Hey guys, Matt Major from Clickstream Studios.
Welcome to another edition of Good News York.
I'm here by myself. Mike got lost in a snowbank
somewhere. He'll be back eventually, I'm sure.
I think he might be here. Is that those feet
that I saw when I pulled in the parking lot?
I thought that was a joke. Anyway, check out...
Our good friend Zach over at ads on the go, get
ads on the go .com. They are the sponsor of this
show and one of the best. Uh, and, and one of
the other new sponsors that we have here on good
news York, uh, is office calling .com. And, uh,
real quickly, if you own a business and you want
to save some money, your business phone bill
is probably the easiest, most low hanging fruit
and the one that almost everybody forgets about.
Go to office calling .com and you can just pop
in your info and see immediately whether or not
you'd get a better deal and you'll get a better
deal. Check it out. OfficeCalling .com. Without
further ado, we've got an awesome guest here.
We've got an incredible woman who not only just
won office here in Onondaga County, but is the
founder of a really interesting organization
that I'm really excited to learn a lot about.
So without further ado, welcome Nicole Watts
to the show. How are you, Nicole? I'm doing well.
How about yourself? Great, great. Thank you again
for taking the time and joining us here on the
show. Nicole, if you wouldn't mind, give us just
a quick overview. Kind of who are you and what
should folks know right off the bat. Absolutely.
So Nicole Watts, I am a proud resident of Syracuse's
North Side. I've lived here for the last 15 years
doing the work that I have been committing my
life to and is kind of my life call regarding
working with people who have found themselves
marginalized due to being displaced from their
homeland and having to set up a new life here
in America or other inequity and injustice issues
that we face in our in our nation from people
who were born right here. And so the work of
Hope Print, the organization that I lead is something
that I am really grateful that I have gotten
to be a part of and continue to learn every day
from my community and absolutely love the life
that I get to live here and work here and play
here. That's awesome. That's awesome. Nicole,
what What inspired you to do this? I mean, there's
lots of folks living in all kinds of neighborhoods
all over that see these issues, but you jumped
in and have taken action. Why? So there are a
number of things that happened over the course
of my younger life. I encountered the spaces
where injustice and inequities and especially
along racial, economic levels and it just disturbed
me deeply back when I was a teenager that was
planted in me and I never shook it and really
set out on a twisting and wild ride to try to
figure out what it looked like to show up in
those spaces and I, along that ride, encountered
some families who had just were literally arriving
at the airport from Rwanda as refugees and through
our friendship and the mutual learning that we
were able to undertake through sharing meals
and me being able to contribute navigating living
in the US for my whole life, just where to buy
underwear and other exciting things like that.
I witnessed the transformative difference that
it had both on myself and on them to have that
relationship and the incredible power that relationship
can have to just unlock potential and to help
us to really understand humanity and what it
looks like to be human in the world in a different
way. So through that relationship, and understanding
the power of relationship, it inspired me to
move down here so I could be closer and not be
commuting 30 minutes to have dinner together,
but also to be able to expand this work to not
only be myself in this family, but to include
now thousands of other people that have been
part of what we've called our hope family for
the last 15 years. So you literally became a
part of the community. You're not just, you know,
Seeing a charity case somewhere else in a different
part of town, you've become part of that. That's
incredible to me. I think that's ridiculous credibility,
honestly, for what you're doing and everything
that you've got going on. So thank you for that,
first and foremost. Take us through kind of the
start of the formal organization, Hope Print.
So how did that become an actual organization
and get off the ground? So when we very first
started it we were sharing meals together we
were getting U -Haul moving trucks and taking
furniture from folks who were getting rid of
it to newly arriving families, to their apartments,
sharing a cup of tea and conversation that then
led to more relationships. And so the network
just grew and grew and grew. And very early in
those days is when I moved into the neighborhood
with a couple of other folks. And we just started
to open up our home like they had opened up their
homes to us over the... previous months and made
Tuesday essentially the everyone's welcome for
dinner night. And so folks came from all across
the community and just this beautiful. way overcrowded
space of relationship, meal sharing, and all
kinds of things grew up out of that. There was
a teacher that started teaching English sitting
in the front yard with folks and realized they
wanted to go to college and that there was a
pathway they could take to do that. And so she
started to work with them on that to get them
into OCC. And they were having this huge circle.
filled our front yard with how to get into college
tutorials from this teacher and continue to expand
from there. Other folks were asking if they could
pop into one of the side rooms so that they could
sit on the floor and work on English flashcards
with somebody. Or there were kids running all
over and someone said, can I do something with
the kids? And started to bring all kinds of different
activities and academic educational pieces with
them. So all of the programming and the work
really rose up from those relationships and from
people who had different skills and understanding,
people who had different needs, matching up with
each other in these organic grassroots ways,
and then kind of forming programs that over the
years constantly changed. No season of footprint
has ever looked the same, whether it's who's
part of it, because the folks coming into our
community as refugees and new Americans were
coming from all over the world, different seasons,
different conflicts that we've had as a part
of our family. But we say once part of the always
part of the family. And so it's just been an
ever -growing, beautiful network of people working
together to make one another's lives better and
to make our community a better place. Wow. Wow,
that's incredible. Nicole, you mentioned something
of the seasons of Hope Print. Is there, it sounds
like maybe you have some sort of sequential programming
that happens, starts and stops, that sort of
thing, something like that? For many years, we
functioned in... by trimester doing kind of seasons
of program presence and rest, we would call it.
And so that was the majority up until COVID.
That's how we functioned. And each season, we
would reevaluate what our community really needed,
working with our people to say, do we still need
citizenship classes? Is there anyone who's needing
citizenship assistance right now? Or did everybody
already get that? Which is, by the way, one of
the things you should do in your life someday
is go to a citizenship. ceremony. You know, whether
it was like different needs that we were encountering
with different cultures and backgrounds, you
know, some folks had all kinds of access to education
and their home before conflict came or they were
displaced and others did not have that. And so
the needs and different things that were we needed
to show up and changed. very much trimester to
trimester. And so when COVID hit though, we organizationally
came to a new season because a lot of things
changed. Simultaneously with COVID there was
also a lot of changes that took place at a federal
level related to refugee resettlement, which
had a profound impact on our community. And so
as we, as all the ecosystem was changing around
us, we asked the question, that we were very
practiced at asking, what does our community
really need of us now? And we began to focus
more on community development work with our entire
neighborhood, which includes people from all
around the world who've been resettled as refugees,
who've come as immigrants, and a whole lot of
folks that have either lived here for generations
or have migrated here from other parts of the
United States. It's a beautifully diverse neighborhood
and to try to come to a space of what does it
look like for us together to come up with a vision
of what we want this to look like for us to all
have the lives that we dream of. And so we did
a number of rounds of knocking on doors, talking
to people, hosting community forums to come up
with a reinvestment proposal for our community.
And that led us to the season that we are in
today, where we're now an incubator for emerging
nonprofits and leaders who have passion projects,
where we work alongside of them to try to enact
that work in the community and to give them an
on -ramp into taking the things that we did as
an organization in our early days and hopefully
have an exponential impact by empowering more
people in more places to do that in their little
pockets of community. Wow, that's truly incredible.
Nicole, let me ask you, do you have a specific
location? You got a headquarters where all these
activities take place or how does that work?
We've always been a bit dispersed and home -based.
We, for many years pre -COVID, were in literally
a home running a lot of these programs out of
the home. Today we are... We do not have a headquarters.
We are intentionally dispersed because, again,
we're trying to engage a number of different
pockets of community that are in all different
geographic spaces, even within the neighborhood.
We are fortunate that we have some space on the
north side that we do use for a number of those
programs. But it's really in community work has
always been a heartbeat of what it looks like
for hope for it to be present in these spaces.
I kind of thought that might have been your answer.
And I think that's that's such a phenomenal approach
in terms of really reaching folks where they
are. That's really neat. Nicole, so I want to
ask you a couple more questions on this, and
then I want to jump to another topic for just
a moment. So you're telling me about meeting
all these different people from all these different
countries, these different ethnic groups, sitting
down having dinner with them. All it's making
me think maybe it's because I'm hungry, but all
it's making me think is all this food so I got
to ask you what is your favorite kind of ethnic
food unique food that you maybe never had growing
up that certainly isn't a Syracuse typical thing.
Yeah, so I. you are totally right. The food is
one of the most delicious bonuses of getting
to have this life. I really love like learning
from all the different cultural communities,
just the spices that they use and kind of integrating
it into my own cooking. But in terms of like
my I call my my comfort food that is like you
know growing up it had been chicken noodle soup
and macaroni and cheese has now transformed to
being a fufu and asaba and the kind of Congolese
East Central Africans cuisine of kind of like
their their mainstay. They've had so many friends
over the years that that made that for me and
it just kind of became like my home comfort meal.
So I'm having a bad day, I want some foo foo.
But my favorite flavors really especially emerged
from the Ethiopian cuisine, which is phenomenal,
as well as the Iraqi cuisine is filled with all
kinds of fascinating combinations that aren't
as traditionally, you know, typically present
in the cuisine I grew up on. That's incredible.
There used to be a place out in Albany many years
ago that was an Iraqi restaurant, tiny little
place, incredible food. And that's so neat. I
don't know if you do this, but just as a suggestion,
you ever want an awesome fundraiser? There should
be some, you should do some sort of ethnic food
fair or something. You'd probably do something
like that. We did pre -COVID. It was called Culture
Gala and we, it was a great event. I hope someday
we can do it again. That sounds incredible. So
if you wouldn't mind, let's pivot for just a
moment. And as folks who watch Good News York
know, we're not a politics show. So we don't
really get into picking sides or debating issues
or things like that. But Nicole did just win
an election. And I think it's really interesting
to talk to leaders as folks know. We've had leaders
from all parties and things like that. And the
reason we do that is because you are the folks
who are sort of in the know, right? That's why
you're there. You're not. You take office specifically,
I know you just won the election, but when do
you actually take office? I guess I should ask
you to start. January 1st. January 1st, fine
26. I like that. I don't necessarily like the
super long lame duck session. Like, come on,
let these folks do what we ask them to do. But
anyway, what is that like just as a person from
this community leader and doing these things
to now sort of getting into that political game
and now you've got to, you know. do all these
things that is really a different world. How
was that to navigate? So it's not something I
set out to do. I have been asked a number of
times over the years to consider taking on these
positions and like. the work that I needed to
do was being best done at the neighborhood level
and in the advocacy side. But in recent years,
I've started to feel a bit of a ceiling when
it comes to advocacy and a growing sense of the
need for there to be people who have this grassroots
on the ground understanding of the people and
the issues that we're facing. Also being in these
spaces where decisions are being made, where
resources are being allocated that impact our
community. And so when I got the call on a, I
was actually on my way to vacation, someone called
and said, within the next 48 hours, we need to
fill this seat or this person on the ballot.
would you be willing to take this role? And they
let me sleep on it for all of one night. But
when I woke up the next morning, I just felt
compelled that in this moment in time, for our
community, for the people that I love and have
welcomed me into their homes and their families
and their lives, that to say no was just irresponsible.
And so I said yes, and suddenly I was on the
wild ride of what it looks like to campaign.
I was not on a major party line, so it was a
pretty different situation than it can be for
a lot of folks who do that. And one of the most
beautiful things that happened during the campaign
season was just this manifestation of 15 years
in this community and the relationships that
I've built that just came out in this way that
kept on just... touching my soul. Like just,
it felt like a beautiful, a beautiful entree
into our next season. And on the night when I
did win, a number of those community folks were
with me and they said, we won, we won. And I
hope that that is how they continue to feel on
this journey, that government is really meant
to be representative. So I hope that we, not
only we won an election, but we won being able
to see the things that need to happen for our
community move forward. After hearing you speak
about all the work you've been doing in that
community, I... there's no way you couldn't win
in that community. I feel like talk about a true
representative. We don't always get those choices
and it's so great for your community and our
county as a whole. Which I guess is sort of my
next question as you think about that. Obviously
you represent a particular district but also
now have to weigh in on issues that span you
know into the suburbs and well beyond. How do
you bring this kind of local neighborhood knowledge
to the areas that don't necessarily look like
your neighborhood does. So in the early days
of living in this region, I did live in other
parts of our county. And I'm grateful for that
experience as I step into this space, because
both from living there and just the work in general,
I have a number of relationships across most
corners of Onondaga County. So I've I've gone
out with friends and I've been to their homes
and I've shared life with people that live in
really different spaces across Onondaga County
that augment the life that I get to live here
on Syracuse's north side. And so I'm also grateful
that the way that the system set up is that we
are... we each represent a district. And so we
each bring our different knowledge and understanding
to the table and hopefully listen well to one
another to build, to make decisions that are
for the whole of our county and for all the people
that call this place home. So I'm hopeful that
we can continue to do that and make decisions
that benefit us all. I get the impression that
you're the type of person that is open to conversation
with folks and that's just a massive asset for
all of us. So I appreciate that so much. So tell
me, again, let's have some fun with this. What's
your favorite thing, something fun to do in Onondaga
County? What's your favorite recreational activity?
Maybe for date night, maybe for family, whatever
comes to mind. One of my favorite things to do
is to go out to skinny atlas mirror bow in the
summertime when they have the gardens open with
all the beautiful flowers and streams and and
And just just sit out there and read or write
a grant even if it's you know I know that's work
not fun But just to be in that in that beautiful
space is is like a little reset spot for me.
I love all the nature that surrounds us in general,
just getting in my car and just driving, not
so much when there's snow on the ground, but
the other times of the year, being able to go
through the rolling hills and take in the scenery,
go to Beacon Scaff and go apple picking in the
fall. We live in a place that has a lot to offer
and I am grateful to live here to have access
to all those things. I love that. I love every
part of that, honestly. That was just such a
great... It is and that's the thing that we love.
One of the things, one of the reasons that we
do this show specifically is to highlight those
things. And we try to talk about a little bit
beyond Onondaga County because the one of the
things that we feel like is New York State as
a whole is such a great thing and we try to sometimes
divide ourselves almost a little too much in
our regions but you know we can go in any direction
and have the most incredible vacations. We as
a company actually have on more than one occasion
taken a little trip to Skinny Atlas and decided
we're gonna work for there from the day. So it's
such a beautiful place and seems like it's distant,
but it's not, but it's like a whole other world.
It's just, I don't know. And this time of year
we got the Christmas. So folks want to go see
the Dickens Christmas in Skinny Atlas. Shout
out to that incredible thing. incredibly famous.
People come all over the place, which I guess
that'll be my last thing. So what would you tell
folks? A lot of people don't necessarily understand
having visitors, having tourists, having shoppers
from outside the county come to the county. is
such a huge thing for us. The last thing that
I will leave you with, Nicole, is what is your
commercial for people outside of Onondaga County?
Why should they come check out our awesome area?
So I am a big traveler. I love to see and experience
just the things that different communities like
how the architecture is and how the culture is.
And we have such an incredible space here in
Onondaga County, whether it's the, you know,
from the... centuries ago housing that still
stands. And last night I went to one of the mansions
on James Street that's still standing and folks
continue to work to keep it alive and its story
alive. And this space is filled with a lot of
those places that were history makers in their
day. We have beautiful nature and then of course
I'm a bit biased. I love our city and the core
of our city and I wanna continue to see us get
better at sharing that with people. that come
in from the out can taste those amazing f go
shopping. So if you co and you want to experienc
you to check out just th you might not normally
go yourself immediately into a feels a bit like
you went Afghanistan or had or hangi are many
different little these entrees into the diversity
of culture we also have here at home. So you
can always reach out to us if you want to do
that and can't find it now and I hope that we
continue as a community to be able to highlight
those things to provide those spaces for people
to experience the whole of what Onondaga County
has to offer the world. I love it. I love it.
You can instantly see why she was elected. Nicole,
I'm going to let you go and get back to the work
of getting ready to take office and everything
on top of running this incredible organization.
But before we go, we should tell folks how they
can find it. So you've got a website, Facebook,
all those plugs. Hit us with those if you could.
Absolutely. HopePrint, H -O -P -E -P -R -I -N
-T dot org is the website. And then all of our
social media is also under that name. So if you
search that or just backslash it, you should
be able to find us on Instagram and Facebook
and YouTube. And Nicole, I'm guessing that. on
those resources, they'll answer this question.
But I just want to ask you, for folks that want
to help support your organization, what is the
best way to do it? Is it a volunteer in person?
Is it make a donation? What can they do? in a
consistent way, making a donation is definitely
the most helpful. We provide this supportive
foundational support to these emerging leaders
and try not to pass on that expense as much as
possible to the grants and donations that they're
able to procure as they build. But in order to
do that, we really need a foundational kind of
support system to be able to provide these really
key resources to emerging leaders in our community.
And then also there's ways just to give directly
to those if you're inspired by some of the projects
you might see. We're also always happy to share
more information about what they do and connect
you directly to them. That is how we do volunteerism,
is we match you directly with our partners. And
some of them have more opportunities than others.
We usually start with a conversation, figure
out where you can plug in and go from there.
That's so awesome. That's so awesome folks as
always the links and everything will be right
here in the description Go and dig into this
incredible organization as we've been learning
more and more about it It just it just gets more
incredible and it's it's so awesome to see people
do this work for their own community literally
I absolutely love it. So Nicole, we've taken
up way too much of your time already. I thank
you for being so generous with us. And any time
in the future that there's something interesting
or positive or events and fundraisers, all that
fun stuff, we would love to help spread the word.
So please don't hesitate to reach out. Wonderful.
Thank you so much for having me. Anytime. Wow.
What an impressive woman. That was a phenomenal
interview. I'm so glad that I got to speak with
Nicole and learn about this incredible organization.
I can't help but be impressed when people say
that, you know, she moved to the community to
be a part of it and serve it. It just doesn't
get any more genuine than that to me. I don't
know. Anyway, this has been Good News York. It's
been a phenomenal episode. Thank you to the whole
crew, Danny, Amanda, Mike, Malachi. Ruth Jackie
I'm just gonna start saying names at this point.
It's been fun guys Stay tuned like share follow
do everything like that peace out