Transforming a Telephone Booth into a Beacon of Hope + Empowering Mental Health Through Community - Gloria Umanah, The Hope Booth | Otter.ai

Transforming a Telephone Booth into a Beacon of Hope + Empowering Mental Health Through Community - Gloria Umanah, The Hope Booth

Julie Confer50min

Becky Endicott

00:00

Welcome to Mental Health Week, brought to you by our friends at Givebutter. This week, you'll hear personal stories a special guided meditation, and on Thursday, October 10, we'll gather at Impact Up: PAUSE for a special day of programming and local meetups and communities around the world Learn more today at weareforgood.com/impactup.

Jonathan McCoy

00:21

Hey, I'm Jon.

Becky Endicott

00:22

And I'm Becky.

Jonathan McCoy

00:23

And this is the We Are For Good Podcast.

Becky Endicott

00:26

Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions, and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.

Jonathan McCoy

00:35

We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.

Becky Endicott

00:43

So welcome to the good community. We're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.

Becky Endicott

01:07

So let's get started. Hey, Becky, what's happening?

Becky Endicott

00:58

Well, I've been teasing this episode for, I think, about six months, and today is the day, and before we introduce our guest today, I need to do some level setting here, because we have a profound privilege at We Are For Good, that we get to meet some of the most extraordinary People with the most extraordinary ideas who are helping humanity. And I just have to tell you that when I met Gloria, the world kind of stood still on its axis for me just a little bit. And Jon, you know my story enough to know that my life goal is to just sit at the feet of a stranger and hear their story and feel changed by it. In this Gloria's story, I want you all to just sort of settle in today, because this is going to be a gift today. We're talking about hope, and we're talking about hope on a very profound level, and I hope when you leave, you're feeling lighter and more secure and confident within yourself, and you're feeling more love, because that's what Gloria is going to bring in. So please, let me introduce our incredible guest today. Her name is Gloria Umanah. She is the founder of the Hope Booth, and if you've not heard of the Hope Booth, buckle up, because I think it's about to change your life in the way that I feel like it's changing mine. But Gloria is a first generation Nigerian born Atlantan. She's from Atlanta, Georgia, and having lived below the poverty line for the majority of her childhood, Gloria lived in over 10 different motel rooms, along with her family of four sisters, an immigrant mother, and over the span of six years, and through such a challenging upbringing, Gloria overcame homelessness, fatherlessness, depression and suicide. She has got an extraordinary story. We're going to pitch it to her to tell it in just a second. But Gloria, we are so excited. You are here. We got to talk about the Hope Booth. Welcome to the We Are For Good Podcast.

Gloria Umanah

02:49

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I've listened to many episodes here, so it's exciting to be an episode. So thank you so much.

Becky Endicott

02:57

Well, I got to give Dana Snyder a shout out. Dana sent me your name one day on text and said, I really think you all need to talk to this human being, and today is the day, and we just want to get to know you. So start at the beginning. Take us back to little Gloria And tell us about where Hope Booth really started within your story.

Gloria Umanah

03:15

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like it's fair for me to first describe what Hope Booth is so people get a pretty good idea and understanding of what we're even talking about here. So I get the privilege and opportunity of being the founder and CEO of an incredible organization called the Hope Booth, where our main mission is to make hope and help free and accessible to all, and pioneer movement where no one goes unseen, and how we do it is extremely unique, out of the box, very extraordinary. So what we do is reimagine old telephone booths, and we turn them into these three minute interactive, immersive experiences that are evidence based, designed to spread hope and then connect users to local help and support, and that could look like help and support within a five mile radius from wherever a Hope Booth is installed. So these installations go on street corners and schools outside of libraries, prisons, hospitals, wherever people are. That's where we believe the Hope Booth should be. And so the goal is to make hope and help free and accessible, whether it's 2am or 2pm whether you are living below the poverty line, like I did growing up, or you're someone who is a multimillionaire, we've realized that hope is necessary for all, in all of our lives, and so we wanted to create something that was unique and innovative, that can give people the opportunity to experience hope at all times. And so this, I think oftentimes when we talk about innovative solutions, sometimes there is a group of innovation that comes from, and derives from just a cool thought and a cool idea. But I have this saying that I say all the time where I didn't just become a mental health advocate. I didn't choose that on my own. My story is what led me to that. And so growing up, I was in an immigrant household, just like you said, growing up my four sisters, my mom, we lived in so many different hotel rooms. And when I think one of the difficult things growing up as a child, as an immigrant, especially in an affluent area, didn't have a lot as a child, your identity is rooted in what you have. And so because I felt like I had not, I felt like I also was not. So my identity was very, I think, shrunk down into I don't have what everyone else has. I can't afford what everyone else can afford. I remember the school bus would pick us up outside of the Motel Six, and it was such an embarrassing experience, because the bus is coming from all of these massive homes, all of these neighborhoods with all these kids whose parents are doctors and lawyers and had all of these great things, and I'm getting on at the bus stop outside of a Motel Six, and I'd get on the bus, and people would make fun of me. And then on top of that, I was Nigerian American. So my first name is not actually Gloria. My first name is Fiyinfoluwa, which has a really cool meaning. It means all glory to God. But I remember even growing up, my teachers would refuse to say my name properly. And at the core of identity, your name is what you have. That is, that is where everything begins, and that's where everything ends. And even for something like that to have been made fun of, my identity suffered a lot of crippling and so going throughout all of my school years, middle school, high school, our family dynamic just incredibly intense, even our upbringing my parents went from working in pretty high capacity career fields, making decent enough money, to transitioning into becoming full time missionaries. It was wild to me. My brain as a middle schooler didn't understand the transition when it was happening. I just knew, why would you ever make this decision like? This is when our family made that transition from having a home to no longer having a home, having a car large enough for our whole family to no longer having a car large enough for our whole family to being able to bring our favorite restaurant food to school to now being on the cost reduced program, so it was almost night and day difference of what I was experiencing. And through all of that, a lot of anxiety started to come upon me, and I didn't know how to navigate these feelings and emotions. And also, I'm Nigerian, once again, we don't talk about anxiety. We don't talk about mental health. This was not something that we talked about. If we ever brought up any type of feeling that felt overbearing or overcoming, the solution was just pray. And I unfortunately realized very quickly that that wasn't enough of a solution. That's a powerful solution, but it's not the end all be all. It's not the only solution. And you find that a lot with mental health in general, there's very rarely one solution. I think someone asked me once, why do you believe Hope Booth is the solution? I said I would be remiss to lie to you and tell you to your face that Hope Booth is the solution. There is not a single innovation on this planet that is geared towards and directed towards mental health that could actually solve everything. But the beauty is, what happens when we come together with all of these different innovations from different vantage points, and we say, hey, look, look at what happens when, instead of competing, we collaborate, we then see a holistic approach, and that's when we start to see change. And so for me, I wish I had understood that growing up. I wish I understood that when I was struggling with anxiety and when depression started to creep into my life, I wish I knew that there were tactics, that there were strategies. I didn't even recognize that hope was an accessible thing, something I could actually grasp and hold into my hand until one particular day. I talk about this all the time, because it's the day that revolutionized my life. And I'll probably cry about it here. I cry about it every single.

Becky Endicott

08:42

I'm going to cry about it. I cried about it the first time. I'm going to cry about it again. Keep going.

Gloria Umanah

08:46

Truly revolutionary. But October 29, 2011 is a year I will never forget, a day I will never forget, a moment I will genuinely never forget. And I call this my marking moment. I think sometimes people have these marking moments in their story, where they can recollect 20 years, 30 years, 40 years from now. And I think the beauty of the work that we do with the Hope Booth is that we're creating marking moments for people. And the same way, I had a marking moment that revolutionized my life for believing that people will have those same marking moments. And mine was October 29, 2011, I'll never forget. I remember. This was after my sophomore year, struggling so much with anxiety and crippling depression. I never told my parents anything that I was experiencing. I didn't talk about I was very reserved kid, for the most part, really good at putting on a mask and just faking it till I've made it. And this was the timing of my life where I felt like I couldn't make it anymore. I was experiencing some bullying, I was experiencing some racism. I was experiencing just the intensity of our upbringing and our living situation in general. And I remember crying myself to sleep every single night for about a year, and nobody knew. Gloria was always the tough girl, the strong girl, the one that was compassionate for other people but no one ever recognized that behind all of the armor that I was wearing was just a small girl that needed to be seen. I felt invisible more times than not. And so I remember, on this particular day, I had a plan to end my life. I was over it. I didn't want to continue living. And you know, I think this is very true for most people who experience suicidal ideation. No one actually ever wants to end their life. What people want to end is the pain that they're going through. And that was my story. I didn't want to actually end my life. I wanted to end the pain, and I also wanted to know that people thought I was worth fighting for. And so I remember on this particular day, going to a youth gathering, kind of like a D Now, if you will, where it was like a local church that was hosting this event. We all had to come, and I had no choices. My parents were like, you're going. And my parents are also Nigerian, so no, is not really a response in our family. And so I ended up going to this gathering, and I packed with me everything I planned to use to end my life that night, and I remember sitting in the auditorium as they had music going on in the gathering, and I prayed a very simple prayer, and I just said, God, if you are real, would you encounter me? I didn't know what that meant. I hear this concept of faith the size of a mustard seed very often. That's all you need. I don't know if you've ever seen what a mustard seed looks like, but it's pretty microscopic. It's very, very small, teeny, tiny. So I would say that prayer was my mustard seed that night. And even even beyond having that faith, I still had a lot of doubt that there was no way that this supposed God of the universe was going to intersect my story. There's so many other things to worry about. There's so many other people to worry about. There's so many other things to do. Who is Gloria Umanah that there would be a moment of an encounter on this particular day. So I remember time starts going by, and during this timing, this is the timing of Twitter, like really making its its entrance into the world, and cyberbullying was at its all time high. I was getting messages from people that I thought were my friends that were telling me, man, Gloria, you suck. Your life sucks like you shouldn't continue here. I mean, the bullying was pretty intense, all sorts of really negative, harmful, hurtful things. And I thought to myself in that moment, if my presence isn't appreciated, perhaps my absence will be, and so I grabbed with me everything that I intended to use to end my life. As I walked towards the exit of the auditorium, I got all the way to the door in the back of the room, put my hand on the door, and the person who was leading the room in that worship gathering said, there's someone in this room who's getting ready to take their life. God wants to encounter you. And I'm sitting here at the door and I'm I'm like, what on earth? Like, no way. This is not real. This can't be real. And suddenly all of the possible lies that could come to my mind were coming to my mind, like people can't know that I'm struggling with this, like I'm a pastor's kid. If they find out, they're gonna make more fun of me. I can't handle any more shame, I can't handle any more condemnation, and I just began to feel overwhelmed and overcome, even with the concept and the idea of people knowing that this is what I was struggling with. Even though there was this opportunity of hope that was standing right before me, there was still a fear right there in that moment. And I remember just thinking these things, and the person leading the room says, I know right now, your head is probably full of lies. What are people going to think about me? What are people going to say? He said, well, if that's you, I want you to know your encounter for hope is here today. I remember hearing that, and I'm thinking to myself, is this actually the encounter that I just possibly prayed for that my heart has been yearning for every night that I cried myself to sleep. This is the hope that I have been wanting. And so I'm standing there and he says, If that's you on the count of three, I want you to put your hand up. There's about 800 people, all high schoolers, in the room, and I am nervous. I'm thinking to myself, I put my hand up, my friends, everyone's gonna know. But I thought to myself, I think hope is worth it at this point. And so he counts. He starts his countdown. He says, one, don't be afraid. Two, this is your moment. Three, and I shoot my hand up in the air. When I shoot my hand up in the air, I looked around the room and was stunned by what I saw. I could not believe the amount of hands that went up in the air, of people who were prepared to take their life on that particular night, who would not have encountered hope if it wasn't for that man who felt that divine mandate to actually give people hope in a moment. And so that's why I talk about the power of marking moments. He may have felt like that wasn't even that crazy to have said, hey, If this is you put your hand up. Like does putting your hand up solve everything? Absolutely not. But what it did in that very moment was truly show me that I was not alone. I think I hear that phrase. Often like, Oh, you're not alone. There's other people who are struggling and fighting, but for me to actually have seen that with my own two eyes, in a moment of pain, in a moment of genuine hopelessness, that's when I realized, oh, I really am not alone. And that was a marking moment in my story, because I would say I am alive here today because of the hope that I experienced on October 29, 2011, and that has catapulted my greatest desire and joy in doing the work of Hope Booth. I don't do this just because I think it's cool. I do this because I know it can change lives. It changed my life. And so now I want to do everything possible to make hope accessible for people, to help provide people a pathway and next step in their journey and their story. So those who felt like I did, who felt invisible, who felt like their life wasn't worthy, didn't matter that. It didn't matter if they didn't have enough finances, or if they didn't have enough resources, or if they didn't have the courage to talk to someone, they would have the ability to still encounter help regardless. And so I'm just honored and excited to get to do this work, honored and excited to get to live this life and to live this story as hard as it was, I would go back and do it again, just for the sake of being able to stand here today and stand on business and say, I know the power of hope.

Jonathan McCoy

16:17

Gloria.

Becky Endicott

16:18

Right?

Jonathan McCoy

16:18

My goodness, you just gotta create the pause of like, Thank you for your willingness to share your story. Gosh, my heart is like, in a million pieces, but at the same time you're like, putting it back together, at the same time, like, I'm just grateful for the goodness, the way that you're showing up and the word hope has been like a through line for you, like, I mean, I see it. I see it in your work now, and we've been so excited about this conversation because of just how beautiful your mission is and what it's doing about providing these intersections of hope for people that are at least expecting it to so I'm curious what what that word looks like, and how you define it today. You know, compared to in your teenage years? What does it look like in your head?

Gloria Umanah

17:03

Yeah, I feel like hope is a word that has always been so ambiguous for so many people, but I've kind of boiled it down to a very simple definition. Hope is action oriented strength that's fueled by the belief that, though everything might not be okay right now, I will be okay, and I have the power to make it so and so I think oftentimes people can think hope is just optimism or great thinking. No. Great thinking alone doesn't change me. Great thinking alone is a great step, and I think it's the beginning step, if you will. We talk about the science of hope is basically three categories within the science of hope. It starts with having a goal. So I had to have a goal to say I want to live. That is a goal. It seems very basic, but it is actually the goal that I needed on that day I need to live. And then the second category within the science of hope is having way power. The way power is determining, how am I going to make this possible? I have to figure out, how am I actually going to make this possible? What's the strategy, what's the plan? And it can be as simple as, keep going another day. It sounds so simple, but sometimes that is actually as simple as it needs to be, keep going another day. Or for some people, way power might look like, putting your hand up in that room, and they say, if they're anyone who is struggling right now, sometimes, way power is I need to go and ask for help. I need to invite people into my story. And then that third category for the science of hope is willpower. So sometimes we can have a way, but we have to have the will, the genuine desire, and that's where that action oriented strength comes from. And sometimes that is very difficult. Having the will is very difficult if you do life alone. Having willpower comes in the form of community. It comes in the form of other people speaking life into your bones where you feel like it has grown weak and weary. It comes from you looking yourself in the mirror and speaking the truth of what you know of your identity. It comes from those affirmations and those declarations to tell myself, like, Okay, this is a hard moment, but this is not forever. That's one thing I say about anxiety often, is anxiety is simply just present. It's not permanent. I will not go through this forever, and my willpower comes in those moments when I realize, oh, I can overcome this, like I might be experiencing this today, but I'll make it through. So that's why we say that hope is action oriented. It's action oriented strength, and it recognizes the truth of where I'm at, but it also recognizes the power of where I can go and where I will be.

Becky Endicott

19:34

I'm so proud of you, like my heart grows every single time I'm around you. I am in awe of your boldness, your vulnerability, the way you teach. I think you're such an educator and a healer. And I really believe that every time you speak, you're you're speaking to someone very specific. I know you're speaking to someone very specific on this podcast, I know you were speaking directly to me in a really hard time when you and I met, you didn't even know it. And I think that through line of community is where it's at, because I really hear you preaching We Are For Good values back at us. I mean, we are not just a community who talks about things we do talk about a lot of stuff, because story is going to stay with us. Insights are going to stay with us. We do need to have mindset shifts, but the activation point, the doing part, the willpower that you speak of, is the hard part. It really requires us to be bold. It requires us to pick ourselves. And these are things that are not akin and rote to us, these are not reflexes. These are things that we have to cultivate. And when I hear you telling me the story of Hope Booth and how you're coming together, and you got all these young millennial and Gen Zers sitting around a room going, what can we do to bring accessibility to people, to bring hope in a way that helps people feel seen? And so I want you to talk about this incredible team that you have, and I want to know what the response has been from the public as they interact with the Hope Booth. And please walk our through our listeners, what happens when you woke up? Because the minute, there's like a minute video or two minutes, I watched it on your website before we met for the first time, and I told you I felt so visibly shook by it, and it was two minutes. And as a marketer, that's pretty impressive to get somebody to have been affected that way, that quickly. So talk about the team, talk about the public's reaction.

Gloria Umanah

21:44

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start by saying when we started Hope Booth, mental health was not what we were thinking about. Actually, it was far from it. What we were thinking about was people living on the streets. And the reason why that's why we're thinking about is because we heard this statistic that the average person living on the streets goes three to six months without being looked in the eye. And I remember hearing that for the first time, living in Atlanta, there's plenty of people who are unhoused living on the streets. And I thought to myself, Man, how do we make people feel seen like how do we help close that gap? How do we help people feel less invisible. And that's when I remembered my own story, knowing that feeling of invisibility. And so I got together with my team, and I said, guys, I know a lot of the work that we did at the time was helping other organizations and nonprofits tell their stories through spoken word. And so that oftentimes looked like work on stages. And I said, I think we need to pivot from the stage to the streets. What does it look like to use our creativity to impact people where they are who are never coming to another, gathering, a conference, a church, a workshop, a retreat, any of those things ever again. How do we create something that's accessible and embedded in our culture and our community? And the reason why a telephone booth came to mind for me is because I remember. I know I look young, but hey, I saw them. I remember, as a kid, we would drive around the city of Atlanta, and it was so easy to spot a telephone booth, especially at night, because of the light that shines through it. And I thought to myself, well, that's the perfect depiction of hope. It's light in the midst of darkness. And I thought the beauty of these telephone boots was that they were embedded into the community. It wasn't there one day and gone the next. It was drilled into the ground. It was available 24/7 and all it took was 10 cents to be able to access whomever you needed. And I thought to myself, Well, shouldn't Mental Health Access be the same. Shouldn't it be embedded in our communities, in our culture? Shouldn't it not require much money, if any at all? Shouldn't it be available 24/7, around the clock, not dependent on if a therapist is available or not, or your pastor or your friend, or how do we do that? And so that's when our team sat together and said, well, let's just remodel telephone booth. And I said, Okay, does anyone know any carpenters? And they were like, what? And I was like, I don't know anything about this. I quite literally don't know anything about this. I just have an idea in my head. And that's when I realized the power of community truly and inviting people into the story of what you're building. I think sometimes we could be overly protective over vision and ideas, but I think to myself, if I had never invited people into the story of building and developing Hope Booth, it actually would still be on a piece of paper. It wouldn't have manifested into reality today, right now, because of my own insecurity or my own fear, or sometimes even pride. And so realizing the beauty of what happens when different people with different strengths kind of come together. That's when we sat and thought through, okay, how do we build this thing? And so in 2020 I want to say 2021 or 2022 I don't know, after 2020 I don't know what year is what but. I think I want to believe it was 2022. Yes, where we built the prototype of the Hope Booth. It was as janky as it gets, but we did our best. I'll tell you, we did our best with the little we knew. This is coming from someone that was asking if anyone knew a carpenter. So we ended up getting invited to London, England to debut our project. And I thought to myself, I don't know. Are we prepared for this? Like, the team's like, Do we have time to pull this off? So we ended up raising enough money and building it within a three month window. We go out to London for our debut, and it was amazing. We didn't anticipate on actually allowing anyone to use the Hope Booth on this particular day. We just needed to film a promo video, because we hadn't told the world about what we had created. And so we're actually carrying the Hope Booth that was about 300 pounds on our shoulders like a casket throughout the City of London. It's wrapped around with bubble wrap, so you can't see exactly what it is. And so we set it down in the middle of Notting Hill. We unwrap it just for the sake of this promo video. We're not thinking about the fact that there's people around. None of this is clicking in our brains at the moment. We unwrap it, take it apart, and it was almost like the city stood still, like you could see people pause, pulling out their cameras. Silence. I mean, it was silence as construction workers left building their construction to come over, and they're like, What is this? And then we were like, I guess, I guess you guys have to experience it. And so we ended up having a line about 30 people to experience a Hope Booth I hadn't even experienced yet. We had just built it.

Becky Endicott

26:35

You me this was your literal first time. You're like, praying it's working.

Unknown Speaker

26:39

Yes, my first time seeing it. Literally, we're coming from New York to London. We show up, and people are like, oh my goodness, can I try it? I'm like, I guess so. I hope it works.

Becky Endicott

26:47

The revolution started before you launched which is amazing.

Gloria Umanah

26:50

Truly amazing. And

Jonathan McCoy

26:52

oh my gosh,

Gloria Umanah

26:52

it was so cool, because the very first person who experienced it. His name is Marazio. I'll never forget he showed up by himself, and he said, Man, I moved here from Italy, and I live here by myself, and I feel alone, even though there's so many people everywhere, I feel alone, and in those short three minutes, I'm somehow reminded that I'm gonna be okay. Like, I'm somehow reminded that my life matters, and I can step out and, like, actually reach out for someone's hand. And I heard him say that, and I thought to myself, are you sure? Like, is that really what you concluded from this? I'm still unsure of what we really created, to be honest. And so the next day, we go to our official debut, and we see this woman at the Hope Booth in tears, and I'm like, what did we make here? And afterwards, I end up talking to her, and she says, Gloria, you have no idea what this three minute just did for me. I came in here today depressed. I came in here, not sure if I wanted to live another day. I came in here really feeling low, and this just reminded me that I can keep going another day like this. Just put inside of me the actual hope that you guys have plastered everywhere, like I feel it inside of me. And she was like, it feels different, like I feel different. And that's what I thought to myself. If three minutes, if one moment of three minutes, can feel different in someone's life, then we've created a marking moment, that same way that a short little three minutes, October 29, 2011, changed my life. Then I'm a firm believer it's changing the lives of individuals today. And we ended up doing so many other things. We went on an incredible 30 day 19 city beta tour where we just wanted to test out the Hope Booth. And this was a cool

Becky Endicott

28:33

In an RV, Jon will relate to this.

Jonathan McCoy

28:34

Oh my gosh, so relatable.

Gloria Umanah

28:35

In an RV. I mean, you'll never see a group of black kids in an RV. I don't know what we were doing. I don't know what we were doing in there, but we said, hey, let's go. And we knew we wanted to, I mean, it was the response of London, of people saying, we want a Hope Booth in Scotland. We want a Hope Booth in South Africa. And we said, guys, we got one. We don't really know like how to do this. And so we said, Okay, well, let's go crowdfund. Let's figure out how to raise $40,000 to take the Hope Booth on a tour across the country to just collect data so we can create this thing with accuracy, because accuracy is really important to us. And so within 12 days, we ended up raising about $56,000 a random church in Tulsa, Oklahoma saw and heard about the Hope Booth and said, hey, we're gonna write you guys a check for 50,000 Go ahead, go on the tour and have the best time ever. And I'm like, What on earth? Okay. And so we ended up going on that 30 day 19 city tour, and at the very first stop in Nashville, Tennessee, I remember being in the back of the RV as the team was out setting up, and I'm having this crippling moment of just anxiety. I'm having this moment of, what did I rope everybody into? Like, how can a telephone booth help anyone? Like, every possible thought is coming through my mind. We call it imposter syndrome, but I think it's just an accurate response to doing what you've never done, because you're showing up in a way you've never had to show up before. And so. I remember coming out of the RV and I see a girl about 19 years old at the Hope Booth in tears, and I'm curious what her story is. And so she comes up to me afterwards and shares that on that particular day a year ago, her mom died by suicide, and her mom's name was Hope, and she said, this moment right here, this moment right here just brought my mom back to life and encourage my soul so deeply. And we're sitting there like this is the first day of 30 days, and we we have the audacity to doubt what we've created like the audacity to doubt that this wasn't going to lead to marking moments again for people, encounters again for people. And so that was a story that I'll never forget, because ever since that day, we're like we've seen enough proof. We've seen enough proof to know and our technology has gotten so advanced at this point where we have such incredible numbers and data statistics, we've got about 83,000 people who've experienced the Hope Booth, and right now, at about a 73% increase just after one experience, at the hope of one solid three minute moment, got about 56% of the people who are engaging with our support system, who are actually connecting to local shelters and local therapists and finding the help that they need, which is incredible. And so we see some of these numbers, and we see some of this data, and we're recognizing, I may never know any of these people's names, I may never know their stories, but I can see from our back end that this data is proof of lives being changed, and it's so beautiful because it has nothing to do with me. My name is not anywhere. I'm not at the forefront of it all, and I decided in my life as an innovator. I'm okay being a person of the fine print. I'm okay being someone whose name may show up somewhere way down, but it's not the headline. We want hope to be the headline of the story here. We want hope to be the headline in people's lives here. And we have seen how that has just revolutionized even just taking the pressure off of ourselves, because we've seen the work for itself. The work proves itself. We've seen the impact prover itself. We've seen hope does the work even when we take a step back. That's why I was able to take a sabbatical, because we've created a product that can thrive out in the world, and it's it's been amazing and outstanding and hard work, but I'm just so grateful for our team and our commitment to just making hope and help accessible, whatever that looks like and whatever innovation that takes and requires.

Jonathan McCoy

32:28

Gloria, you are a wonder.

Becky Endicott

32:30

Yeah, my, the snot is is flowing like it's you are what this world needs. Hope Booth is what the world needs. Hope.

Gloria Umanah

32:40

Thank you.

Jonathan McCoy

32:41

And the way you're going about it too, I mean, you're, you're teaching our values to us in that community is everything. And like this is so baked in community. It's so even the posturing of that it's not about you. It's about like the people that this serves. Like that is how we can change the world, you know, like that kind of posturing. So just thanks for being a leader in that way, and for sharing your story today, I'm curious, like, what's on the horizon? You know? I mean, it feels like y'all are just embracing that Hope Booth. Is this living, breathing hope that keeps changing? What are the communities and partnerships you're excited about kind of moving into in the future, too?

Gloria Umanah

33:16

Yeah, absolutely. So we have this big, audacious dream over the next year to install 100 Hope Booths in different languages. We actually just launched Hope Booth Spanish, which is exciting, but yes, Gracias, but yeah, our hope and goal is to get these in prisons, hospitals, schools, street corners, and really just getting ahead of the curve. We know what our world is planning out to look like. It's not getting easier for people. We kind of see the crisis ahead of time, and so we're hoping to be a little bit more proactive instead of reactive, instead of waiting until these moments of hopelessness come and overtake our world. How do we get ahead of that and start partnering with the right people? And so one of the things we have found to be extremely helpful in partnerships is actually partnering with commercial real estate companies. And so for example, if you're familiar with Atlanta, where we're based, here, we have a Hope Booth at Pont City Market. Pont City Market is similar to Chelsea Market in New York, actually owned by the same commercial real estate company that also owns Google's visitor experience, which a Hope Booth is coming to soon, which also owns Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, which another hope of is coming too soon, yeah. And so we're finding that these commercial real estate partners seem to be the best bet. My dream would be Simon, a partnership with Simon Properties, because that's every mall in the United States, and there are so many people who frequent malls, and I think a Hope Booth outside of every mall would be beautiful. I think a whole booth outside of every university would be beautiful. I think a whole booth inside of subways, I mean, there's just not a single place I can think of that a Hope Booth wouldn't fit. I oftentimes get texts from. Friends, and they're like, oh my goodness, Gloria, I hope we would go so good here. Have you thought about it? I'm like, of course, I sleep thinking about this. I wake up thinking about this. Every waking moment I'm thinking about this. And so I think the beauty of what we're even when we're talking about community, is finding these partners who carry the heartbeat of the work that we're doing, instead of having to waste our time and energy convincing the wrong people. We want to connect with people who are already convinced, who already carry the heartbeat of this work, so that we can expedite the work we're doing and create a ripple effect of impact and really help people. I think we talk about just the uniqueness of the work that we do. It, it's so unique that you can see the manifestation of your giving and your generosity right at hand. And I think in a world where people are a little skeptical towards charities and organizations and nonprofits, I think we have an upper hand, an advantage there, because when you give to a Hope Booth, if you actually see it, go into the ground, drilled into the ground in a community to help and support people, and that's the work that we're committed to. So I'm just excited to see them as frequently as we saw telephone booths in our cities, they were everywhere, and I think mental health access should be the same.

Becky Endicott

36:13

Absolutely. I mean, when I got off the phone with you, I called a local company that I know here in Oklahoma City, and the conversation was so interesting because I was like, Hey, not only do you need to buy that this, but I think it should go either here or here, because I think there's this amount of traffic the most in Oklahoma City, and I think you see people have that level of passion for it, because I do want a healthy community. I want a whole community with humans who are looked in the eye. I don't want anybody walked past every you know, going past people for three to six months without actually being seen. And so we are for good community. We are going to manifest Gloria's dream. So if anybody has a connection out there to Simon's, to malls, let let's reach out to Gloria And let's let make it happen. Because I do think that what you're doing is you're making hope accessible. You're reminding people that they have value. You're reminding people that they're not alone. And so I just appreciate this beautiful story that you have brought into our community, I have so much hope in what you are perpetuating, not just with the physical product, but what it's doing internally. And we really celebrate stories so much on this podcast, Gloria, and we like to lay some ground just so we can sit and hear about a story of philanthropy that may have happened in your life. Maybe it's a story of generosity or love stayed with you. Do you have a story like that you'd be willing to share?

Gloria Umanah

37:45

I do, but I actually want to backtrack to another story as well that, let's hear it, that just moved me deeply, that I think would move our listeners and you guys as well. So a couple months ago, right before I went on my sabbatical, we got an email from a mother, and she said, Hey, you guys don't know me. You don't know anything about me, but I live in Atlanta, and my son lives in Atlanta too, and he has been struggling deeply with suicidal ideation and depression. We can't afford any medicine, we can't afford any therapy, we can't afford any solutions, but he's been going to the Hope Booth every single day since his diagnosis, and that has kept him alive. And so when I hear stories like this, I think about this idea that even when we talk about philanthropy, these are the stories that I share because I'm helping people realize you're not making my life better. You're making other people's lives better. When you give in your support, you're keeping people alive like I think about that young man who can't afford any type of resource or support, who is kept alive here today because of something we've installed in a community. And so when I when I hear these stories, I am just moved into recognizing that generosity has the ability to keep people's hearts beating like it's that simple. Generosity has the ability to do that. And so we don't have a ton of donors, but the ones that we do have, I tell them all the time, like, Thank you for being a part of this life saving, truly life saving, work. I remember in our early, early days, we weren't sure how we were going to fundraise for any of this. I mean, our whole team, we don't come from we don't come from money. It's very hard to fundraise in black and brown communities. We don't have as much access to things. And I remember us knowing okay, for us to actually move a next step forward, we're gonna have to be able to rally around and find our first donor who can give at least $150,000 so that we can hire our whole team has been volunteer based. It sounds unbelievable that we've gotten this far that way, and I remember just recognizing, okay, we have made it really far, but we can't go any further like this. And we started asking our board, do you know anybody who could help? Goodness, I'm just a weeping mess here. Do you know anybody who can help? Anybody who could support and we just racked our minds for so long, and couldn't, we couldn't really pinpoint who in our own networks. And I remember just finding a connection through one of my church one of my church friends of a guy who was just deeply passionate about mental health and their family runs some tech company in North Carolina. And I asked, hey, would you be willing to go to dinner? I would love to tell you a little bit about our work. And we ended up going to dinner, and I, I said, Hey, we really need, like, at least $150,000 would you be willing to give that? He said, Well, actually, what if I gave 300,000 instead, and I'm sitting there with one of the co-leads on my team, and we're just like weeping, because we, I mean, this is the first time we had ever been given a six figure gift, the year prior, it was our first time being given a five figure gift. And so we had been seeing like the compound effect of people seeing our work and saying, you know what, we want to support. We want to give. And so that that moment right there, made us recognize what is possible, even when it doesn't feel possible. We hear stories about so many organizations who raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and we've always thought to ourselves, we have no clue how that's going to happen, like they're honestly all led by white men. We're not white men. We don't have access to these people. Sometimes we sit in these meetings, in interviews with people who want to know more about the work of Hope Booth, but then they look at us, and they see us as kids, and I'm like, could you just look at the work? Look at the impact of what we've done, and so to be deeply seen. It's the beauty of we're doing the work to help other people feel seen. But now we feel deeply seen in a moment that gave us like all of the hope that we needed again, that action oriented strength. We had, that strength to continue doing the work, so that we continue hearing stories of individuals who can't afford therapy, who can't afford the help that they need, finding access to the help free of charge, every day, all day, 24 hours around the clock. And so it has been. It has been quite a journey, and that has made me even become more compassionate in the work of being philanthropic in my own life, and so I'm just excited for this work. I'm excited for the beauty of generosity. I'm excited for people who choose to make others feel seen by supporting the work that they do, and just grateful that I get to live this life.

Jonathan McCoy

42:37

Gloria, man, this interview is going down in the books for me, my friend.

Becky Endicott

42:41

I don't think I've ever cried this much on an interview like ever,

Jonathan McCoy

42:44

I gotta say I want to put up, like, an 800 number and move this into full telethon mode, and get people on the line to take gifts. But, we're gonna get to a one good thing. But first, like, I'm just curious, like, how can people help you? People listening, I can assure you, want to be part of this mission. What's the best way to support y'all right now, and what's gonna link us up on that?

Gloria Umanah

43:05

Absolutely. So there's three really incredible ways that can anyone can help support today. So we recently launched our monthly donor community called The Movement, which is really exciting, and this is just people who want to commit day in and day out every single month supporting, basically installing and the maintenance of Hope Booths that go out in the world. And so we have 100% model at the Hope Booth. So we have a large group of people who have been giving monthly to support the building, the installing and the maintaining of Hope Booths out in the world. The more people who give towards that the more booths can go out into the world. And we did that because we didn't want to wait and have to wait for large donors or large sponsors to cover the cost of a Hope Booth itself, single handedly. And so as the movement continues to grow, that's giving us the ability to install more Hope Booths out in the world with our real estate, commercial partners. And so for anyone who wants to commit to making hope and help free and accessible around the globe, you can join the movement and become a part of our donor community that's giving monthly, whether that's $5 or $5 million I'm not going to say no.

Becky Endicott

44:15

5 million monthly.

Gloria Umanah

44:18

There you go. There. And then we also have something called our founding partners. And so these are families who commit to giving at minimum about $50,000 for three years to help us hire our full time team so that we can keep the movement solely funding the installation of the Hope Booth, yeah, so we can keep the movement funding the Hope Booth. And so families who would say, hey, I want to commit at a higher level to supporting the workers of the work, because that's the non sexy thing that people don't always love, but they don't think about the fact that it's quite literally impossible hiring an engineer to function the entirety of the Hope Booth is quite a lot of money. And so people who want to support in that capacity. Yes, those are usually like our investors and people who have ran businesses, and know how hard it is. I would like to invite you into that. And then lastly, our favorite is for those who want to single handedly sponsor a Hope Booth. Those range between 15 to $25,000 to get out into the world. And we actually just got a family who lost their daughter to suicide two years ago, who sponsored a Hope Booth in her name for the university that she used to go to. And so these are some there's some really incredible places Hope Booths can go in honor of certain people, in places where hopelessness has been a prominent factor. We talk about areas that have been affected by gun violence. These are places that we believe Hope Booths should be. Our dream is to see one in Uvalde one day, our dreams to see one at Columbine, one day, to see one in Buffalo New York, at Tops Grocery Market. And so there's so many beautiful places where we have the partnership and ability to get Hope Booths out in the world, but we need the funding of those who want to help sponsor these Hope Booths, whether that's a company, whether that's a family, whether that's a community of people coming together, those are the three primary ways that people can support today. And of course, sharing anything that we post online can really help get the word out as well.

Becky Endicott

46:15

Thank you for that. I mean, because I think if this episode is speaking to you and you want to be an active change agent for hope. Please lean in with whatever you have. And I will also put this out there. I saw that you launched your monthly giving club at the Monthly Giving Summit, and I want to join it. And I am going to join it today. And I want to put anybody else out there who feels compelled to join this monthly giving club with me. Please be a part of the movement. I want to be a part of it. I want to

Gloria Umanah

46:43

Thank you,

Becky Endicott

46:44

Be a part of how hope is popping up. I I just connect with that mother who says he's walking out there and we don't know what else to do. I want to eliminate the ability to even need a Hope Booth. So yes, me in that and Gloria. I we want to round it out with a one good thing. And I feel like you've given us so many hopeful good things since you've been on this podcast discussion with us. What's a one good thing you would leave with our community today?

Gloria Umanah

47:14

A one good thing, is that, is that, like a quote? Is that like a thought?

Becky Endicott

47:17

It can be quote, a life hack, a mantra you live by. It can be whatever is speaking to your heart right now.

Gloria Umanah

47:25

Oh, that's a great question. It's been speaking to my heart lately. So I've been in Nigeria for the last I don't even know how many days my trip was about 46 days or so. So I'm just coming back now. And one of the things I noticed while I was there is that there is a very high level of disparity people who are living below the poverty line, who, I mean, are living in conditions I would have never thought was even allowed on this earth. And something that really stood out to me when I saw a lot of this in the community with young people, older people, didn't matter what age they were, there was still somehow a deep joy that I saw within them, and it wasn't predicated on their circumstance clearly, they still found a way, despite the difficulty that they were going to to smile, to engage with each other, laugh with one another, and I'm I'm looking and I'm like, what am I sad about? Like, what am I frustrated and upset about that I can't choose joy. And so the one good thing I would leave you with is fight to choose joy every single day, despite what you're going through, despite how hard it might feel, fight to choose joy, because that is the medicine, that is the remedy for our souls, and I hope that one day, hope will be the answer to our entire lives. But it's because we choose joy every single day. They work hand in hand together, and so that's just my encouragement that I would leave with everyone, despite what you're going through, fight for joy and then fight to spread that joy contagiously.

Jonathan McCoy

49:00

Holy cow. I mean, Becky talking to Gloria was worth the six month wait. She has delivered like this has been hope-filling, I'm just grateful for the way you show up, the way you walk through this world, my friend. I mean, how can people listening today connect with you and where's the best place to follow you online?

Gloria Umanah

49:17

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There you go. I'm available online and hope with online I'm @GloriaUmanah on pretty much everything, or @thehopebooth on pretty much everything as well.

Becky Endicott

49:29

I just want to say thank you to my dear friend, Fiyinfoluwa.

Gloria Umanah

49:35

You got it.

Becky Endicott

49:35

I think it's important to look at you and say your name and say you're changing the world. You're making it better, that you and your team did something that was ridiculous, and it was amazing, and it continues to be amazing. We are going to continue to amplify it here. And friend, if you have something ridiculous on your heart that's calling to you, let this be the inspiration you were looking for. Let's all go out and fight for joy. Let's fight for more hope. Rooting you on Gloria every step of the way.

Gloria Umanah

50:04

Thank you. Thank you so much for this.

Becky Endicott

50:07

Hi friends. This giving season, a very generous donor has made a commitment to match dollar for dollar every donation given toward the Hope Booth up to $250,000 from now until December 31 whether you join The Movement, sponsor a Hope Booth or become a founding member, Your support will be doubled, meaning double the impact toward making hope and help free and accessible for all in our efforts to eradicate the global mental health crisis, you could even join me as a monthly giving donor. Learn more at hopebooth.org.

00:0000:00