Scrappy All Around Creative Studios

Four words written on a piece of paper: “shelter, warm, comfort, dignity.” This is where ShelterBox began. Tom Henderson, the original founder of ShelterBox, turned with his idea to his local Rotary Club in Helston, England for support, and they took up the mantle. Today, over 20 years later, Rotary International is still a key partner. Here in the U.S., Kerri Murray is at the helm of the largest ShelterBox affiliate in the world. Since 2015, Kerri has personally overseen relief efforts for some of the most dire events in recent memory, including conflicts in Syria and Yemen, and most recently in Ukraine, an earthquake in Haiti, a typhoon in the Philippines and famines in Africa, just to name a few.







Links:









* ShelterBox USA







* Rotary International







* Rotary – Helston, England







* Save the Bay







* Direct Relief







* Providence College







* The Boston Red Sox (why not, she would’ve been great!)









Full Transcript







Chris Straigis –







Welcome to Scrappy, the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis. I walked by a sign not too long ago in downtown Philadelphia. That read “start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” It really stopped me in my tracks, three simple sentences, but a profound and moving manifesto. We all have within us to power to affect change, I really do believe that. And I also believe that as a general rule, most humans when confronted with another suffering will skew heavily towards compassion. Now where those two traits intersect, you’ll find positive action; action that solves big problems or helps to alleviate the pain of another. For those special people who find themselves in the middle bit of that venn diagram, they do in fact begin where they are with what they have, and then they take action. Usually in our stories, we focus on a person singular who took up the mission-driven call to use their skill or talent, or simply their will and drive to make the world a better place in some specific way.







Chris Straigis –







It’s easy to point to them and say, look, look at what that person is doing. We’ve always recognized, however that behind many, if not, most of the people we feature, there’s a team who also take up the mantle, motivated by the work or the cause, or even simply inspired by another person taking action. Today, we focus not just on the origins and the current leader of a company, ShelterBox, but we also turn a well deserved light on the selfless brave, and in some cases, heroic difference makers who are on the frontline, the boots on the ground for this global aid organization.







Chris Straigis –







Four words written on a piece of paper: “shelter, warm, comfort, dignity.” This is where ShelterBox began. In a 2008 CNN interview, Tom Henderson, the original founder of ShelterBox, describes the epiphany he had while watching news footage of disaster relief efforts.

Marie Haas has worked with, and touched the hearts of, some of the most vulnerable citizens in our society – kids with autism and their families. She began and grew a company in Singapore called Embrace Autism. It was the fusion of science and art, born of a passion to care, connect and communicate. But that’s not what she set out to do, at least not officially. She actually just wanted to dance.







LINKS:









* Marie Lynn Haas







* Embrace Autism







* The Autism Treatment Center of America







* Emergent Improvisation







* Marco Iacoboni’s UCLA Lab









Full Transcript







Chris Straigis – Welcome to Scrappy the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis. So we’re now nearing the end of 2021. And it’s been a little while since we’ve done a new episode, very sorry about that. But time has felt somehow distorted recently. I think I can safely say that in many ways, at least comparatively, our world was buzzing along in kind of a cruise control until early last year. COVID was, and still is, a catalyst for some major and massive transformations. It’s changed us. It’s changed a lot of things, from how we relate to each other, to how we relate to our jobs and even how we relate to our greater global society. Now, I know that many facets of these changes, didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. Our world, our experience is ever evolving. But this pandemic was a game changer for our generation.







Chris Straigis – No one, not the very young, not the 20 and 30 somethings, not even the elderly are coming out of this unchanged. And really, I don’t think we’ve even begun to see the true transformation. Everything we’ve experienced over the last year and a half brought about short term and rapid change. It’s the ripples in the water well beyond the original splash that may turn out to be the most fascinating. In other words, how will a change to us change the world?







Chris Straigis – At its core, this is what Scrappy is all about, transformation. It’s about everyday people, just like you and me, doing extraordinary things. Usually finding themselves, forging their destiny from materials they didn’t even know they had, and then watching those ripples roll out in ways they themselves couldn’t even foretell. And so it is with our guest today. Marie Haas has worked with and touched the hearts of some of the most vulnerable citizens in our society – kids with autism and their families. She began and grew a company in Singapore called Embrace Autism. It was the fusion of science and art, born of a passion to care, connect and communicate.

In the mid- 1980’s, Debra Ruh was nurturing a successful career in the banking industry and looking forward to starting a family. But in 1987, her path took an unexpected turn after the birth of her daughter Sara. And today, that path has led her around the world to work with multi-national  companies, nations, the UN and more. As an advocate for accessibility and inclusion, Debra has dedicated her life to improve the lives those with disabilities.







LINKS:









* Ruh Global Impact website







* Debra’s Podcast – Human Potential At Work







* Debra’s bookstore







* ADA.gov









Full Transcript







Chris Straigis – Welcome to Scrappy, the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis. We’ve been working hard to collect stories and interviews for our second season. But in light of all the recent changes we’ve been going through from politics to pandemics to protest, we’ve decided to change things up a bit. Instead of waiting to launch a whole new season that would run over just 10 short weeks, we are instead going to let loose a new episode continuously each month or so. And in that way, get more great stories out more often. And I couldn’t think of a better place to start this season, then a big anniversary that our country has coming up this weekend. One you may not even be aware of.







Chris Straigis – 30 years ago, on July 26 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed into law The Americans with Disabilities Act. This groundbreaking legislation was the world’s first comprehensive civil rights law for people with disabilities. It would usher in a new era of rights, freedoms and care for one of our nation’s greatest untapped citizen resources. And it would bring into the fold an entire segment of our society that had for too long been marginalized, stigmatized, and second class. But 1990 was not the end of this work really, it was just the beginning. And today, the work continues with more momentum than ever before. And with a new era of advocates on the front lines, advocates like Debra Ruh.







Debra Ruh – My name is Debra Ruh, and I’m the CEO and founder of Ruh Global Impact.







Chris Straigis – Debra is kind of an unexpected hero in this fight. In the mid 1980s, she was nurturing a successful career in the banking industry and looking forward to starting a family. But in 1987, her path took an unexpected turn after the birth of her daughter Sarah. Before too long, she found herself forging her own way, employing an internal drive to help those in need – a drive that had long been waiting just below the surface.







Chris Straigis – Debra, thank you for joining me today.

Staci Tinkelman and Becky Pyles realized early in the Covid-19 pandemic that masks were going to become a critical need – not just for front-line medical staff, but for the community at large. By combining Becky’s sewing talents and the infrastructure at Staci’s printing company, Quaker Chroma Imaging, they realized that they could help those in need, and get some of their people back to work.







LINKS:









* Quaker Chroma Website









Full Transcript







Chris Straigis – Welcome to Scrappy the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis.So far 2020 has been a year of, shall we say, changes. We woke up in January, got our coffee, went to work, met with friends for drinks, watched the games. But by March, we could hardly recognize this world as new routines took over in what seemed to be like an instant. And we also had some trouble recognizing each other due to the rapid cultural shift of wearing masks. Early in the pandemic masks were front and center as news of shortages became the lead story.







Becky Pyles – I did reach out to them actually to say “Hey, is this something that you need?” and they were all desperate. The need was starting to increase by the day.







Chris Straigis – At first, it was just for medical professionals. The folks on the front line. But a small team from a fabric printing company in New Jersey saw a bigger picture. And with it, they saw a unique opportunity to get some of their team back to work and provide resources for people in need. Staci Tinkelman and Becky Pyles pooled their resources, their talent and their business infrastructure at Quaker Chroma Imaging to start a new product line called Everyday Masks.







Staci Tinkelman – My name is Staci Tinkelman. My positioned at Quaker Chroma Imaging is Vice President of Digital Imaging. And my position at Everyday Masks is Co-Owner. I want to shout out to Becky Pyles.







Becky Pyles – I am the Head of Sewing Department, and at Everyday Masks I am co owner.







Staci Tinkelman – She is our head seamstress our Head of Sewing Department, and she is amazing at figuring out difficult structures, giant structures, how they’re going to be sewn. That’s not an easy thing to do. With darts and turns and corners and things, a lot of stuff has to happen. And she’s amazing at that.







Chris Straigis – How many employees does Quaker Chroma have?







Staci Tinkelman – Anywhere between 30 and 40 at any given time. Quaker Chroma Imaging has been around for quite a while in that it was originally two separate companies. And they formed, they merged together I think about 2004. And since then, it was a great partnership. We went through trials and tribulations with the economy over the years. We moved out to Jersey from Center City. We were going gangbusters just building building building until you know the COVID-19 happened.







Chris Straigis – Your businesses chugging along at the beginning of 2020. And then all of a sudden COVID-19. Obviously, it was spreading around the world. News of things starting to shut down here in the States came pretty quickly. So walk me through what you were doing at that point. And how you guys were we’re sort of talking about how you were going to handle what seemed to be coming?







Staci Tinkelman – COVID-19 came and everything shut down. And we had to leave. Becky’s at home making mass because people,

Michael Morin and his brother Bryan were beginning to gear up for a new year at their family-owned pizza shop in New Jersey. Then, out of the blue, Covid-19 changed the scope of what their bustling business would look like going into the Spring of 2020. Faced with state mandated closure of walk-in businesses, their first thoughts were of the 20 employees that were the cornerstone of their success. So, following the advice of their father to “always take care of the people who take care of you”, they took quick action to secure a $50,000 loan to ensure that they wouldn’t lose any staff. When word got out of their selfless act, the public response was immediate.







LINKS:









* Federico’s Pizza Website









Full Transcript







Chris Straigis  –







Welcome to Scrappy, the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis.







Michael Morin  –







My father always said take care of the people that take care of you. These guys and girls that work for me are all just top shelf. And without them, I don’t have a business.







Chris Straigis  –







It’s been a little while since we wrapped up our first season. In case you missed it, you can go to scrappypod.com to hear the inspiring stories from 10 pretty amazing people. A lot has changed since then. The global pandemic from COVID-19 has affected just about every aspect of our lives. And we’ve had to adapt the best way we can. Throughout this spring in summer, we’re busy building our next season. But in the meantime, we’ve heard so many great stories about ordinary people in small businesses, stepping up their game to take care of others. So we decided to do a couple of many episodes to bring some of those folks to light.







Mike Morin is co owner of Federico’s Pizza in New Jersey. When the governor made the decision to close most walk in businesses in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, Mike and his brother Bryan sprung into action, in an effort to take care of the people that work for them, even while Bryan caught the virus as well.







Michael Morin  –







My name is Michael Morin. I am co owner of Federico’s Pizza in Belmar, 700 Main Street, Belmar, New Jersey. Federico has been in business, I think we’re going on 25 years now. So we’re pretty much established.







Chris Straigis –







It’s a family business, right?







Michael Morin  –







Yeah. My father was always, you know, in the corporate trucking industry. And he, you know, it’s just like a lot of other people they, you know, corporate burns you out. So he said, you know, let’s do something on the side. You know, he had four kids. So and three of us were going through college at the time. And that’s pretty much when we bought it. It was a small store we did a lot of pickup delivery there was only like maybe say 7 tables in the front.







So I think it was 16 or 17 years ago. We bought the building diagonal across the street, which was much bigger. Inside we have 80 seats. Outside we have a patio areas that’s has an awning. So in the summer, we open up the patio. So it’s been it’s been good to us.







Chris Straigis –







How many how many pizzas do you make on an average day?

Henry Salinas was called to service throughout his life – helping to tend farms with his parents as a boy, joining the Army as a young man and raising a family of his own. Then, he found an even greater mission: devoting his time, energy and passion to helping children in his hometown of Chandler, Arizona, find a better way forward than with the drugs and gangs that were destroying their neighborhoods and stealing their futures. He became a staple of his community and devoted himself to building a better path for countless kids. Henry passed away in 2017, but his legacy lives on.







LINKS:









* ICAN







* Donate!

















Full Transcript







Chris Straigis – From AAC Studios, welcome to Scrappy, the podcast about small companies doing big things. I’m your host, Chris Straigis.







Chris Straigis – Henry Salinas, embraced and embodied the idea of service – service to his country, service to his community, and service to his family. He passed away in 2017. But his son Fernando, speaks of him with reverence and legacy.







Fernando Salinas – A lot of the kids that were going to the Boys and Girls Club, you know, they were showing up with their bandanas and different colors, and there was a rival gangs showing up and, you know, in an effort to try to keep the peace, you know, so that the younger kids were not involved in any violence or affected by any violence from these teenagers. You know, he is just thought like I need to I need to do something I need to, I need to help these kids, they need it.







Chris Straigis – Today we’ve arrived at Episode 10, the final episode of our first season. And I’d like to thank you for coming along to meet these incredible and inspiring people, each, in their own way are trying to make the planet a better place in ways both big and small, because they all have the drive to build a better world.







Chris Straigis – You know, every so often, if you’re lucky, you may get a chance to meet a motivator like Jennifer Lynn Robinson, or innovators like Julie & Scott Brusaw of Solar Roadways, or a game changer like David Katz of Plastic Bank. Our goal here at Scrappy is to give you the chance to meet lots of these kinds of folks. If you haven’t yet, please go back and listen through the rest of the season to learn more about what makes the people tick. Then connect with us on Facebook and Twitter to hear updates about Season Two, which will be coming out a bit later this year. And it’s not too late to drop us a note if you know someone who might be a great fit to feature on an upcoming show.







Chris Straigis – As a young boy, Henry Salinas left school to help tend farms with his family in the American Southwest. His tack towards service was evident, even way back then.







Fernando Salinas – My father was born and Lubbock, Texas, his parents were migrant farm workers. They used to migrate, his family, his parents used to migrate working in the farms and the agriculture, migrating to California, Texas, Arizona. And they settled in Arizona when he was about four years old and then he started growing up and Chandler, going to the schools. He spoke Spanish first, you know and even though he was a proud American, never forgot that story where he went to kindergarten and he didn’t ...