Episode 43 – Nova Church of Bronx Sole

"My daughter said to me the other day, 'I want to be a police officer, Daddy, so I can be a good one and make changes.' I said, 'That's good, baby. Listen to all the conversations that are happening because you don't have to make this decision yet. Originally, she wanted to be a teacher. My mother is a teacher. I'm kind of a teacher in how I articulate things to my community. Now with everything going on, I think she's kind of re-thinking things and trying to figure out her purpose in all of this. She's also hearing about the children of the future. She said that to me yesterday, 'Daddy, I keep hearing them say 'children of the future' and that's me, right?' She's understanding that she's going to be the one and her generation are going to be the ones to change this indefinitely. We're moving the big boulders out of the way but they're going to come through and they're going to clean up the dirt and get the rubble out. They're going to get something growing here." Nova Church is a captain for The Bronx Sole. If his voice sounds a little bit familiar to you, it's because he was one of the leaders who spoke at Coffey's run to protest. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, we highly recommend checking it out. In this episode, we continue the conversation amid the Black Lives Matter movement about the changes that we're pushing for as a community. Nova expands on his call to action and what he wants to see from all of us. He also shares some insight into how he started getting active in running, why helping improve the health of the Bronx keeps him motivated and the unity among the Bronx running division. People said 'The marathon continues' when Nipsey Hussle died but Nova is someone who is living that daily. Follow Nova Church on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/nova.church/ Follow The Bronx Sole on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/bronxsole/ Nova's suggested charity: The Bronx Defenders is a public defender nonprofit that is radically transforming how low-income people in the Bronx are represented in the justice system and, in doing so, is transforming the system itself. For more information visit: https://www.bronxdefenders.org/ ❤️ Please consider supporting our work. We want to continue pushing out the podcast on a bi-weekly basis and bring you quality audio for our guests. we're simply asking for you to set aside a few dollars that might go toward a coffee or dollar slice to support our work. In return, we'll do our best to put together exclusive episodes, interviews and maybe some video for those supporters. The NYC running community is awesome and we'd appreciate the assistance: www.patreon.com/runnersofnyc 👕 MERCH NOW AVAILABLE HERE: https://www.bonfire.com/runners-of-nyc-podcast/