Thank you. For having to. Climb. To the scale. A a. Oh you've. Been. At them but I. Didn't. Leave them alone. Cannot do. And will go. On again. Someday. Love. Soon. Was. Clear. The mood and love. Me. 6 to move them around. To me. Is. Lisa. First of all welcome back thank you congratulations on so many fronts and cancer free right that's behind you and. You know anybody who's had cancer will tell you it's ongoing you know you get to always be on the lookout but I'm feeling great that's great well you sound great and I just can only imagine for singer like you to worry even for a minute about losing a voice I must be terrified but you say thank you yeah. I was wondering because you did get the record your mother and what was she like my mom still around. She's still like. She's French Canadian stock which means she's got French just about every single thing inside of her we did every one of the genetic tests and she's just she's Yeah you know Native American Portuguese everything you know it's cool North African I mean it's really crazy what's in there because that the sailing life and she's comes she came with this and my life with this beautiful voice is the 1st choice ever heard and sang constantly She had 7 children and 7 years and so it was very very busy yeah and a really really smart. Creatively you had no time to sort of do anything but laundry and cook and make sure everybody had enough for you know many many years really and on a very very tight budget My dad is a public school teacher so she sang constantly when I was really little there was a record from the library that came to the house and I think it was something like Ella Fitzgerald and I was like. You know I mean it was her my mom had a smoky beautiful strong way so just saying all the time yeah and so I thought everybody's mom probably sang like that yeah I don't know. And you're dead you're dead so Irish so American arsenal generation Yeah and there is a thing I think it's I don't know whether it's an unfair advantage but it seems pretty consistent that watts of Irish people are really good singers too and they love a sad story yeah and I definitely inherited that yeah. I think your fans would concur Yeah. But. I think it's I think it's interesting not to think about you know we are a nation of immigrants right and you live in Texas now so there's a lot of Border talk and it seems like you're describing such a rich cultural heritage with your parents coming from different places and coming together and raising a family I mean it's just the you know we are so rich by these different traditions and cultures Well you know if you're not indigenous person and your answer is you weren't brought here by force you came here to build a better life yeah and that means there's a lot of people that came over on those boats that were desperate and I feel like this you know the situation the border is completely complex and but there's enough for all of us we just have to figure out how to share croppers. Just common sense. To not build future generations so very sad intolerant people who are subject to the whims of the next loony you know to come along and manipulate them you know and I'm saying I mean we need to be. Taking very good care of people that's just common sense but you can't find the compassion in your heart to do that and use your noggin Yeah it should be a compassionate thing of course I mean that's where it starts for me and I think most people I know but it doesn't even make any sense to me to not collect. People because they are very very desperate and poor doesn't make economic sense it doesn't make political sense and so makes sense you're right he gives you just tuned in you're listening to me with Patty Griffin sorry just opened up the. Can of worms for me Do you remember where you are this is Ito This is the kind of stuff you talk about all the time. If it isn't up in your face injustice is not a pin your face we're not necessarily motivated to do anything about it and I think we are doomed as a country unless we sort of figure out how to deal with this race issue that's all the real the real story and it means all of us getting here doing whatever the next right thing is for us and I haven't figured it out and I feel like I've been working out of the well it's not easy to figure out as a white person what to do and how to behave but you do have to step up right. There was a letter on your Web site from Joan Baez talking about kind of the same thing that we were talking about earlier that this is an opportunity for us each to sort of become a fire line or rise up in community and try to make things better instead of the way of things that are working against us and I'm just wondering in this time where there's lots of places where we could point are our focus our attention and our efforts or the things that speak to you particularly Well I think definitely the immigration issue and and Texas there's just see manage tearing crisis after a humanitarian crisis with the privately owned prisons which are really really difficult for you just a regular person even get into a lawyer you know dealing with the cases at least people that are locked up for no other reason than they are poor and they're here that paperwork that sort of thing is going on has been going on for years here before you know who was in office Yeah and my father's family you know came from the lowest of circumstances you know just completely poverty stricken and starving so that's why we're all scrappers you know and. Yeah scrappers with the universal gift that can help bring people together and connect the world and heal the world and make all the stuff better so keep it oh yeah we've got it all got it or else we're going to fix this thank you got more music to get back to welcome back to with God is good to. Stand him in the shadow. Of standin in the saddle of the. Thank you. That's very good thank you David thank you thank God it's going to the world's most efficient. The new record is called the Group of. G.m. 30 Tigers records will be back closer to music later in the show their visit to the town is made possible in part by say a group providing communication infrastructure services to the world's leading businesses with its fiber network that powers the voice data and video traffic we depend on every day you can learn more at 000 dot com that z.a.y.n. Dot com and by our diverse family of n.p.r. Affiliates and community stations plus college and commercial stations as well as our international stations and podcast subscribers worldwide thank you for your continued support Now if you're curious about you town's Homebase each town hall are beautiful solar powered music venue community center and recording studio and downtown Boulder Colorado you can learn more about it on our website eat town dot au Archie You're listening to eat. And Nick Forster You're listening to eat and Patty Griffin is going to be back a little later on thank you David for the good music and coming up singer songwriter from England John Smith is here for his 1st visit Patti was talking about. Rex I guess I was talking about the letter she got from Joan Baez about how we can all make a difference. And sweep in celebrating that people make a difference here on the show for a long long time simple stories of small steps that really add up so we get the stories from listeners like you and we pass them on we give some recognition and encouragement to these folks who are literally finding solutions to problems that are not of their own making these are generous folks often volunteers and although these are small stories with so many big problems floating around our world sees positive victories or especially important these days so it's the children award and here comes Helen Forster to tell you about this week's winner Thank you my dear this week's nominator and our longtime friend Nancy Rosen swagg of Boston Massachusetts is nominating Jordan Castillo of New York City Jordan is a successful optometrist as a young man he took a gap year between college and the Tama tree school he was deciding what he wanted to do and during that time he went on a hiking trip in Alaska with some friends just by chance now the majestic landscape there the mountains and so forth so moved him it was so profound that he realized what truly mattered was not what he was going to do in life as a profession but what kind of life he lived and how he could make a difference for people in need then as a 1st year up Tama tree student while on a mission trip to Mexico he had a chance meeting with a 7 year old boy that revealed how he could do just that Jordan went on to eventually start a nonprofit organization to provide access to vision care to poor people around the world the group also provides training and employment for women. In these under-served areas improving the quality of life for them and their families all this while maintaining an active Tama tree practice and coauthoring a book about the importance and joy of giving back well I'm happy to say that Jordan is joining us now to provide details of how he got there and of the work he continues to do so please join me in welcoming from New York City Jordan Castillo Thank you Jordan welcome being here 1st tell us a little bit about the trip to Mexico elements you went to Mexico you met a 7 year old boy who was out about yeah I was in my 1st year of atomic free school and there I was in Mexico my very 1st patient and he was a 7 year old boy he was from the school for the blind so he thought he was blind His parents thought he was blind and as we looked at his eyes we realized he wasn't blind all he needed was a really really strong pair of eyeglasses and I was lucky person to put that 1st pair of glasses on that boy's face and when the lens is lined up with his eyes this blank stare of a blind person transformed into this most beautiful smile of joy and it affected both of our lives and it brings to mind every time I tell that story this incredible quote from Mark Twain that talks about how the 2 most important days in your life are the day that you're born and the day that you find out why and that was the day I found a way. That's cool thank you and when we came back to the states we did a little analysis and we realized that of the 2000 people that we saw 70 percent of them just needed a pair of eyeglasses so I recognize that there's a huge problem out there and so when I finish school I realize that the work that we're doing all those wonderful It wasn't really creating anything that was sustainable or scalable so I did a bunch of research and I found amazing I Hospital in south in. India that was started to employ what they call compassionate capitalism it was a way of using business practices and skills to scale models so that they were sustainable so I wrote a way to the founder and I said I'll volunteer a year of my time if you provide me with room and board and sure enough he said Yes come on down and this right after you got out of that as well so there were 2 hospitals a paying hospital and a free hospital and the paying hospital provided the same level of care that you'd find here in the United States and Denver New York the highest quality of care and people who had the capacity to pay would pay and they would run the hospital so efficiently that they would be able to take the resources generated from those paying patients and provide 75 percent of their care to the people in the free hospital Yes so people pay what they can if they choose to get free services because it really can't afford anything no questions asked but if they can contribute and even if it's a few dollars it's really up to the patient to decide what to pay Yeah and so I kept seeing whether I was working in India or Africa or Latin America that for every person who had a blinding disease there were 30 people who were visually impaired or blind just because they didn't have a pair of simple eyeglasses and the part that really got to me was that about half of those people were people in their early forty's who were losing their ability to see up close as probably many of your audience members know when they get into their forty's they can't see their cell phone that can so you know spread a needle and there were millions of people who had that issue but what would happen right when they were at the height of their productivity and right when they were masters of their skills artisans tailors Weavers barbers mechanics they would fall out of the workforce or certainly lose a lot of productivity while he couldn't focus up close off or the lack of a pair of glasses that I knew I could source in China for $0.55 and said This is a crazy world we've got to change it and so that was the original idea the other side of the equation is in those same communities we saw that was a huge number of people. Who are underemployed or unemployed many women and so what we said is why can't we just train those local women to sell those simple reading glasses to their neighbors their consumer product in America that you can just pick off the shelf Why did you need to send fancy eye doctors halfway around the world to do that we could just employ the local people who have the capacity to start their own businesses to do it test it with 1000 women about 15 years ago in India we sold 800 pair of glasses that year but now we have over 30000 women in business in 23 countries and we sell over 1300000 pair of glasses the year. Thank you and these are new glasses so the reason so this is pretty well so obviously you're the model where you're selling the glasses based on what you learned in India there's a gap between what the business generates and what the costs are there is how do you project that so that gap is bridged through philanthropy So what we like to say is that about a 3rd of our overall revenue as an organization is funded by the poorest people in the world buying glasses at a locally appropriate price and the other $2.00 thirds is subsidized from flan 3 from the richest people in the world so it's sort of a price sharing model so you have the New York and you knock on doors you raise some dough and you spread it around we do yeah Are there people who've been in your world who have been inspired by what you do and are now supportive absolutely as a practicing Tom interest a lot of my patients are big contributors of our work we actually have an organization that supports both of our work Bohemian foundation and their family support operation spring Yeah and so they're wonderful contributor and so it's far and wide that people are supporting one of the corporations you have retailers or glasses or manufacturers or people who donate or support you we have a number of different retailers the most important being Warby Parker which many people know actually the 3rd employee of Vision Spring was the founder of Henri Parker So he spent 5 years with us. And saw that disconnect between the market and what classes cost in America and he created a $1.00 for one model and Vision Spring puts about 80 percent of the park is one for one model courses through Vision Spring that's so cool and we all know what that can do when you're really empowering women the community that can make a huge difference to sort of absolutely to their local society so in so many ways how many pairs of glasses have you sold so far we've reached over 6000000 pair of glasses 6000000 pairs of glasses wild. And. Predominately women employees selling our last is in old bunch of different places we have other models as well where we target corporations who are manufacturing in these parts of the world to make sure that their workforce has what we call or 2020 workforce so we work with Levi Strauss and Target and West Elm to make sure that the factories that they're working in their factory workers are perfectly corrected visually and we have found that once we correct the vision of those factory workers or people who are like picking tea on tea plantations once they get corrected vision their productivity increases by 30 percent right and so for a product again that we can source for less than a dollar we can increase someone's productivity by a 3rd for the next 20 years yes it's a huge economic impact for these countries as well as these individuals absolutely we've calculated their economic impact globally since we've started is over $1200000000.00 That's amazing as big numbers. What's your eyesight like Believe it or not I have got perfect I say I'm 58 I don't need glasses so I called refractive karma Yeah that's what. People want to learn more Jordan what's the deal is their website they can go to you know there's a great Web site called Vision Spring dot org Vision Spring to tell the whole story yeah and elements and you also wrote a book or coauthored a book we did it's called there to matter your path to making a difference now did. Better your path to making a difference now and it's available anywhere you can find books anywhere you can find books Ok or glasses probably for you. So once again the organization is called Vision Spring the website is Vision Spring orgy if you want to learn more about the book the book is called there to matter and our guest is Jordan Castle who is a great story thank you so much for coming Jordan and sharing all this with us thank you Nic a real privilege to be with you thank you graduation so you know the winners this week see even award Mr Jordan Castle founder of the month profit organization called Vision Spring Thank you Jim back over the world thank you George thank you for the graduation thank you Ok so I feel like worthless. Man. Although I guess I contribute in a tiny way to spreading the word about wonderful people like Jordan so I'm very humbled and grateful to be able to be part of that thank you thanks to this week's nominator Nancy Rosensweig to all our listeners out there to send us an each human Award nomination learn more about some of our more recent award winners or to listen to this interview again all that and more as possible on our website each town. Or write to us the old fashioned way at Box 954 Boulder Colorado 80306 thank you thank you George thank you good story thanks Nancy thank you we have more music coming up from Patty Griffin and her band in just a little while right now I'm going to tell you about John Smith he is in my mind anyway that rare elusive musical guest that most people haven't heard of or don't know much about but those who do they talk about him in a river and chill tones huge respect for him as a songwriter and the tarp. In the sort of English folk tradition he grew up in Devon in England and he's just a powerful singer and guitarist Please welcome to Eton for his 1st visit John Smith thank you all thank you it's nice to be here. It's my 1st time in a town. And I've I've come Nic here going to color in some of the gaps for me and this song is called hairs on the mountain. To. See leave my. Child with the. Sick Leave my dive in the shade with. Sheesh my reply Well you could say I missed the. Young girls could say was good she pushed me to. The movies it is sad to Sally it's too much Thank you for. The. Well listen I joining the ranks of others who I know don't know much about you so what kind of music did you grow up listening to John when you were a kid oh my father has an extensive record collection so he raised me on everything from bark to Beethoven Muddy Waters to put Simon right Khuda and then later I got on a really hard Nick Drake young age yeah and John Rambo I just say John Run boy and that's when my life changed completely Yeah yeah did you lose all your friends during that phase. Well. I didn't really have any friends to start. I was I was what I was the kid in class you know I hate school I hated my teachers the other kids you know I got picked on I was like I was short and Ginger you know I was bad news for any sort of adolescent and then. I just locked myself away and played guitar here and emerged when I was 16 and 6 foot 2. And suddenly everybody wanted to be your friend well it was just interesting I went to a school where suddenly there were other people smoking cigarettes and listening to folk music and I was like a right yeah you Thunder tried How old were you when you thought you know I think I want to make a go of this well I made my 1st few quid for a guitar when I was about 15 busking and that's when I thought well maybe this is work but then I was really into the theatre as well I was a member of the National Youth Theatre and did that for a while and really I was really into it but I got very sick when I was 1718 not me or my back for a year and it was music could have got me through it wow. And so Nell 1st forward to today how much of the time do you tour and what's the ratio between time at home and time on the road. My counsel I need to know how many days you're on the road I look through the diary I was on the road for 205 days last year and I have been on the road about 120130 days this year and it feels feels like enough now yeah yeah I always I aspired to get to 50 back she it's taken this long to get to $200.00 plus and now I feel like you know it's a good thing you have a picture of your daughter on your pedal board Yeah yeah that's it man it's you take the rough with the smooth you know so you're doing some recording and new things coming people can find you website John Smith somewhere John Smith John Smith dot com It's pretty tough to choose a website when your name is John Smith is not just put John Smith John Smith John Smith John thank you. Jesus Ok. All right so you can find out more John Smith John Smith dot meanwhile. Welcome back to the stage here Doug Smith thank you Ira Thank you. This is a love song and this is just a call to arms for the we acknowledge the people that we love and that we love them unconditionally Despite our own faults and this and this song is called Save my life and this features Nick and Helen and he turns. See my love was just told me. I'm so model but. What's become of the. I'm getting old. Saw. Son. Say got you to. Say. Thank you. Thank you for having me thank you John Smith. Along with. Missing the question to you Ron jolly you know of course to the record is called Hummingbird. On Comedy 30 Tigers records John Smith. And of course you can learn more at John Smith John Smith dot com. This portion of the town is made possible by the Bohemian foundation building stronger communities through the Bohemian qualities of creativity and imagination on the web at Bohemian foundation Archie and by Silk the charter sponsor of change the course the program was co-created with National Geographic to restore water in critically water stressed ecosystems you can learn more about silks commitment to the environment and to plant based nutrition at silk dot com And if you tuned in late and you've missed some of this week's program the town podcast will have this episode and others along with content from past shows as well it's available for free and i Tunes Spotify and other podcast directories here listening to each town Thanks. I knew for sure I'd like to see a little listeners who hear each town on stations like you went to Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines and all over the state on us f.m. In Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and on w m n o one of our newest stations down in New Orleans Louisiana thank you for tuning in as always if you want more information about any of our guests you can do all that stuff online at the tell dot org You can also find out how to get tickets live shows. Please welcome back to the stage if you would along with her band David poking him and Conrad should groom Patty Griffin thank you and thank you this show is fun. You got time for one more song. I want to thank everybody for being on the show this week I want to thank all our guests John Smith of course. The for this to be with us here today thanks to John for making that trek Thanks to our award winners Jordan Castillo founder of Vision Spring helping bring much needed glasses to This is a production of the town radio network. You do to you to do to your to listeners here at k.d. Or t.v. Where live on k t r t You're listening to Katie here in Davis California Eva are listening to Katy Davis' low powered community radio station. K t r t a k d r t. Davis California Davis California in Davis California r t in California Davis California it's time for the Katy or t. Event salad or it would be except we're taking a short recording break due to technical difficulties operator error recessionary pressure and or austerity measures but don't worry there are always things to do in and around Davis and you can find a whole listing of events music crafts author readings open mics community happenings and more all presented for your planning pleasure on our website at k.d. Or t. Dot org calender when you visit us on the web please do check out our on our schedule stream your favorite shows in the program archives and take the opportunity to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter have a Davis entertainment or community event of your own just posted to the Davis dirt dot com and by means of cyber magic it will also appear here on good authority dot org And perhaps even this on air listing the events outlook will return to the sound space soon airing Wednesdays at 12 to 6 pm and weekends at 12 noon and 5 pm thanks to your friends in the Katy or t. Promotions department in the meantime keep yourself in the know it Cadia t. Dot org slash calender. 2 her amber nerve and I'm Jeanne her brain will receive the fruits of 1407 Davis k d r t on July 4th 2009 where the grass roots grow. Well I finally did it my student loan is totally paid off why not put out a plan to win the lottery and start living hell travel the world and matching yachts we're not sure you are thinking stand in the French Riviera invite you know we're never going to win the lottery right when it comes to financial stability don't get left behind good tools and tips for saving a feed the big daughter was. Killed Me old lol. To me. It's still. Our sleep. Don't. Get paid. You know. 7 you can be good to. Get an. Answer. To some up to say. Create still. Get to. Make. Up. Let it. Slip.