OuttaDeeBox Podcast
OuttaDeeBox podcast is a pre-recorded bi weekly show geared towards supporting former and current inmates and their families in Wisconsin. Our mission is to inform listeners about community resources that can assist them in securing employment opportunities, housing, mental health and substance abuse support, with the goal of reducing recidivism in Wisconsin. We also give listeners and guests the opportunity to share their unique inspirational stories through spoken word and other forms of musical artistry.
OuttaDeeBox Podcast
From Public Housing to Public Service, The Michael Johnson Story part 2
Jealousy can lead to unexpected places; in my case, it paved the way to a partnership brimming with innovation and community impact. Tune in as we team up with Little Johns to cook up a storm of nourishment and event excitement, and I'll tell you all about how a Prince lookalike dating my now-wife set the stage for an electric Prince-themed bash we're cooking up. Beyond the music and the personal tales, we're tackling serious issues with Little Johns by transforming imperfect produce into 30,000 meals for children, intertwining environmental responsibility with the fight against hunger.
Our latest installment isn't just a feast for the ears, but a celebration of transformative journeys. Hear a powerful Boys and Girls Clubs success story, where support translates into six-figure achievements, and how we're charging against Wisconsin's racial achievement gap with soaring college admissions. We're rallying for sustainable wages in trades for women and people of color and championing borderless leadership for global problem-solving. Special thanks to our guests, including Michael Johnson, for their enriching contributions, and cheers to ONJYC for podcasting milestones we hope are just around the corner.
So tell us some more about this partnership with Little Johns.
Speaker 2:Yesterday, you know we announced partnership with Little Johns and you know we've always have fed our kids healthy meals at all of our clubs for the least last 15 years I've been here. So I said you know what, why don't we look at outsourcing that? Little Johns is feeding kids and families all over the city right now. They're doing all the meals on wheels. They're feeding kids at the Children's Museum. So we met with them and said hey, can you provide a chef in all of our kitchens at Boys and Girls Clubs and then utilize your equipment in our clubs and bring your nonprofit into our kitchens and run it all out of Boys and Girls Clubs. And they agree, you know to do that. So they have full time professional chefs in our kitchen preparing meals for our kids.
Speaker 2:It's a blessing and you know, with the rise in food calls, one of the things I love about his program, he works with some of the local grocery stores, like Metcalfs Actually I was with them last night and so some of the food that they use is not that it's bad food, but it's recycled food that, like, farmers may not use. They go back kind of like imperfect, yeah, yeah, like like.
Speaker 2:It's almost like somebody may sell a pair of shims shoes was a scrap little bit of scratch on it right, he recycles that food and then, instead of selling it, he's like little Johns will go out and prepare meals for, whether it be for hospitals or for nonprofit organizations, and so we've asked them to come and partner with us to provide about 30,000 meals a year for our kids.
Speaker 1:Wow, let's go crazy. Event. Now I know the theme is as Prince, right.
Speaker 2:Purple rain prince.
Speaker 1:I actually was purple rain prince for Halloween this year. Where are you? I killed it, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, I'm a little jealous of Prince man. I'll tell you my wife. We've been married now 20 years and I almost lost her to this Prince looking dude, and so we were dating back and forward.
Speaker 1:How long ago was this?
Speaker 2:This was about 20, about 27 years.
Speaker 1:And you're still bringing that up.
Speaker 2:I'm still bringing it up, bro. So me and my wife decided we wanted to go. She was my girlfriend at the time and we would go see other people. You know at first like I was dating somebody else but it hurt me when I saw her with this little Prince looking dude. So I go to her house. I pull up at the back time back in the day at a box Chevy truck with some 20 inch rims and some 12 12 inch kickers in my trunk.
Speaker 1:I was gonna ask you what kind of system man it?
Speaker 2:was a. Well, I always did. I don't know if both back, I don't remember the name, but I always go on the West side and I used to put six by nines in my doors and not in the door. Well, I think it was eight by some in the doors, but on Chevy and Pollas back in the day they had this little rack in the back, so always would put four and I have four subwoofers in the back, so you always heard me when I was coming, so she heard me coming, and then I walk up and knock on the door and I'm like why nobody answered the door? So I look at the window.
Speaker 1:Why nobody?
Speaker 2:answered the door. I know, I know Prince was sitting on the couch so I was like what's a little Prince do? So I come through the back door.
Speaker 1:and her mom was like oh my God, what For a minute.
Speaker 2:I came to the back door. I came to the back, well, I was like I was like I knew I loved at the time. And so I they they uncomfortably, and I was a much bigger dude than he was. And so I go look at him and I'm like, what are you doing here? He's like he had this little little like soft voice. Well, you know, I was like Michael Jackson voice and I was like you're dating Prince. And she's like, would you stop? And I was like, okay, that's your last date with Prince. Over tomorrow we back together. And so she cut Prince loose, but I was a little jealous for a minute. So so every time I would see Prince, it reminds me of my, my wife's, little Prince date back in the day.
Speaker 1:So how did you come up with the idea to have this whole event based around Prince?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually was not my idea, it was. We got some amazing talented people who work on our development team so they proposed the idea to me and so let's, instead of like every year, we try to do something. They know I don't like like chicken dinners, right, everybody in this city have fun raisins and it's the same old boring chicken gravy, little rice, like little rice, like. I get so sick of going to those kinds of events. So we did a Gladys Night Concert a couple of years ago. So they always know that I'm looking for something different. So they said we should bring Prince. I'm like Prince is dead, right. And they were like, no, no, no, no, it's a cover band. They showed me his videos. I was like, oh, that's dope, so so we're gonna bring so you put your hatred for Prince aside.
Speaker 1:I had to put it to the side.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's a young. I think he's a. I want to say he's a young Italian dude, but I saw about 20 of his videos.
Speaker 2:And he on point and he on point man, I was like he was killing that. He got a whole band. So we're gonna do a little concert. We were thinking about bringing in Dion Sanders. I had been talking to Dion's camp and he had agreed to come. But he wanted to come. Like our event is on a Friday night, he wanted to come on Saturday but we had already booked the. We booked the event and then Dion wanted to play because he doesn't fly commercial. So I had to find one of my donors who had a plane and they were willing to go pick him up, but he wouldn't fly a single plane. So I had to find a plane that had like two passengers, like two pilots in it. So I could, I put that on Facebook and sure enough one of our donors and in middle Tim, had a plane that would accommodate that. So then the days didn't work out and so hopefully is if he's coaching next year, hopefully when he's coaching. Well, the question becomes if he's coaching in Colorado?
Speaker 1:Here we go, man, or if he's gonna be in that field.
Speaker 2:You just never. You never know man.
Speaker 1:The man said what he said. He said he's not going nowhere.
Speaker 2:Everybody say that. Everybody say that, just like when somebody say, well, I'm not running for mayor or governor, and then they run, they're not gonna tell you their business. Because it's the same thing with coaches Everybody always say they're not gonna let you know what they're thinking about. So it is the right response for him to say that, even if he's thinking about it. I believe coach, I believe him too. But sometimes the right opportunity come and you may not have the attention's there, but a little bit of resources, a little bit of money and a little bit of some other things might alter that decision sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, so tell us about this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful center that you got here. Man, it's amazing man, I remember this is, we're in a boardroom, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now this is what we call our entrepreneurship room. This is the room where we teach kids about financial literacy, how to put together business plans, teach them about assets and liabilities, teach them about marketing and all that happens in this space. And so, years ago, john McKenzie had asked me to come out to Florida to meet with him and his wife, and I really did not want to go. I don't know, I didn't know them that well, but it ended up being the best decision I ever made recently in my career.
Speaker 1:Really, I see it a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. You know I don't like really spending the night at people's houses and that I don't really know. So they're like I'll come to Florida, come hang out with us. Blah, blah, blah. So I get down there and I got a hotel and they're like well why are you going to stay at a hotel? Come stay at our crib. So they live in this gorgeous home in Sarasota, florida, and I get there and I was like we'll see how this goes, but you still got the hotel as a backup.
Speaker 1:No, at that point I canceled it. So you was going out on the limb?
Speaker 2:No, I was just going out on the limb. So I get there and they end up being the most down-to-earth people I ever met. So we stayed up all night laughing, just talking about politics, talking about social issues, talking about everything. And then that next day we went walking on the beach, then we went bike ride and then I was so impressed with their house I was like, man, I want to bring my family here. So they'd agree, and so I got four people in my family and I remember FaceTime and my sister in Chicago. We were in the swimming pool, so they stayed out this late off the ocean and they have a pool right off the ocean. It's the most gorgeous thing you ever see. So I had that FaceTime and my sister at like. I think it was like eight o'clock by midnight. I had 22 family members from Chicago in that house.
Speaker 1:Wow, so they hopped right in the car.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. They took a night flight from Chicago to Florida and so my wife was like Mike, they're only allowed. You do realize this is a predominantly white neighborhood and they're going to see 20-something black people in this house. You might want to just get them their heads up. So I was like man, maybe I shouldn't have invited my family. So I called and my wife was like I said, well, I got a few people here with us. My wife, she wrote me a note. She says not a few, we have a couple dozen, right. So I said, yeah, I got a family and they didn't mind. And so I just realized, man, I remember leaving their house that weekend and they wrote us a $100,000 check to help one of our kids go to college. I think to this day it's probably one of the largest singular scholarships ever given to one student.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And so I paid for her housing, her tuition and some other things, and that's when I knew that they were really the real deal. But when he asked me during that time, he said look, I love what you're doing to help black and brown kids graduate from high school and go on to college, but what about kids who don't go? He said I've made millions doing real estate. We need to teach young people about business. We need to teach young people about how to become plumbers, carpenters, electricians, because we really need that and it's a way for them to earn a living at a very early age. So he was like we should go find a building. And so he bought this building for $1 million. So then we started talking to some architects and they were like we should gut the whole building out and turn it into what you see now, but it was a $10 million price tag. I had only raised about $50,000. I'm like how you going to come up with $10 million? So we sold the plan to the city and within 16 months we raised $35 million.
Speaker 2:So this building is completely outpaid for. And then we created the element of the health sustaining and perpetuity. Wow, what does that mean? So an endowment is pretty much a Entries bearing account and we have at the mass community foundation. So, for example, let's say you have $25 million in there and and you get 78% interest back. You know you could bring in two, three million dollars a year, every single year and that's to pay for the building up.
Speaker 1:You get a staff everything right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of universities do it well. Right, they will go raise money for a build, because there's times I've learned that people are built a facility like this and they have to close two, three years later Because they don't have enough money to pay the staff or to pay the electrical bills. And so this is a geo Gima, a geothermal building. Our energy costs in this building is similar to a studio apartment.
Speaker 2:Wow it produces very little energy Because all the things that we've done in this building. So we were very mindful that we wanted to reduce our costs but also have an interest bearing account, which is an endowment that helps us to offset our costs in the years to come.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome. And speaking of renovations, have you heard back from operation fresh start yet? I know you threw that out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very delicate situation. Let me just say I got nothing but love operation for a start, and I simply Sometimes I rub people the wrong way. Actually, I'm having a meeting right after this about my posts and some people. They do good work, but I also believe that if we were working together, we could be stronger together, whether that's a partnership, whether that's a plan for grants, together or my offer to their board was, if they couldn't find a CEO, I would be willing to step in and to support them and help them Until they find someone. And there's things all over this, all over the country, where people do mergers, they do Acquisitions, and some of it are just management agreements right and some of them are just partnership, some always trying to find Creative ways to partner with people, creative ways to find ways that we could be more Impactful to helping kids in our community. So hopefully those, those conversations will Happen and they and they're looking for a new leader and so trying to. I'm always trying to plant the seeds of what the potential.
Speaker 1:Opportunity could be. So is there any particular success stories over the years there that really stands out to you, kind of Personifies what the Boys and Girls Club is really all about?
Speaker 2:yeah, a lot of them. And just yesterday a lady sent me a Message on the messenger and she said I make a. She said it was funny. I laughed at her. She said I now make three. I now make three figures. I said man, that's you shouldn't be proud of that. That's like as under my age. And she said no, I make a hundred thirty four thousand a year now. I said no that's six figures that you're making right, come on.
Speaker 1:And then.
Speaker 2:So she went on to tell me how her daughter and her son Was a member of the Boys and Girls Club at the time. She was making eight dollars an hour and because they were here until Six and seven, eight o'clock she was at work.
Speaker 2:It allowed her to work and to get through her career and that she wasn't paying two, three thousand dollars a month and child care. And so when I got that note from her and she said now I'm building wealth for me and my family and I think Boys and Girls Clubs you know for that. The other thing I'm proud of is the number. Wisconsin is the largest racial achievement gap in the country and some people I don't care what you call some people Well, it's the opportunity gap, it's the achievement gap, it's our kids are not achieving at the same level as as our white kids and we run a program called avatars and I'm proud when I see Five, six hundred students walking across the stage and announcing what college and university that they're going into, going going to. I'm proud to get messages from them saying that they're medical doctors now and scientists and principals and lawyers. I'm proud to see when those things happen and you get those kinds of phone calls.
Speaker 2:The legacy that we want to set here I want to see kids come out of this work force center and say that we're producing more women and more people of color in the trades, the any municipality in the country, and so that's the legacy that I'm starting to think about it boys and girls clubs. How do I make sure that our leadership is sustained in this community, that it's a legacy that's going to help young people build sustainable wages for their family? We figure that out. I would have been happy with how my career has turned down. I got about 15 more years maybe 17 before I'm at retirement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know that's been a really important thing for you, that initiative for you, because you know, ever since 2001, I know I see that 100 percent of the kids in the preparative program graduated high school and went off to college 100 percent in 2021. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, proud of that man. And so I think now we're at 90, 98 percent, and which is still high, right? So you look at black and brown kids across the country, you know you're talking 60 percent. And now we have a whole team of people that people don't know. We have staff that works at Madison College, w Madison, edgewood College. We have a success team, a college success team that makes sure that our kids persist.
Speaker 2:I was somebody that couldn't read and write when I went to Malcolm X College at Chicago, so it took me four and a half years to get my associate's degree because I had to take two and a half years of preparatory courses. But once I learned how to read, once I learned how to write at the collegiate level. Now, 20 years later, I got credentials from Harvard Business School, from Cornell University, from the University of Michigan, from Indiana University, from Chicago State University I can go on and on and on right, and from the University of Phoenix and the University of Phoenix right, and so all these schools that have that foundation was not set at Malcolm X College may not be in this role today. So I've learned from all those different institutions, but I didn't want to come to this city and run traditional after school programs, because you can't transform kids' lives by being connected to them to only three hours a day and some people say, well, you're operating outside of your mission when you go get people cars and housing and go to Flint, michigan, and all that get water to people. That's about humanity.
Speaker 2:So we've taken Dane County out of our mission statement. Our mission statement is to serve all youth and even though we know we can't serve all youth, our leadership will not be defined by geography. Our leadership will be defined based on need. And if that need is in our backyard, if that need is in Africa, that need is in Texas, and if people give us the resources to go, we roll, and that's how we roll here. Boys and Girls Club.
Speaker 1:So what advice would you have given to the community leaders and organizers aiming to make a meaningful difference in the lives of young people?
Speaker 2:Don't become a casualty for your advocacy. One of the things I learned in my process like there are so many people I've fought in this community, very powerful people who've tried to take me out right and what I've learned is that sometimes, like you know, there's this connection to like if you live in poverty and you're advocating, and if you're running a nonprofit or if you're making money, you ain't a real community leader, which is total BS, right, in my opinion. And what I've learned is that sometimes, when you are advocating for social justice issues, you may not always be the person to be at the forefront. So what I've learned is that sometimes I got to be the producer in the. I'm like Dr Trey, right, my job now is to produce the beats to coach artists which are other nonprofit leaders, people on my staff and let their music shine, their talent shine, so the public can see that I'm in the background producing the beats. And then when I need to come at somebody, now you're not going to see me coming because I'm not going to argue with you face to face, I'm not going to argue with you through the press. If I'm coming for you, you're not going to see it coming, you know. And when you're out there in the forefront all the time, you know you're not afraid to be in the forefront. Like I always speak my mind on things. But I realize when you have almost 200 people working for you and you have a board and you have donors, it's a lot of personalities and that you have to manage right and sometimes, like I remember, I used to fight with Mayor Saiglin all the time.
Speaker 2:I remember when Mayor Fitchburg man I sent 600 people down to the city hall meeting and totally disrupt their meeting and was calling him names through the press and he was calling me. I don't know I wouldn't do stuff like that now, but I had a valid reason for doing it. He decided to pull money for kids out the city budget so it was no longer just about boys and girls clubs. He put language that we're not going to fund anything for kids in the city of Fitchburg. Like how are you not investing kids? Like what kind of mayor are you? And it agitated me at the time and I got caught up in this vicious public war with him. That was not worth my time and if I had to do it all over again, there's some things I learned from that process. So I moved very, very differently than how I used to move.
Speaker 1:That's important because they say you don't want to overexpose your hand. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, when you overexpose your hand, people see you coming, and so now I've learned to sometimes just wait in the back of the alley and you won't see me when I'm coming.
Speaker 1:So is there anything like any upcoming projects, events, developments within the organization that you're particularly excited about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always decided about I want you to party. I bike ride. I mean last year we had the grand opening here to see Now 1200 people on this campus to see all of the local acts, the regional acts, the national celebrities. That's always a fun event. Our hearts for helping event, our bike ride, who draws hundreds of people and families that come out for that. And then our college sign day, when our kids announced what colleges and universities that they go to. I'm always excited about that. But the most important time of the year for me personally at Boys and Girls Club is this season of giving, when you're working on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and blessing families who just simply need a helping hand. I enjoy that feeds my soul when we're in a position to ask people for support and to go out there and bless those families that need our help Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And for the people that want to get involved and help with this initiative for the pay for program, people that want to give to the Boys and Girls Club, how can they get involved?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's always three ways no-transcript and treasure. You can give up your time by simply, you know, volunteering at one of our events. Right, we have so many on almost every month. You can give up your talent by joining our board or committee or serving on an ad hot group that's dealing with an issue in our community, and then it costs us the treasure. Giving financial resources, whether it's making a corporate contribution, individual contribution, awarding us with a grant from your family foundation.
Speaker 2:I always tell our team if there's no margin, there's no mission. And people think that when you run a nonprofit you're supposed to be frugal and fragile. Nah, we think in abundance. Our kids deserve the best. Our kids deserve to be in state of our facilities. Our kids like the kids in our apprenticeship program. They get paid to be here in the evenings. We want them to get paid while they're learning. If I ran a high school in this city, I would tell you I would want every kid in my high school to get paid. I would only want them in school two, three days a week. They should be on job sites the other two days earning living and preparing them for the workforce. And so I'm proud of those things and looking forward to what the next decade is going to look like here in Dane County and the work that we're going to do.
Speaker 2:We have a very bold strategic plan that we're actually currently revising here at Boys and Girls Club and every time we do it it's scary, but I reflect back on it when it's done. I never knew we would build a $10 million facility with a $20-some million endowment. You put those things on paper and you're like, oh my God, and then now we're thinking about a $100 million project. It's a lot of money. Look at God and it's favor man. And sometimes God will put those things on your spirits and sometimes you just got to just sprinkle it out there and see what hit and what don't hit. And sometimes you do things you fail, but always tell our team you got to at least go to the plate and swing. Sometimes you'll get on first base, sometimes you hit a double. A few times you hit a home run and many times you'll probably strike out and I've struck out a few times, but I don't stop swinging.
Speaker 1:For the kids that's listening, because I actually do a program at the JYC and at the kids' shelter where I let them listen to some of the interviews that I do. What advice would you give to the youth just in Wisconsin period?
Speaker 2:Surround yourself around people who might be better than you. It's okay, like sometimes people even in my generation people would be like, well, that person is acting this way or that way. What I've learned is be uncomfortable. Be willing to go into and to rooms that you may not be comfortable with, because that could be your best opportunity. Make sure that you are proficient in reading and math. At least be proficient in going, get the help that you need, because if you don't know how to read and you don't know how to write, you're going to have a very, very challenging life. So those two things are important. Three, try your best to stay away from nonsense.
Speaker 2:If you are out there hanging out with crowds that are doing things that can alter your future, it could impact you over the next decade. So the decisions that you make as a 13, 14, 15, 16 year old could determine what your 20s and your 30s, your 40s and your 50s look like, and I've seen that time and time with friends that did things when they were in their 20s or in their 18, 19, and now getting out of prison in their 40s and they've lost half their life. And so just try your best to make wise decisions and if you're, if I know, people always say, well, you got to pull up your straps, your boots, whatever right, and some kids don't have straps on their boots, some kids who don't have boots. But don't let your environment determine who you could become.
Speaker 2:And I heard that early on at I went to the lowest performing high school in the state of Illinois, cree gear high school, which is now the Chicago Bulls High School. I was so proud that I went to the lowest performing. I don't know why we were proud of that, but we wore it as a badge of honor Because you made it. No, no, no. We wore it as a badge of honor that we had the Lord's ranking high school in the state.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the mentality.
Speaker 2:So it's nothing to be proud, but we we the worst school in the city, yeah, and it's like we were tough school and it's like, oh man, this world has so much to offer and you may not see it, but like dream about what your future could look, like, dream about what you want to become. But ultimately you got to wake up from that dream and you guys started taking steps, and I always share with young people like map out, it's like a roadmap. When you get in your car, there's a destination point and it's going to route you to wherever the destination point. That's what life is about. Whatever your destination point is, you have to map it out, draw it out and then, as as time, go on track whether or not you are on pace to get to your destination.
Speaker 1:Well, Michael Johnson, I really appreciate you stopping by the parking place.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed it. Thank you for this. These amazing gifts, danny, absolutely phenomenal. And then to my man at ONJYC I really appreciate you too, man. I know you out here grinding, putting in work and thank you, meeting you and hearing about your podcast. I wish you nothing but an abundance of sponsorship and abundance of support and viewers so you could live your wildest dreams, man, and to be able to continue to get back to the community.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate that I'm D-Star Until next time, guys.
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