53206 Cast

This week, Meg and Alex recap the first Saturday of We Got This for the 2026 growing season.

This week, Meg and Alex talk about some of the anomalies around common public services found in the inner city.

This week, Meg and Alex give some updates on the status of the neighborhood pertaining to gentrification. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about the curious relationship between comfort and meaning and how value can be found when we live outside of our comfort zones. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about their latest project, the garden house. 

This week, Meg and Alex reflect on the seasons changing and the natural benchmarks of the year that provide snapshots for progress in the neighborhood. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about changes in the neighborhood.

The inner city has an underground economy of individuals canabalizing the buildings to sustain themselves. This week, Meg and Alex talk about that economy and discuss how they think about the negative impacts of this group of individuals.

This week, Meg and Alex talk about how some of the physical spaces within the neighborhood have arrived at their current condition. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about the value of choosing a lane and sticking with it when it comes to social justice work. 

This week, Meg and Alex discuss a couple of instances where two potentially conflicting things can be true at the same time. 

This week, Meg and Alex discuss the value found in investing in our young people within the community. 

This week, Meg and Alex discuss what comes next in our evolution toward a more socially just world. 

This week, Meg and Alex discuss the question, who is responsible for raising up the next generation and whose to blaim when it doesn't go well. 

Outrage seems to be everywhere today. This week, Meg and Alex talk about our propensity for outrage and what we can do about it. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about corporate landlords and ask the question, why is renting from one of them someone's best option.

This week, Meg and Alex are joined by Amos Malone, a PHD student from the community. The three talk about the criminal justice system and Amos' pathway from struggling student to PHD candidate. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about silos in social justice work and the offer some adivce on how to navigate long term humanitarian work when new social inequities arise. 

The concept of a food desert isn't new. Traditional models for food distribution struggle in areas with high concentrations of poverty. This week, Meg and Alex talk about the third grocery store to close nearby and talk about what might work in the community. 

No one ever gets it right one hundred percent of the time. This week, Meg and Alex talk about what to do when you get something wrong and give some advice on how to develop the habbit of constant improvement. 

This week Meg and Alex talk about the benefits and challenges of living in a meritocracy, speficically as it pertains to areas of concentrated poverty. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about scarcity around the holidays and the annual gift shop at We Got This. 

All of us have routines and patterns that create bubbles for us. This week, Meg and Alex talk about that value in reaching outside of our bubbles and share how that can benefit us personally and benefit the world around us. 

Why does anyone do what they do? For most of us, we choose to do whatever seems like a good idea at the time. This week, Meg and Alex talk about how living in the inner city seemed like a good idea 20 years ago and how it still does today. 

This week Meg and Alex continue their conversation on SNAP and give a little insight on what it might be like to be reliant on a safety net like SNAP.

Every few years, we get moments in time where the call to do something becomes louder while simultaneously, the questioning on why we should care becomes more targeted. The suspension of SNAP benefits may have been one of those times. This week, Meg and Alex talk about SNAP benefits and our societies preference that programs like SNAP to not exist. 

This week, Meg and Alex dream a little bit about how the current and future advancements in artificial intelligence could promote progress in inner city neighborhoods. 

For years the perception of our neighborhood has been one of the biggest things holding it back. This week we talk about neighborhood perception and talk about reasons someone would want to stay here. 

Vacant properties are abundant in the inncer city. Sometimes they are rehabbed and become useful housing stock again and sometimes they end their lives vacant and are torn down. This week Meg and Alex talk about how a house gets torn down and give some insights on how the community is impacted. 

The unexpected happens more often in the inner city. This week, Meg and Alex talk about an unexpected guest at the White House On The Corner and give some insight into the mental health challenges that face areas of concentrated poverty.

What does a tenant do when their landlord is unresponsive to emergencies or refuses to offer a basic level of quality in their building? This week Meg and Alex talk about a house on their block and one tenants experience living there. 

This week, Meg and Alex recap week 11 at We Got This and talk about the importance of marketable skills.

This week, Meg and Alex recap week 10 at We Got This and talk about teaching the kids the concept of being kind to your future self. 

This week Meg and Alex talk about why food deserts exist and how you can impact an area to lessen the likelihood of it becoming a food desert. 

We are 3/4 of the way through the 2025 We Got This summer program. This week Meg and Alex give a recap of the week and talk about changing mindsets and the team's evolution.

The 53206 Cast is 200 episodes old. This week, Meg and Alex reflect on the last 5 years of podcasting and give some advice on how to organize your life in a way that allows you to make the changes you hope to see in the world. 

We Got This has hit the half way mark for the summer. This week, Meg and Alex recap a rainy Saturday at the garden and discuss some of the ins and outs of running a non-profit. 

Signs of change are everywhere if you know what to look for. This week, Meg and Alex talk about changes in the neighborhood and the recent influx of rabbits in the neighborhood. 

This week, Meg and Alex recap week 6 at We Got This. With over 160 coming out to the garden to work this week, it was a busy one. Food was produced and given away for the first time this season and the kids had plenty of opportunities to learn life lessons and practice working. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about the heat, leadership, winning at work, and week 5 at We Got This. 

This week, Meg and Alex discuss the idea that someone or something can be all good or all bad and the traps that this line of thinking can lead to. 

This week, Meg and Alex recap week 4 at We Got This. The two talk about reaching capacity early in the morning and some of the lessons taught and hopefully learned in the garden. 

This week Meg and Alex recap week 3 at the garden. This week there were a lot of opportunities to work through adversity and reframe thinking around work and doing hard things. 

Protests aren't new but have been in the news lately. Typically protests take one form. This week Meg and Alex talk about expanding the definition, or at least broadening what activities we consider to be a protest. 

This week, Meg and Alex give a week 2 recap of what happened at the garden and the two talk through some highlights including the exciting opportunity to resolve conflict in the community. 

When doing any kind of advocacy work, it is easy to assume that everything will work in your favor or anyone with a similar set of values will see your vision and support the actions you take to make your vision a reality. However, that rarely happens. This week, Meg and Alex talk about unexpected adversity and how to think about instances when people you assume are on your side push back on what you are doing. 

It's garden season. This week, Meg and Alex recap week 1 at We Got This and talk about the muscle known as responsibility and how kids at We Got This get to grow that muscle throughout the summer. 

Correcting societal inequities is point of social justice work. One of the major inequities found in the inner city is the lack of financial capacity found here. This week, Meg and Alex talk about one pathway to building financial capacity in the neighborhood. 

The economic opportunities for the poor are few and far between. This week, Meg and Alex talk about one of those opportunities and talk about some of the factors that lead up to someone choosing to take advantage of that opportunity. 

This week, Meg and Alex talk about the power that perspective has when trying to understand what we see in the world around us.