I Choose...A Life of Service with Claire Babineaux-Fontenot
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Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start. Small business owners, this one's for you.

Chase for Business and iHeart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables. This one-of-a-kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do-or-die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today.

Learn more at chase.com slash business slash podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. member FDIC. Copyright 2024 JPMorgan Chase.

You're ready for a comeback. And with Purdue Global, you can do more than take classes. You can take charge of your story, of your career, of your life. Earn a degree you can be proud of and get an education employers respect. It's time.

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Botox is a prescription medicine injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headaches.

Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Talk to your doctor and visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us. The holidays are upon us. It's very easy. Sometimes I know I've fallen victim to this, to get caught up in the gifts and the parties and the food and

but sometimes losing sight of what's really important. My guest today is the CEO of an organization that's near and dear to my heart and is helping so many people all year long. Please welcome Claire Babineau-Fontenot, the CEO of Feeding America, to the podcast. Hi. How are you? I'm excellent. I'm really excited about this opportunity. Yes, I'm so happy that you're here today. I have been a part of

Feeding America, working with Feeding America for a long, long time now. I did a PSA for them many moons ago that is still running. I still catch it here and there, which I am so proud of.

And yeah, I've done a lot of like, you know, going to feed the homeless at the food banks and passing out oranges and fruits and just really enjoy working with you all. Wow. Well, if you ever hear me interviewed and I say thank you to the Freedom American Network, then no, I'm talking about you too then. It includes all the volunteers. It includes every minute. So thank you for that. So many people.

Before we dive in to the amazing work you're doing, I want to just kind of start at the

It's almost like giving back and helping others was your destiny. Your parents cared for, am I right on this? 108 children. You are correct. Oh my goodness. 108. And, and if my mother were doing this interview, she would tell you my mom had 108 children. She was mother to all of us and each of us in extraordinary ways. Um,

Her beginnings were so humble, but what she understood was how powerful one person can be as a force for good in the world. She provided a remarkable example for all of us. And I'd like to think that I'm finally in a role where I get to live into the example that she provided. Oh, that must feel so good. It does.

I know it's a combination. So everybody's clear. It was a combination of birth, adoption and fostering. Yes. She was a mother to 108, but she didn't birth to 108. Yes, exactly. Exactly. I don't even think that's possible. She did not give birth to 108. Thank God. Yes, exactly. Tell me what it was like growing up in a house with so many people. Yeah.

It's all I ever have known, by the way. So I don't have anything to contrast it with. But it was it was crazy. It was loud. It was at moments so unified and beautiful. One of the special talents that my mother in particular had and my father had as well was a way to resonate with each of us in our lives.

in our uniqueness, right? So I didn't ever feel like I was part of anything that was homogenous, but I don't think that any of us did. The standards that were set for us were unique to our talents and our capabilities. We were all, every single one of us expected to find ways to deploy those talents and to give back to the world.

It was fascinating. So I have friends who are only children who would come to visit me just for the spectacle of it. I think in most cases, they felt better about their home lives when they left because of the chaos

That was our household. So imagine there were usually about 16 of us at home at a time. Imagine if we ever tried to sit at one table, it would be like that Walton table, you know, the long, long table with benches on the sides. If we were ever going to all get around a table and lots of laughter, lots of dancing, lots of singing, though most of us sang badly and I still sing badly. Yeah.

But it was it was a joyful, chaotic home. Yeah. I mean, growing up in a large family like that, it's clear to see that your mom had such a beautiful impact on you. But what kind of lessons do you think you learned subconsciously? You know, that's an interesting one. I hope that this doesn't bring bring the mood down. But but it was it was rather common for me to go to school.

with a certain number of siblings and to come home and to have a new person join our family. And growing up in that household taught me things about how

Different people need different things emotionally. So that for some of my new little brothers or sisters, or sometimes my siblings came in triplicate. And even among three who had biological connections, a hug might help or a hug might hurt. So we learned as a collective family sensitivity around things like that.

Another really powerful thing that we learned was how beautiful diversity can be, how it can, in fact, be a superpower. It's something I try to bring to everything that I do is that that realization I've I've leveraged those learnings in the for profit world when I was executive vice president of finance and treasurer at Walmart as a lawyer, I leveraged it.

and I certainly leverage it today at Feeding America. Diverse teams win more. No matter how you define winning, diverse teams win more. And we as a family, we're a diverse team. So nobody could beat us at some of the backyard basketball games or softball games or whatever it might have been. Yeah, we were a force. We were a force. Those babinos, I mean. Those babinos are coming. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Oh, it's so good though. So you sort of, I'm wondering, you know, you went into law school. I did. Yeah.

Was that you sort of trying to figure out what it is that was your unique talent to give to the world? Oh, absolutely. Now, our grandparents on both sides were sharecroppers and didn't have any formal education. And English was not a first language for any of them. Spoke that French, Patois, Creole. Neither of my parents graduated high school. And the collective of all six of those people were absolutely brilliant. And it was so obvious that

Um, but I got the chance to graduate high school and then to go to college. But when I was a little girl, I remember so vividly talking to my father and telling him in a defiant tone as if I expected him to challenge it, that when I grew up, I was going to be a lawyer. And I recall that he said with no hesitation, of course you will now.

He did follow it up with, you argue all the time. At least that way somebody will pay you to do it, which I also did not forget. But I felt destined to argue.

to advocate on behalf of other people, to use my loud mouth, my big mouth in service of others. I thought I was going to be a children's rights advocate because so many of us, the normal path to joining our family was because something was desperately broken and the one you were born to. So it was so visible and I wanted to be a force for good for children like us.

Like my siblings and me. So that's the kind of lawyer I was planning to be. That's not exactly the kind of lawyer I became. What happened? But it was the plan. I don't even, you know, I've been trying to figure out what happened. But I always had a head for math.

And I'd like to believe a heart for people. So I went on to law school and then I was sitting in the lobby of my law school, Southern University Law Center, go Jags, and sitting with my study partners. And I looked around and I said, does anybody know anybody who's graduated from Southern who's a tax lawyer? Because I kind of like that area. Yeah.

And nobody could think of anybody. So I said, oh, I think that's what I'll do. It was the most random thing. And I'm not random. I am not random. I don't know. Yeah, taxes is not something people are like volunteering to deal with. So I went to, I worked, I graduated law school. I hadn't taken any tax classes, by the way.

This is at the end of law school that I'm thinking about this and have this epiphany. So I worked for revenue for about nine months and it solidified in my mind that it was something that I really enjoyed. So then I went back and got another law degree from Southern Methodist University. Southern has to be in every name of every school I go to, apparently.

um, over in Dallas and I have an LLM in taxation. And then I got all of these chances to do all kinds of wonderful things. And I, I knew no one in my family, um, no one that I grew up with who had the kinds of chances that I had. And I kept saying yes to all of them. So I became a tax lawyer. I worked in government. I worked in big four accounting. Uh, I, um,

I worked in a major law firm. Walmart was my client. They kind of liked the way I handled things. They asked me to come in house. I said yes to that too. So I wound up having this career in law, but in commercial litigation, but mostly, mostly in tax. And then went into Walmart where I did tax, but I did finance and then became the treasurer there.

And so none of that was part of the grand plan. And I was quite the planner as a kid. I had a whole plan for what I was going to do. And I did not do those things. But what I did get to do was pretty amazing.

And what I get to do now, oh my goodness, it actually makes me want to cry every time I think about the privilege that it is to get to do what I do today. I want to talk about that in a second. But first of all, you said you have a head for math and a heart for people. I love that so much. Those are words that I would never say, at least the head for math part.

You clearly have a heart for people. You clearly have a heart for people. I'm going to have to come up with something for my head, but...

Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start. Small business owners, this one's for you.

Chase for Business and iHeart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables. This one-of-a-kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do-or-die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today.

Learn more at chase.com slash business slash podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. member FDIC. Copyright 2024, JPMorgan Chase. Congratulations to 3AM Innovations on their first place win for Innovation in Community at this year's Unconventional Awards by T-Mobile for Business.

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This will shape rapid response moving forward. And for that, T-Mobile congratulates 3AM for their unconventional thinking. For many of us, the holiday season means more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more of your personal information in more places you can't control. It only takes one innocent mistake, even if it's not your mistake, to expose you to identity theft.

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You have the knowledge. You have the experience. Now it's time to get credit for the work you've done and earn the recognition you deserve with Purdue Global, Purdue's online university for working adults. You know you're worth it. We do too. So don't wait another second to get the degree that will take your career to the next level. Start your comeback today at purdueglobal.edu.

You said you were working at Walmart. You were there for a while, like over 10 years, right? That's right. Closer to 13. Yeah. Okay. And then again, life took a turn that you weren't expecting. You were diagnosed with cancer in 2015 and your life changed as it does. Yes. Can you kind of walk us through what

How do you get through? What do you do in those moments? Wow. Well, first off, what a beautifully aptly titled podcast you have here because I definitely chose me. I had up until the moment of being diagnosed with cancer, I was doing things

Mostly because I thought, well, I can't miss this chance. It was less about I want this chance, but more about, well, I can't let this chance go. I'm going to have to say yes to that. Wow. Are they asking me to do that? Oh, well, I'm going to have to say yes to that. The first time as an actual professional that I sat with my thoughts and my heart and said, well, what do you want to do?

Not just what's available to you, but what do you want to do? And oh, by the way, you don't get always to answer this question. One of the greatest gifts and the ugliest package of my whole life was that cancer. Because it was the thing that woke me up to the fact that I needed to make a me choice there and the choice I made there.

was to leave a very comfortable situation that I had in a company that had shown me a lot of grace. I'd gotten so many opportunities to grow while I was there. I'd been able to achieve financial heights that I never even imagined for myself, although I was a big dreamer. It provided security not only for myself, but also for other family members that I was able to lift up and send to school and all those things. And that cancer said,

it's time for you to go. I'm like, where am I going? I don't even know where I'm going. I had been gainfully employed every day of my life from my first job. I worked, I was gainfully employed throughout college, throughout law school, throughout law school. Again, I had never had any window of time from the time I got my first job

that I was not gainfully employed. And I'm saying, I'm about to take a leap and I don't even know where I'm going. But if I stayed at Walmart, if I waited until the right opportunity came, I was not gonna leave. And I knew that I needed to leave.

So I leaped and I feel so privileged that I could make such a choice. Most people don't get to make choices like that without concern over whether or not their children are going to be able to go to school or what kind of lives they're going to have. I knew that I had the security where I could do that and jump into the insecurity of what the future was going to hold. So I did. So I leaped.

And you left just for the sole purpose of leaping. I left because I knew in my bones that I had the ability to be of greater service

I'd ask myself in the doctor's office when the pathology report came in, I remember, I'll never forget, of course, when the doctor actually used those words and told me that I had cancer. I remember that in a split second, I asked myself, what if the best thing I might possibly do professionally were the best thing I could possibly do at Walmart?

Would that be okay? And my answer was no. And that's why I leaped is I leapt towards something in the nonprofit space. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew it would be nonprofit. That part I knew. I knew that I was going to dedicate the rest of me to service. I knew that it was going to be somewhere in the nonprofit space. I knew that I had certain passions, but I didn't know exactly where I was going to go. I didn't have a job offer or even job prospects.

But I also, as I said, I knew that if I didn't, if I didn't leave, I wouldn't leave. I'd find a way to justify staying. So I needed to just go ahead and go. And I did. It's fascinating that you say that cancer was the best gift you ever received in the ugliest package. But it seemed to catapult you into this next incredible phase of your life.

Yes. And what a reward ultimately. Absolutely. It's kind of inevitable when you go through something like that. It has such a massive impact on your life. It changes how you approach life from that point on. I mean, today, what choices do you make to stay grounded or present in your current life and not just go, go, go and do, do, do all the time?

Well, I go, go, go a lot and I do, do, do a lot. So I don't know if I'm actually the best person to answer that question, but. What kind of self-care do you do? Well, what I can tell you, I'll talk about self-care and then I'll tell you about the stuff that energizes me. Right. But in terms of self-care, there've been a number of moments when, when I have felt that I needed to keep moving and, and my body has told me, no, you don't. It's time to pause. Right.

And to know my body well enough to know when it is time. And the risk of disappointing people experiencing hunger, the risk of not showing up for a partner who's out there on the front lines trying to help, that's a hard thing for me to say no to. But throughout the pandemic, especially, there were multiple moments when I had to say yes to me. And in order to say yes to me so that I could actually sleep that night rather than get on another plane,

I had to say not yet to somebody else. So I love to read. I love to walk. I love to dance.

I love to sing. I mentioned before, I'm not a great singer, but that doesn't mean I don't try to sing. That's so great. I love it that you don't think you're very good, but you still love it. Oh, I love it. Absolutely. The people around me don't love it. But I, I, on the other hand, I absolutely love it. I love life. I love new people, new things. I love to travel. So there's so many outlets that I have that are restorative.

for me. And sometimes the only one that I really need is a bath. Sometimes I just need to stop, grab a candle and go take a bath. Hot,

bath in bubbles. So good. And salts, salts and bubbles. I mean, if I feel I've really earned it, these are the things, these are the things. Oh, I love all those ideas for people. Tell me, how did you come to working with Feeding America? Wow. So I'm going to go back to Walmart for just a flash, right? So, and well, I'll go back one step further than that. I've always known about Feeding America since it started. My parents, as you might imagine, were community leaders.

As a consequence, Feeding America works inside of local communities all across the country. My parents knew where the needs were in the little hometown of mine of Opelousas, Louisiana. And Feeding America, the Feeding America food bank that serves Acadiana, which is where Opelousas is, would actually partner with my parents to do distributions from our house to

Okay. I never imagined that fast forward. They were called America's Second Harvest at the time. I never imagined that I'd be doing this. So I always knew about Feeding America. When I was at Walmart, I was on the foundation board. While on the foundation board, I got to know Feeding America more intimately because we were a major investor in Feeding America's work. We provided a lot of food and as well as funds. So I got to know it that way there.

And I had a conversation with a lady by the name of Kathleen McLaughlin, and she had just joined Walmart. And I had a practice whenever a new member of the team, when women joined the officer group at Feeding America, always reached out and took them out to breakfast or to lunch or something. So here we are having lunch and she's brand new.

And she said, she talked about what she was doing. By now, I do not have any idea that I'm going to have cancer, but I'm having this conversation with her. And she was talking about what she was going to do. And I said, you know, the fascinating thing is if I had to guess what I would do with my career, it would be more like what you're doing than what I'm doing. And she said, really? Told about my family history, told about what I thought I was going to do with my life, et cetera, et cetera. I thought that conversation was in the past.

That's why I leave Walmart years later. And I got a phone call from a recruiter and the recruiter said, we are hiring for the CEO of Feeding America. And there's a lady from Walmart. Her name is Kathleen McLaughlin. And she told us that we should really find you and talk to you about this opportunity. How? I'm like, what? Look at your breakfast, your outreach. Yeah.

To the new employee, paid off. It paid off. Oh my goodness, did it pay off. And I consistently tell her anytime something powerful and wonderful happens with Feeding America, I consistently say a little prayer for Kathleen. And I send her text messages saying, I'm really feeling grateful to you today. I'm really feeling grateful because she just, she remembered what I said and she felt it. And then she was in a room that I was not in

And she lent her credibility to me in that moment. And the rest is kind of history now. Here I am. I've been here for over six years. And what started with that casual breaking of bread with a new person has translated into the greatest opportunity for service I've ever had in my life. That is incredible.

Hi, this is Jenny Garth from the I Choose Me podcast. If you're managing a challenging mental condition, weekly therapy can sometimes feel like it's not enough. You may be looking for a way to spend more focus time on you. That's where Amend Mental Health Treatment Center comes in. I recently took a tour at Amend in beautiful Malibu, California, and the facility is so gorgeous and serene.

The dedicated team of doctors and therapists with deep clinical expertise were amazing. Designed to give you the time and space you need to have that breakthrough. They have two unique locations in Malibu that surround you in natural beauty and pure calm. Find out more at amendtreatment.com slash start. Small business owners, this one's for you.

Chase for Business and iHeart bring you a podcast series called The Unshakeables. This one-of-a-kind series will shine the spotlight on small business owners like you who faced a do-or-die moment that ultimately made their business what it is today.

Learn more at chase.com slash business slash podcast. Chase, make more of what's yours. Chase mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. member FDIC. Copyright 2024 JPMorgan Chase.

Congratulations to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine for the first ever Malcolm Gladwell Tipping Point designation at this year's unconventional awards by T-Mobile for Business. The university used integrated IoT devices and 5G solutions from T-Mobile to enable multiple synchronized health monitors, allowing for real-time remote data collection and analysis.

The initiative will shape patient care moving forward, and for that, T-Mobile congratulates the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. This is it.

Your moment. This is your time to make your comeback with Purdue Global. When you come back with a Purdue Global degree, you create opportunity for yourself, your family, and your future. It's a degree you can be proud of, a degree that employers will trust and respect. Purdue Global offers working adults like you over 175 flexible degree programs to meet your specific career goals. These include associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees and certificates.

Purdue Global degree programs range from nursing to business to communication and more. Whatever your interest, we have the degree that will move you forward.

You have the knowledge. You have the experience. Now it's time to get credit for the work you've done and earn the recognition you deserve with Purdue Global, Purdue's online university for working adults. You know you're worth it. We do too. So don't wait another second to get the degree that will take your career to the next level. Start your comeback today at purdueglobal.edu.

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How many people in the U.S. are suffering from food insecurity? Close to 50 million people. That's hard to even wrap your mind around. Nearly 14 million children. Oh, my goodness. That's one in five children. Yes. And the most tragic part about it, the thing that breaks my heart,

About it. And that also gives me hope. Gives me hope. It's the same thing, which is we could solve it. It's actually not one of those things that you'll never be able to wrap your arms or you'll never be able to solve. No, no, no, no. We can solve this. This country has more than enough food to feed every single person. We waste food.

So much food. We throw away so much food. Being America is actually the largest food waste recovery organization in the whole United States of America. And we're only recovering about a little over 4 billion pounds. Now, that's a lot of food, right? It is. Where do you recover it from? Right.

Oh, we recover it from the relationships that we have with all kinds of great organizations. So every major retailer in the United States,

has a relationship with Feeding America through which rather than throw away perfectly edible food, they donate that food to us. Every major food manufacturer in the United States has a relationship with Feeding America. So if you can imagine, let's say you're General Mills, who happens to be one of a great supporter of ours in many ways. Let's say you're General Mills and you go to a town and the Cheerio boxes are bent, right? Right.

perfectly edible Cheerios. We actually have an app that the driver of that truck can use to say, to find a food bank that's close to them that they can deliver that food to rather than it going to waste. So that's the way

We have these beautiful relationships all across the country with partners who are also committed both to resolving issues around waste and making certain that people in communities get access to food. So that's one of the ways that we engage with people. That's one of the things that we do that I find so powerful is when you're solving for food insecurity, it's an interesting thing.

thing in a really powerful and beautiful way. There are so many things that you solve for when you solve for food insecurity, right? So you can solve for climate.

by participating in the work that we do, because you can make certain that food doesn't go to landfills, but instead, the way that we're talking about it, we even have a challenge going on right now, which is the food rescue challenge. And the way that we're phrasing it is from excess to access, right? And you get to participate in something like that. I get to be a part of that, that does that. But we also get donated foods directly. We buy a lot of food, right?

We have, we participate a lot in federal commodities programs where farmers, growers, and producers in the United States make certain that people here get access to the food that they need to thrive. So lots of different outlets for an outreach, um, that helps to support the network that I'm a part of. And we need more. The lines, unfortunately have continued to grow. Yeah. That usually is shocking to people. Um,

Most people think that the highest rate of food insecurity in this country over the last several years would have been during the peak of the pandemic, but that's not true. During the pandemic, we as a nation had an awareness of food insecurity because those lines were so long on the outsides of buildings. Now the lines have gone back to the insides of buildings and people, they think they've gone away.

The food insecurity rates have gone up because we've actually lowered the amount of resources that are available. So it's been a real challenge. And yet I see resiliency everywhere I go. I see, my goodness, I'm so inspired by, especially by people experiencing hunger with the heroes that they are, the way that these moms making a way out of no way, the sacrifices they make.

how hard they work to make certain that their kids get the things that you and I want for ours. It's really inspirational. It truly is. I mean, with so many people though, needing help, like you talked about, does it ever become overwhelming for you? Like, do you ever just panic and say, I can't do it all. And I want to do it all. I mean, I can't imagine that that's

hard to confront, to deal with? Oh, of course there are moments. Of course there are. In fact, I remember having the good news is nobody is expecting me to do it all except me sometimes. Right. Right. There's so many people, I'd say hundreds of thousands of people across the country who step up to do this work as a part of the anti-hunger community.

But I do remember my father, my mother died 11 years ago and my father died two years ago in December. And his his last illness was dementia.

And I won't forget that this is the guy that I went to defiantly and told him at 12 when I don't think a lot of people would have bet on my ability to become a lawyer when he, without hesitation, said that he knew I would. That guy, I returned to him and he seemed to be sleeping. And I was really, I visited him every month every,

During the pandemic, I found a way to get there to Opelousas. So I was in his room and I thought he was sleeping. And I said, Daddy, I just don't know what to do. I mean, this is a lot, you know, people are counting on me. How am I going to step up? Am I able to do this? And I didn't know he was awake and he opened his eyes and

And of all moments for him to be lucid, it was that moment. And he looked over at me and I was sitting next to his bed and he said, do you? Do you? Just be you, Claire. He called me Claire Reese. Just be you, Claire Reese. So yes, those moments come, but-

After that moment, I can hear him say it to me. And remember, he's one of the smartest people I've ever known. If he thinks I can do it, there must be something inside of me that he saw. And surely it's still there. So I can go do this. Believing in yourself. It's hard to do sometimes, but it's the key. It is. How can people get involved? So,

One way is to donate, right? They can go to feedingamerica.org and there they can find ways to donate. They can donate at the national level or they can donate at the local level or they can do both.

If they only have room for one, I would say donate in the community that means the most to you. On feedingamerica.org, there's actually a food bank locator. And you just punch in the zip code of the community that you care the most about and up will pop up a food bank that's serving that community. I know that to be true because Feeding America, this network serves every single county and parish in the whole United States of America and Puerto Rico. So we are there in that community.

that you care about. So you can donate, you can advocate, you can use your voices to say that this matters, that you care about it. You can make certain that policymakers know that this is one of the things that you feel that we ought to be united on, not divided about. And you can volunteer. Oh my goodness, you talked about it earlier, but what feels better than to know for a fact that

especially in moments when so many things feel like they're outside of our control.

that you can roll your sleeves up and you can be helpful. You can be of service, right? And you can. And I have an expression I use and maybe someone else used it before me, but the giver receives. And it's true, the giver receives. There's a special way that I feel, a special unity in community that I feel, that I only feel when I've got my sleeves rolled up.

And I only feel when I'm out there volunteering. So...

You can donate, you can advocate, and you can volunteer. And you can find ways to do all three by going to feedingamerica.org. That's right. The work you're doing is phenomenal. I'm so grateful to know you and be a small, tiny part of helping the cause. Before I let you go, Claire, I would like to know, what was your last I Choose Me moment? Hmm.

I, oh, you know what? It was probably last night and maybe this isn't a great one, right? But

You know, I had been traveling. I just got back from Atlanta where I had an opportunity to go out and thank one of our real big donors, investors in our work. And I was tired and I'd already eaten way more than I should. But I got home and as I opened the door, I live in Chicago. That's where we're based primarily. I opened the door and this aroma hit me. It was gumbo. In Chicago? Yeah.

In Chicago. And my husband was in the kitchen cooking it. And I'm thinking, I'm not even hungry. But you know what? Choosing me was choosing to eat a bowl of that gumbo last night. And I did. And it was fabulous. And I thank my husband, Barry Fontenot, for preparing it. And every now and then, every now and then, I have found choosing me can be something really big. Like choosing to dedicate myself

my talents to an organization like Feeding America. Or it could be something really small, like lighting a candle or listening to music or singing. Or on a night like last night, there was something extra special about choosing that bowl of gumbo. It's the gumbo. It was the gumbo. It was the gumbo. Really loved our conversation. Thank you. I hope that everybody listening enjoyed

It feels the same way as I do. I feel hopeful. I feel some sort of peace in knowing that you are leading this charge because you are truly a gift. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate you and everything you do. And thank you to your audience and everything they're already doing. Solvable challenges that we can do together. I'm glad to be a part of it too. Thank you, Claire. Thank you. Wow. Talking to Claire is so inspiring.

I just, I love how much passion she has for her life and all the wonderful work that she's doing with Feeding America, helping so many people. If you want to volunteer, donate to Feeding America, I highly suggest it.

We'll be sure to leave their info in our show notes. As we continue to choose ourselves each week, I want to challenge you to making a difference in someone else's life this holiday season. There are so many incredible organizations out there and this time of year, people can really use a helping hand.

So whether it's volunteering at a food bank or collecting canned goods or even just cleaning out your closet and donating some of your clothes or blankets that you're no longer using, let's all just take some time to think about it this week. And let's do something. Let's give back to those around us who could use some help. Because when we choose to give back to others,

We're also choosing to acknowledge our own blessings and practice gratitude. Thanks for listening to I Choose Me. You can check out all of our social links in our show notes. Make sure to spread some holiday cheer and rate us and review us and use the hashtag I Choose Me whenever you feel like it. I will be right here next week. I hope you'll choose to be here too.

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