Kate Tucker

If you haven’t yet heard Rahsaan Thomas on Hope Is My Middle Name 💐, add it to your list of for an inspiring listen on the power of art to transform pain into purpose.

Rahsaan "New York" Thomas grew up a creative kid in Brownsville, Brooklyn, taking art classes, skateboarding, even coding his own video games. But his childhod came to an abrupt end when he learned of his father’s violent death and witnessed his brother being shot in the street.

“In my neighborhood, only three out of ten people make it. [...] And so I wanted to try something different and not give in to hopelessness. [...] I'm supposed to be dead by 18, and here I am 29, so I need to start planning to live.” This revelation came to him inside the walls of Calipatria State Prison, where he was serving a 55 to life sentence.

"You get faulted by a system, by the choices you make. But when you have a multiple choice test, where it's either – ‘Be the victim and endure being a victim until you can graduate from college and hopefully save enough money to get out of this environment’ or ‘Fight back’ or ‘Do nothing’ – those aren't good choices. You need some new choices and I didn't know how to create those new choices. I was a kid just going with the choices in front of me.”

Rahsaan’s choices led to his incarceration, but that wasn’t the end of his story. He found redemption through creative expression.

“Art takes you from where you are into where you want to be. You're not limited by what you see around you anymore. You can go anywhere your imagination takes you. And people look at you differently when they see you through art.

It gives you purpose. And when you're in prison, you have to have a purpose. If you have a multiple life sentence, you need a reason to live. You need something to look forward to. You need something to do that's positive. Otherwise, you're just staring at the noose all day.

The other thing that art does, it brings people proximate to you. It's a conversation starter. It brings worlds together.

I created a community through art. I created communities through film, through writing and through social justice, and merged all these communities together. And that's who got me out.”

🎙️ Hear our full conversation on Hope Is My Middle Name wherever you listen to podcasts. 🎧
📷: Eddie Herena https://www.hopeismymiddlename.com/rahsaan-new-york-thomas

🐾 Canine Assistants educates service dogs to help people who have mobility difficulties, Type 1 Diabetes, epilepsy/seizure disorders, and other special needs. One recipient says her dog makes her feel like her wheelchair disappears.

💙 The Georgia non-profit was founded in 1991 by Jennifer Arnold, in the wake of her father’s unexpected death and her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 16. Fueled by legacy and limitation, Jennifer funded her vision with wide-ranging odd jobs and a donation bucket at the local Walmart. To date, Canine Assistants has placed over 3,000 service dogs 🐕‍🦺, their Community Service Dogs provide therapy in Children’s Hospitals for patients, families, and staff, and their Community Facilitators are helping scale their work across America.

🎙️ Join us on Hope Is My Middle Name 💐 for poignant and heartwarming stories of superhero dogs 🐶 who love us enough to save our lives, and learn the 🧠 science behind their impressive capabilities.

And if you’re looking for tips and tricks for your own pup 🐕, Jennifer Arnold shares her Bond-Based Approach to teaching dogs, which forgoes traditional training methods, focusing instead on the powerful bond between humans and our canine companions.

🎧 Listen to Hope Is My Middle Name: “The Unbreakable Bond: Service Dogs and Their Life-Saving Impact with Jennifer Arnold” on your favorite podcast platform.

Dogs are amazing creatures. 🐕‍🦺 Some evolutionary theorists believe we wouldn’t be here without our canine companions protecting us in pre-historic times. 🔥 And when you consider the unbelievable ways service dogs help people with mobility difficulties, Type 1 Diabetes, epilepsy, and other special needs – alerting us of oncoming seizures, smelling cancer, knowing when our blood sugar is spiking – literally saving our lives, it’s no wonder we have a special bond with our canine companions.

This new episode of Hope is for the dogs 🐾. All the dogs we love 🐶, but especially those that use their amazing capacities to care for us. ❤️‍🩹

Join me in conversation with Canine Assistants founder Jennifer Arnold, sharing heartwarming stories of service dogs 🦮 and a bit of the science behind their superhero ways. 💫

And if you’re looking for tips and tricks for your own pup 🐕‍🦺, Jennifer Arnold shares her Bond-Based Approach to teaching dogs, which forgoes traditional training methods, focusing instead on the powerful bond between humans and our canine companions. ❤️

🎧 Listen to the season finale of Hope Is My Middle Name 💐 on your favorite podcast platform.

On Hope Is My Middle Name, I asked Dr. Theresa Hamlin, Ed.D. of The Center for Discovery how she helps parents and caregivers understand what it’s like to live with autism spectrum disorder. Here’s what she said:

“Sometimes you're in your car and your radio is going and then there’s static and it's so annoying. When you turn off the radio, all of a sudden it's like, 'Oh, okay, I'm okay now. Thank God you turned that off.' That's some of the description that we hear from our children, from those that can articulate it, that it's like having that constant stress and noise that causes confusion. It just wears you down all the time. Just shutting off the noise and having silence makes a huge difference. Our kids live in that static all the time. So anything that we can do that can minimize the chronic effect that they have all the time is really, really important.”

For more on how Dr. Theresa Hamlin is helping people mitigate the chronic effects of autism, read her phenomenal book “Autism and The Stress Effect” and hear our full conversation, “Hope and Healing for Kids and Families Living with Autism" on Hope Is My Middle Name 💐 now streaming on all podcast platforms.

Hope and healing for kids and families with autism, that’s what Dr. Theresa Hamlin, Ed.D. has dedicated her life to finding and so far she’s spent forty years at The Center for Discovery developing innovative models of care that integrate health, education, and research to improve the lives of individuals with disabilities.

I first learned of The Center for Discovery through The Antidote documentary (a must see IMO) directed by Kahane Corn Cooperman and John Hoffman, and I was beyond thrilled when Dr. Hamlin, President and CEO of The Center for Discovery, agreed to join me on Hope Is My Middle Name. 💐

As she shared personal stories of breakthroughs and a life’s worth of transformative research, I was struck by her bright outlook and generous spirit. Dr. Hamlin truly embodies The Center’s ethos that “What happens here matters everywhere,” and she gently leads us to a deeper understanding of autism and hope. 🫶🩵✨

Listen on your favorite podcast platform and at HopeIsMyMiddleName.com

Rahsaan “New York” Thomas on Empowering Art and Community In and Out of Prison 🎨✨

What if art could build a bridge from incarceration to liberation? For Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, the road was long, but he turned a 55-to-life prison sentence into an opportunity. Through art, he empowered fellow incarcerated artists to transcend the limits of their sentences—and maybe even one day walk free, like Rahsaan did in 2023.

Today, Rahsaan directs Empowerment Avenue, a nonprofit he founded while inside San Quentin and now runs on the outside, along with a myriad of creative endeavors including the San Quentin Film Festival 🎥 and his work on the Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast Ear Hustle. 🎙️🏆

On the new episode of Hope Is My Middle Name 💐, Rahsaan takes us through his life like the skilled storyteller he is—from growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn 🏙️, to landing in prison in California, to finding his voice as an artist inside San Quentin, and running the New York Marathon 🏃‍♂️ as a free man, with a dream to empower art that fosters inclusivity 🌍—which he believes could ultimately heal the root causes of crime.

Join us for a transformative conversation on art as a lifeline to hope and lifelong community, on Hope Is My Middle Name, now streaming on your favorite podcast platform. 🎧

📷 Rahsaan “New York” Thomas by Nigel Poor

🌪️ A Tornado Destroyed Greensburg So They Rebuilt as America’s Greenest Town 🌱

Growing up on a 🌾 farm in Kansas, Bob Dixson never dreamed of being mayor. But when a tornado leveled 95% of his small town, he came out of retirement and into rebuilding from the rubble 🏚️➡️🏘 a thriving climate-resilient community.

Today, Greensburg, Kansas is America’s greenest town, powered entirely by renewable energy 🌍🌞 with smart infrastructure for water conservation 💧, and the most LEED-certified buildings 🏢✨ per capita in the US.

🎙️ Hear the story of Greensburg, as Bob tells it, from the night the tornado took the roof off his house, to the example it is today of resilience 💪, small-town values 🤝, good ol’ Midwest pragmatism 🧑‍🌾, and hope 🌟. Listen to Hope Is My Middle Name 💐on your favorite podcast platform. 🎧