, please check out h...
This is part 8 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.Today on the podcast we're revisiting a conversation from Season 2, with Martina Clark. Author, Activist, and HIV survivor.Imagine being 28 years old, arguably at the beginning of your life, and told you have 5 years to live. With a sense of nothing to lose, Martina Clark, writer, teacher, and activist, dove into an activism that led her to bec...
This is part 7 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.“I am an educator, listener, advocate, supporter and challenger,” reads Greg Casillas from his version of the George Ella Lyon poem, I Am From. “I am from the belief that it’s never as bad as it is good. I am from a brother that said the only thing that we are given is a chance.” Greg Casillas knows the power of story. The gift of sh...
“I felt as empty as a drum,” says Molly Carr, a Juilliard-trained, world class violist. It was a career she had worked her whole young life for. She travelled the world and performed on some of music’s most iconic stages. From Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center, Molly has shared the stage with some of the world’s greatest musicians and yet, “the constant focus on career and the fear that it could all go away,” sucked the joy from the instrument and the music that she had loved since sh...
"No matter who other people are, when you peel back the skin, we're all the same," says Hulda Brown of her struggle to find her place in a world that hasn't always been welcoming.The daughter of a single mom, she had a difficult childhood. She was taught that she was not worthy of love. That she had no value. That her voice should not be heard. But despite those early messages and painful experiences, Hulda Brown would not be silent.In 1991 she was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, contracted, s...
“I’m not Melinda Gates,” says Joy Kolin, the founder of Giving Joy, an organization that encourages and strengthens women entrepreneurship world wide through micro grants and mentorship. “But you don’t need to be. What we’ve learned is that you can do a lot with a little. We can all make a difference —and we should.A self described Tex-Israeli, Joy Kolin was born in Texas but spent most of her formative years in Israel. It was those international beginnings that led her to a love ...
“I wanted to work in something that could better the lives of my community,” says Mariana Incarnato, an Ashoka Fellow and the Founder of Doncel, an agency in Buenos Aires Argentina that focuses on changing the way youth who leave residential care are supported as they find their way into adulthood. A clinical psychologist, she worked in Spain for a few years before returning home to her native Argentina. “My sense of belonging was very deep,” she says of her desire to return home....
Florencia Lalor’s adopted family always spoke openly of her adoption. “It was one of the things they did right,” she says. And if she ever wanted to search for her birth mother, she always knew she would have their support. That moment came in 2004, when curious about the mother that gave her up, she grabbed the phone book and began making calls. What she discovered set her on a path that would change her personal and professional worlds.Florencia Lalor has spent her life working to understan...
This is part 5 of a special series focusing on the community of Honoring Our Experience, and their work with long-term survivors of the HIV/AIDS virus.Harry Breaux never thought he’d live past 30. His father died of a heart attack at 50. His mother passed away when she was 51. Now, at 79, he’s outlived them both. Being diagnosed with HIV did not come as a surprise. “You can’t play in the water and not expect to get wet,” he says. When he finally grew sick in his early 50s, he battled thr...
“I knew I wanted to look at things differently,” says Cleveland Harvey, a social worker who works in palliative care with people who are struggling with serious illnesses. “When I interact with people I want to either help or understand them better.” Cleveland Harvey’s journey to social work is rooted in his early experience as a child in South Central Los Angeles during the mid-eighties when the area was steeped in the gang and crack epidemics. As the only black child in the neighborhoo...
Hi folks,March is national social work month. Social work is one of many professional helping careers, but it’s also an identity. I am a social worker, I tell my students with pride. It’s not my career, its my calling. A calling to serve others. A calling to raise up the disadvantaged, the voiceless and the marginalized. To walk beside the people who often walk alone.Today I’m sharing an episode from season 2 with my friend and fellow social worker Gary Mallon who remi...
“I’m very much a proponent of chop wood, carry water. Just do,” says Paula Sheil, an educator, writer, poet and the founder and president of Tuleburg Press. “My sock drawer is incredibly organized.”It’s an old Zen proverb. Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. When it feels like things are tough, we can still wash the dishes. Weed the garden. Clean out our sock drawer.Paula Sheil is a dynamo. As an elementary school teacher she filled her&n...
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