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Enjoying this podcast by theheadwrapsocialite….Like, follow and share! Comment below to keep the conversation going.
IG: theheadwrapsocialite
Good afternoon and welcome to everybody. The podcast which shares stories that highlight people in life, that make the world an interesting place, which ultimately ties us all together in unique and wonderful ways. And who am I, you might ask. I would be the headwrapped socialite Weith mom, micro-influencer in the fashion and etiquette world, but on this podcast I will be introducing you to some people who I've had the opportunity to meet along my journey, who have helped enrich me in my life in beautiful ways and who I hope will do the same in years.
Speaker 2:And I went to meet Harry. It was in the same town and I knocked on the door and I had on jeans and a white ox for a shirt and he opened the door. You know what he was wearing.
Speaker 1:In my head, I know exactly what he was wearing Jeans and a white ox for a shirt. Yes, it was meant to be. It was meant to be so.
Speaker 2:Then we went out to eat. I mean, we went out and got ice cream at this place in downtown Ann Arbor and sat on a bench or something you know, on the street just chatting, and then I went home and then we started dating and the rest is history. The rest is history.
Speaker 1:Good afternoon and welcome to today's episode where I have the privilege of introducing you to someone I've known for over 20 years, dr Sherry Jester. When we first moved to Rochester, I met her and her beautiful family because our husbands are colleagues. Sher is a trained pediatrician who made the choice to stay home with her children. She is a humanitarian and an advocate of hope for refugees within our community. With boundless generosity, she dedicates her time and her talent to spread light, peace and love. Join me as I chat with my friend, dr Sherry Jester, whom I call Sher. Welcome to today's episode. Thank you, trina, you're welcome. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are?
Speaker 2:I am the youngest of six children, but I'd like to clarify that I share that position with my twin sister. So, although I'm the youngest, I don't fit the youngest profile, others might argue. So I have two brothers and three sisters, all older than me. When I was a child, we moved a lot because my dad worked for a refrigerated warehouse company and he would get promoted each time he would move. But then we ended up in Michigan when I was really young, until I finished first grade, and then we moved a couple more places and we ended up back in Michigan when I was 12. So I consider myself a Michigander, though I wasn't born there, and I'm a lover of the Great Lakes because I'm from the Michigan area.
Speaker 2:I went to college and then I was working for a while in research and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. In fact, I was sure I didn't want to do that. Then, when I was in college, I decided it wasn't a good time for me to take the MCAT, and so I thought well, I'll work in research for a while and see. And then I did, and I hated research. I worked in one lab for about nine months and it was horrible. I was the only person in his lab. Any time something didn't work out, it was my fault and so it was not good. But that's where I met Harry. He used to come use my pH meter.
Speaker 1:Okay, so can we digress for a little bit? So tell me how you and Harry ended up meeting. So I worked in this lab.
Speaker 2:We were in this old building at the University of Michigan where it was all laboratories. It had been converted in, all the rooms were laboratories and there was like one or two or three laboratories on each floor and it was like three floors. I would be in my lab, you know, because I was the only one that worked there and he was a work study student in a different lab because I graduated from college a year before. He did Okay and he would come to my lab to use the pH meter and he told me that his pH meter was broken, which in retrospect I learned it was not.
Speaker 2:And then we used to go out to lunch with other people from the lab his lab and we used to just walk out and go to Subway and that was when Subway was new Way, way long time ago, and yeah, so that's how we met and I got my master's degree in education and I was going to be a high school chemistry teacher and I was all set to do that. I just didn't ever get certified because instead I started medical school.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:So I did student teach chemistry.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you though, what inspired you to become a pediatrician?
Speaker 2:I always wanted to be a doctor. When I was about 12. Actually, in high school, when you have to go interview some money, I went and interviewed a NICU doctor and my mom thought that would be great if I was a NICU doctor, but that's not what I had to tell you. So by then I was in my late 20s and I knew that I wanted to have my children more than two years apart, because I wanted them to be a little more self-sufficient before a new baby appeared. That was just from observing my siblings and their children and I decided to have a baby during medical school and we had a baby right away and we were planning on my mother helping with the baby. And then, as soon as I got pregnant she got diagnosed with a brain tumor and seven months later she died and three weeks later I had my first baby. So that was pretty stressful and that was my first year of medical school. And then he was in the NICU for a week and he came home with me and Harry and Harry's mother stayed and helped with the baby for a couple of weeks and then I went back to school on Thursday after he was born. On Saturday I did my second year of medical school over two years, because at that time I was married and my husband was starting as a residency. My mother just died and I just had a baby, so they allowed me to split my second year into two years. So it took me five years to graduate from medical school.
Speaker 2:But that put us both on the same timeline. So he finished his residency and I finished medical school around the same time and then we ended up in Virginia at two different programs. That's a really long, sordid story but I was in Richmond in the inner city and he was in Charlottesville and we lived in between and I had the longer commute and I was on call before residency hours were restricted so I would be on call every fourth night and my ER shifts would be 12 hours and I did the ER and it was pretty hectic because he was in a fellowship program and he was on call. I think he did it like a week at a time when he was in fellowship and then that was a really rough three years and I did not want to have another baby in that time. And then we moved to Atlanta and I took maternity leave for six months after I finished my residency program. I called him maternity leave. He was already six years old seven years old actually.
Speaker 2:And what was really funny was that I had interviewed for a job in April and I had turned it down because I didn't want to commute and it was outside of the city and we lived in the city and they found me by finding my husband and then I interviewed with them and I took a job which was part time and I would like go to full time. When somebody went on vacation or something like that, it ends up I worked like 75% time over three years.
Speaker 2:And so I did that commute, which was the opposite of the most traffic, but it could be harrowing at times. So I worked three years as a general pediatrician and I loved it. I worked in the best practice I could ever imagine no-transcript, everybody got along the doctors, the nurses, the staff, everybody. There was no backbiting or anything. It was just a wonderful experience and I would have stayed there. But my husband wasn't happy with his job and so he was looking for a job, and in the meantime we were trying to have our second child and I couldn't keep praying it, and so I ended up going through infertility treatment, which was another harrowing experience, as anybody who's been through infertility treatment can tell you. So I got pregnant.
Speaker 1:How did you decide to be a stay-at-home mom? When did that shift happen?
Speaker 2:So we moved to Atlanta in January of 2002, and I was pregnant with Audrey, who was born in March Another funny story about that but we moved here and we moved into an apartment because our house when we had got the contract on our house it was a spec house and it wasn't done yet. It wasn't supposed to be done until April and she was due on March 12th and so that was supposed to work out. So I didn't want to work when I first moved here because I had had like four days of maturity leave when I had Kenny and then I had had six months off when he was seven years old and so I was going to take six months off for my maternity leave. And I did take six months off and after six months I started looking for a job. And we live on the north side of town and the only job I could find was in Albert Lee. It was an hour and a half commute and it would be call every fifth day and I'd have to live in Albert Lee when I was on call and at that time Harry was on call 50% of the time and that just wasn't tenable. I had a 10 and a half year old and a newborn, I was just like that's just not going to work, and so I did not take that job.
Speaker 2:And then about a year later, olmsted and Mayo were both hiring, but they both wanted full time and Olmsted would not even interview me. Mayo interviewed me but then when I said I wanted to be part time, they weren't interested in the process to get approval for hire, so they weren't interested in me. And so now she was 18 months old and then he would have been like 12-ish and he was starting to play some more travel soccer and things like that. And Harry was still on call every other week at that time and I just he wanted to play travel soccer and travel hockey and I didn't want to work full time because I had just burned out on that when I was a resident because of all the child care disasters, and so I didn't want to do that.
Speaker 2:But I didn't need to work for financial reasons. If I needed to work, it would have been in, you know, academic reasons like challenge my mind, kind of thing. So I decided not to go back, but I kept up my credentials, my board certification and my licensure for many, many years with the intent that I could go back, and after a while I felt too rusty to go back, you know, remembering how to dose a moxa, so that's a stretch there, and so I just kind of fell into it. It wasn't like a conscious decision, I mean it is right but it's conscious decision not to look for a job.
Speaker 1:Do you ever look back and wish that you were practicing Sometimes?
Speaker 2:less so now, because now I'm, like you know, old enough to retire early.
Speaker 1:Old enough to be my sister.
Speaker 2:I'm old enough to retire early. So yeah, I mean yes, but I, you know I have been very busy. You know, stay at home mom. You hardly ever at home. You're not at home, and the thing I wish more people would recognize is that stay at home moms are a huge support in the community. We do a lot of things that working parents don't do or can't do or don't have the time to do Correct, and I think that's rarely acknowledged.
Speaker 1:I would say say it again for those in the back here.
Speaker 2:Who couldn't hear you? I mean, I've had volunteer positions, five at a time like that. We're long lasting, years lasting, yeah. So yeah, different things.
Speaker 1:I agree. It's like I think stay at home moms. A lot of times, you know, you ask someone, they're like oh, I'm just. Yeah, stay at home mom.
Speaker 1:No, you're not just right, we're doing it right you know and, like you said, not only are you a huge part of the community, but you're a huge part of managing your home. You know with and without, for sure, without that, you know the wheels with my law, but I think everybody has their calling. And to be a stay at home mom, it's a privilege, a hundred percent, because not everybody can. I look at my kids now and the ones who you know are old enough the 16 year old Maybe not so much, but you know the 25, you know 22 and and the 19 year old. Thank you, mom, for staying home with us all those years.
Speaker 2:My son said that when he was in middle school.
Speaker 1:Wow Zion, get on that, get on the program please.
Speaker 2:But I had been working Until he was ten years old Ten, a little more than ten. So he knew, yeah. Yeah, although I worked part time Right for those three years when he was seven to ten. But I was able to do things like go to the school and do things with the soccer team. But when we moved here and he was in middle school I don't remember if it was sixth grade or seventh grade, but he actually thanked me for staying home.
Speaker 1:I'm like who does that right? That's like one of those moments where you just hold in your heart right, right, my child can recognize Right, because he's seen it.
Speaker 2:He saw it when I was on call every fourth day.
Speaker 1:Saw the other side of it, yeah how did your experience as a pediatrician Influence how you raised your children well?
Speaker 2:I remember one time my kids are fully vaccinated for everything you can possibly be vaccinated for, because I'm a pediatrician but one time when Audrey was a baby and I had gone with Kenny and his class or something to a twins game, mm-hmm and I came home and her breathing was really terrible and it sounded like she was Whooping, but it didn't sound like group and it really sounded like it was more like a whoop. And I I woke up Harry was like midnight when I got back because it was a twins game and I said I'm I'm really worried about Audrey. I think she might have whooping cough and and he's like she's fully vaccinated. But if, if you're afraid, just take her to the ER. And and so I did.
Speaker 2:And she didn't have whooping cough, who knew? But he always deferred any medical Question to me, but I did a lot of, you know, looking in their ears or if they had a fever. I was less paranoid mom Because I never took him to the doctor unless I thought they needed to see a doctor I'm a pediatrician but fortunately none of them were very sick after we.
Speaker 1:I, but can you tell us about your work as an advocate for refugees within our community, and Then what inspired you to get involved in the midst of everything else?
Speaker 2:Well, I was really busy being a volunteer in many ways at the kids school. I was a PTA president for a while and then I was on the board for many, many years and I was a volunteer with the breastfeeding coalition and I volunteered with the Suzuki organization. Anyway, I had all these volunteer roles soccer, hockey, and I also was a volunteer with family promise, which was IHN at the time and what exactly is that?
Speaker 2:That's they provide shelter for homeless families, churches within the community, and I was the coordinator at my church for like three years, so a lot of those things were kind of dwindling down. And I was at church and Pond Lou from IMA a, which is the intercultural mutual assistance Association, because what it stands for here in Rochester she gave a presentation at our church and my husband's like elbow at me saying you would like that, you would like that. And so then I went met with her and I met with her in like October or November and this would have been five or six years ago and I sat with her for like two hours and I talked about my background and and she said I had this great family to match you up with, because the mother's pregnant and she's got three other kids and one of them has special needs and you would just be great. And so I did. I met up with her after the baby was born in January, and so at that time the baby was like a month old and she wanted help because the birth certificate had the wrong middle name and and also the wrong gender, which she hadn't even noticed. So I held her a lot with bureaucracy. I held her get the kids enrolled in a different school.
Speaker 2:I was like the forearms person. I saw that there was such a need for someone that comes to this country basically with nothing, especially not knowing the ropes, how our culture and society works. So I just that really touched me, that that people just are thrown in and Don't have any idea how things work around here. And so I am. I was helping her a lot and then she moved to Livington. So I still help her, but very remotely and not as much, and I see her every few months or talk to her once a month or so. But Her oldest now has graduated from high school and is in college and then one of she sent back to Kenya to Learn the Quran and he's been over there for more than a year.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I got really involved with her family and, like she considers me family, and so that was, she moved away and I wasn't doing that anymore and again some of my other things had been dwindling down and someone at my church Asked me if I would coordinate a group for Catholic charities, because Catholic charities was doing this program where they were matching up different groups with evacuees from Afghanistan. These are people who were evacuated when everything went to pot and so they're not exactly. They're not refugees, they're evacuees and they're whole different status than a refugee. So I coordinated the group from my church, which I had about 15 other people that worked with me, and we were paired with a family that was a mother and a father who were approximately my age, a little bit younger, and had one child at home who was 17 at that time and their other children were all over. One was in Iran, one was in Germany and Different places they had like five or six kids and they were all in different countries. One was here in the United States. So I was involved with that family and I tried to help them find a job and they didn't speak English and so I had someone that was another evacuee that came and translated for us. So I was very involved with that family and they were doing poorly trying to find a job because their lack of English skills. So they decided to move to Albany and they moved to Albany, um, probably a year after they had been here me a little. It was April and they had come in August, okay, and I helped them move to Albany and now actually they moved to Indiana since then and I've become friends with the family. That was my translator and I'm like part of their family.
Speaker 2:Now I went there to be the coach if you want to call it a coach the mom. They don't do that. What we do in Afghanistan, where the father goes and is with the mother while they're having the baby, and that was totally foreign concept to him. He's like, well, who's gonna stay with the two-year-old? And I said, well, I could stay with her, you know. But they didn't think the two-year-old would stay with anybody. So I went and I was there when the baby was born and she had emergency C-section and so they brought me the baby. Wow. And then he came a couple hours later and we traded places and I went home with the two-year-old Wow, that was an adventure because she had never been with anybody else, but she knew me so well it was no problem, right.
Speaker 1:So when you tell these stories, I Reminded how you know each of us are called to be there for for another person, part of what our calling is. You became a life preserver, a person who they could look to For guidance, for assistance and for help. I can't imagine coming to another, other country not knowing anything right how the society works, how people move with them in that part of the world, because every place is different, right, right. But you extended yourself and you allowed them I keep going back to you allowed these people to find out who they are and you also allowed these people to have dignity as they were trying to find their way in society. And just how beautiful is that? Cause not a lot of people share will do that. Yeah, I know, not a lot of people sharey and thank you.
Speaker 2:It's so fulfilling to me. You know I get as much out of it as a gift, I feel.
Speaker 1:Right. Have you always been this type of person? Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Where do you think you learned it?
Speaker 2:My mother. We used to, when I was, I'd say, like late grade school, we would go to nursing homes and visit the residence and my sisters and I would do little singing skits and things like that, like almost every week. Maybe it was once a month, I don't remember that. Maybe my sisters remember how often we would do that. But you know, I have a vivid memory of doing that and I know when I was like six I must have been five or six and we lived in the Detroit suburbs and my mother had two children from the inner city come and stay like a week with us, so things like that.
Speaker 2:So, I probably learned it from my mother, because I definitely did not learn it from my father. Mm. Wow, my father was that like that, right, but I was close to my father but but he was just different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and those things that you carry, that are a gift from your mother that she planted Right In your heart and in your siblings' hearts, and you're still doing it, sher.
Speaker 2:Right, well, and then I guess you could see adoption as similar.
Speaker 1:Would you like to share with the audience?
Speaker 2:Well, I have an adopted child as well. So when Audrey was about four, you know I didn't want to have my kids every two years. Yeah, mm-hmm Harry approached me about, you know, did I think that we would want to adopt a child because it would mostly be on me, as it has been, you know, with Audrey he was working a lot and he had always wanted to explore adoption because his dad was adopted and he kind of just felt he wanted to give back to the world in that same way and I had always wanted three children and I did not want to go through infertility treatment again. So adoption was a good. So we figured out, we went to a program at the library about adoption from the organization in the Twin Cities and, like, we went to that in October and in November we were going to like a parenting. They had a two-day like thing where you went one day and you like learned about you know the different places they call them different programs where they adopt from different countries, and you learned about and we each went to two and we each went to two different ones so that we could compare notes.
Speaker 2:And then, and then, like by the winter, we had a home study and in May it was May we got referred a child and we had to decide if we wanted to accept the child.
Speaker 2:We had filled out this form that delineated the different medical problems you would accept or not accept and one of them was prematurity and we had said like we'd consider it. It wasn't an automatic yes or automatic no and this child was premature and so you know, we looked at all of her information and I discussed it with one of my colleagues from my previous job and one thing we discussed was you never know what you're gonna get when you have your own child. So even though this child was premature and possible other problems, you never know what you're gonna get. And a lot of her problems were NICU problems that once you graduate from the NICU that's not a problem anymore. So I knew that because I'm a pediatrician, so I could read through all that and say, oh, that doesn't matter, that doesn't matter, that doesn't matter. So then a few weeks later we said yes and then that started the process and then we went together in November and she was just shy of 15 months old.
Speaker 2:And where did you go? South Korea. People are like did you adopt from North Korea? It's like no, nobody can go to North Korea.
Speaker 2:So she was from South Korea and since she was an older child not real old, because she was still only a year old they wanted us to meet with her a few times before we took her home. So we arrived on Friday 9 pm and we just spent the weekend being tourists. And then on Monday, tuesday and Wednesday we met with her for a couple of hours without well, at first we had a translator and a social worker they were the same person and then the second day we had that. And then the third day we spent longer with her and we also had time with the foster mother as well. And on the third day we had her on our own for like two or three hours and we took her for a walk and a stroller and things like that. And then on the fourth day it was Thursday and we had to get up early.
Speaker 2:And then there was I know there's one other child there might've been two other children that were being sent out that day and one of them was with an escort and they sat everybody around the table and the foster family was there the mother, the father and their three daughters and the foster family of the other child were there and we're all cramped in this conference room and the foster mother's giving me formula and like all these things that she was supposed to give me the day before and I'm like how am I gonna pack this stuff?
Speaker 2:But we're all sitting around this table and they did a little prayer in Korean. We have a copy of what they said and that was really cool because they blessed these children before they sent them on their way, and then the whole time the foster mother's holding her and then we're getting in the van to go to the airport and the escort gets in the van with her child and the way back, and then Kenny and Audrey get in and Harry gets in and it's like time for me to get in and I still don't have the baby.
Speaker 2:I was like starting to be worried because I'm trying to get in this van but I don't have the child yet. But then they gave her to me and she took her first steps in the Tokyo airport.
Speaker 2:When we had to lay over, the guys were coming back to the US and the flight was mostly full of Asian people and, what was really interesting, the people behind us. They wanted to hold her and I was like, yeah, sure, go ahead, and they would. And then there was a man sitting next to them across the aisle that had like a hood and over his head and she looked over at him and she, like started crying and reaching for me.
Speaker 1:Oh, Sherry.
Speaker 2:Like she knew to reach for me.
Speaker 1:And she was like you are my mom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was amazing Cause like we're white and everybody else on the airplane looks like everybody she's ever seen her whole life.
Speaker 1:So that was really interesting and it goes to show you love knows no color, love knows nothing but love, right, right so here we are. And here we are.
Speaker 2:Wow, and now she's a junior in high school.
Speaker 1:Can you believe it?
Speaker 2:No, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I remember when we would take the kids out, because at that time they were probably like I don't know three or four and we go walking or running on the little path and we'd park at the little park and now they're juniors, right. Where did the time go? I don't know. Too fast, yeah, but a beautiful journey, yeah. Now, with all of this share, how do you, my friend, balance your time? You're a mother, you're a humanitarian and you also have other commitments within our community, but what do you do to bring balance to your life?
Speaker 2:Man, that's a good question. I don't know. Well, harry and I go kayaking a lot. Last year we went 50 times More than 50. We counted it up. I don't remember it was more than 50. So that's a great thing because it's just very relaxing. I used to run or bike now I'll walk.
Speaker 1:Do you listen to music? Not necessarily.
Speaker 2:I'm funny that way. I like silence, ah, like I can be in the house all day and never turn on the TV or radio or anything. Really, yeah, yeah, I mean I will but, hardly ever. And then Harry will come home and he'll turn on something and be like oh, the noise?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just gonna ask you. I know what it is about silence, I enjoy the silence of the silence, but what is it about silence that calls you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I think it's cause I can be in my own head and I'm not distracted by other things. Yeah, I'm sure that's it Cause yeah.
Speaker 1:And your opinion though, cher. What are some of the most critical issues that you find within our communities that refugees or evacuees are faced with? Well food jobs.
Speaker 2:I know that my refugee family friend. She's had a heck of a time finding a decent job. I mean she'll, and she was very eager to work, but I don't know how eager she is anymore. And she had little kids. And how do you do that, right? I mean, you're working that very little pay job and then there's childcare, but now her youngest is in school, so that helps.
Speaker 2:She worked at a center for a little while and then she got asthma. She was in the painting area and she got asthma and she had to quit and they didn't send her her last paycheck and I had to go to bat for her. I had to contact the labor board. I had to send the company a letter telling them I was contacting the labor board and that I would contact a lawyer if necessary before she finally got her last paycheck. That kind of thing they get taken advantage of because they don't know, like she wouldn't have known to do any of that. But I was like that's not right. We gotta figure this out, cause I think you know they're easily taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:That's it. And you think about how many people who don't have advocates in their corner, who they're like you know what. You no longer work here. That's it. And you're like I know I'm owed another one or two paychecks and they have no recourse. What are they gonna do? They don't know how.
Speaker 2:They don't know how and I didn't know how, but I knew how to find out how.
Speaker 1:What can we do as a community, like what can I do, what can the listeners do?
Speaker 2:I think that the number one thing that would help refugees in our community is transportation. They need a car, they need to know how to drive and I know, you know there are buses and Uber. Uber costs too much, obviously, but even the bus system is not ideal. We don't have a great public transportation system in this town and you know, when they lived in this apartment and they had to go to something downtown, they would take like 45 minutes or more to get there Because they'd have to take one bus and transfer to another bus and wait for that bus and they live five minutes away. I think that's the hugest barrier, you know. And they'll share rides, like when my friend worked in center, she would share rides with someone would drive that did have a vehicle and did have ability to drive. And she has both of those things now which we helped her with. And, yeah, I think that's a major thing, because you need a car to get a job.
Speaker 1:And with that it becomes education too, because had you know you had not been there to help her with a job or getting the last paycheck, or helping her with her driver's license and you know car, eventually you know just think about where she would be Like. The more things you know, the better off you can do for yourself, and these are all tools that we definitely need more people like you who will step up to the plate, who will help these people who are coming in, because they're no different than you, are us. They want the same things. They want a life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and to be able to do it with dignity.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:What are some of the key lessons to Sherry that you have learned about? Peace, hope, resilience, love that you've learned or encountered from the people that you've met?
Speaker 2:Well, love is universal, it doesn't matter the color, the age, the occupation, peace. I find it such a blessing that they could come here and find a peaceful place to live. I mean, I've heard the story of the family from Afghanistan at the airport. You know how did they manage? They had a one-year-old at that time, you know. And then they're trying to leave the country and worried about their lives, worried about their family's lives. Hope, hope. They have hope, they definitely have hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as someone who spreads light and compassion, how do you find the strength and the motivation to continue your work, even in the midst of challenging times?
Speaker 2:Well, it gives me something to do that I feel is worthwhile. It fills my cup.
Speaker 1:I think it's pretty cool to how you have become a part, a page in their stories. They become a part and a page in your story and with that happening, I think when you encounter, they encounter other people, now they're able to be another page because somebody has given them that hope, that peace, that love, that understanding.
Speaker 1:And now they're able to spread it to someone else. I think, the sooner that all of us recognize that and we step outside of our comfort zone, the world does become a much better place. I guess the last question that I have for you before we conclude is how can we within our community, or even in the world, how can we support and contribute and I think I may have asked this, but a different way, but how can we be better people, how can we support and contribute to the causes that you're passionate about? Is there a way that we can help?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing is curiosity, because I have a huge curiosity about the world and what drove me, I think, because I have never met a Somali family and all the time I've lived in Rochester until I met this family and there's all kinds of Somali families and I never felt comfortable, right, because I don't know anything about their culture and I don't know anybody. But now I'll see people in the elevator and may, honestly, you're so-and-so's friend and I'll be like yeah, yeah, that's amazing, yeah, but I'm like a legend or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're the icon.
Speaker 2:It's a Somali community. I mean, I know there's other people, but it's not common and it's hard to step out of your comfort zone. But that's the first thing is. And then you have to figure out what groups can help you do that, and the Catholic Charities Refugee and Resettlement Program is a big one. And then IMAA here in Rochester is another big one. Usually when they come to the country, it's Catholic Charities that helps them for the first six months and then they move into IMAA's realm. And IMAA has this program and I was one of the first that they called a match program and they match a volunteer with a family. Catholic Charities program with the Afghan evacuees. They would have a group that supported one family. But I think that everybody would be happy to give pots and pans or kitchen towels or use furniture, which is all great, but that doesn't get them a job, it doesn't get them transportation and in order to have a sustainable situation, that's what they need. That's what they need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you Looking ahead. What are your future goals for yourself as wife, mother, humanitarian?
Speaker 2:Well, I, haven't thought a whole lot about that, but I'm kind of like grandma now to this family and I really enjoy that because I've been able to watch. They had a health crisis with their two year old and I was able to help him as they navigated through that and she looks forward to me whenever I come because she thinks I'm her playmate and so I really enjoyed that. So I don't know that I'd necessarily become involved with another family just because I'm already involved with two families, plus I have my own family. But I'm always doing something. I don't have anything right now that I'm thinking about but, I'm always doing something.
Speaker 1:I love it Sher.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 2:I wanna tell you, too, another thing I forgot to tell you, so that first family that moved to Indiana, their daughter, got married in January and they invited every one of our group to help them to come, and I was the only one that went.
Speaker 2:And so I went to the wedding and I spent the whole weekend with the family in their home and I did all of the traditional things and they treated me like one of their own. I got the henna and I got to go get my hair and makeup done. The bride and I got to experience they were three different wedding outfits, the course, and so that was just fascinating to me, and the mother had made me a dress, and so I brought that and I wore that, and so that was cool. And then, yeah, and then I met their other daughter, who lives in Indiana and she has a baby and husband, and then I met the groom and I got to know that family and they invited me to the one year old's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I'm like I can't go all the way to Indiana. Oh sure, for a one year old's birthday, but it was so sweet.
Speaker 1:That is really sweet and you can see it. You touch their lives, yeah. You know you made a difference in their life. They consider you their family, right right. So technically I'm involved with three families oh that's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:And I've met different relatives, like the sons of the family that lives in Indiana. Now like on FaceTime, we're in. The mother of the people that I see now I meet them on FaceTime the husband of the woman that lives in the Twin Cities all on FaceTime, like they always want everybody to meet me.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, like even just hearing you talk about, not only when you talk about your family, but when you talk about these families that have become your family.
Speaker 1:your face just lights up and I just keep staring at you Like you have this glow like about you and it's the glow of love. And there are people that you meet in this life. I believe immediately you notice that there is something unique and different about who they are. And when I first met you and Harry, there's something about you too that drew me and my husband to your family. And it's funny because we say that little children can recognize that. My children recognize that in your family and in this world.
Speaker 1:I don't know why we meet the people that we do or why they show up at the times that they do, but I know it's not a coincidence and I am grateful that we met you guys. I am happy because you have no idea of how much of what you guys do influence how Jay and I and my children move within the world, and for that I will be forever grateful. You are proof that we can all be agents of change and that our everyday actions can ripple outward, because you, sherry, touch so many lives in such a profound way, even in the midst of our careers and our movements of life. We are all called to search, to find, to understand what our calling is.
Speaker 1:What Love Note is written on our hearts and it's been an honor to know you. It's been an honor for me to call you a friend. It's been an honor to sit across the table from you today and as you're talking, my mind constantly flips back to the very first time that we met and we have laughed together, sherry, we have cried, we have joked together. You are like a big sister and grateful for you. I am really grateful for you. So I thank you for allowing me this opportunity to talk with you and to glean more of who you are and, yeah, you mean a lot to me, my friend.
Speaker 2:You mean a lot to me too, thank you. Thank you, sherry, it's been fun. I'm glad Now I should interview you the same way. I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:Somebody ought to do that for your podcast One of these days. One of these days.