- We're back with Kim Whitley, you all give it up.
(audience cheering)
So all hour we have talked about
the trials and tribulations of being a single parent.
My next guest knows that journey all too well.
She became a single mama of two,
when she was just 25 years old,
but like all of us, she figured out a way to pull it off.
In fact, she's now a school principal
and the founder of a Philadelphia area nonprofit
that helps single moms ease their way off public assistance
so they can be proud mamas all on their own,
and that makes her a Rad Human.
(instrumental music) (audience cheering)
All right, from Empowering Single Moms Inc.
let's say hi to Dr. Crystal Edwards,
(audience applauding)
Meet Kim, I know you've already met but-
(guest chattering)
- Does it matter if you have a honorary doctor?
(Kelly laughing)
- Listen, you can have that too,
I mean you did the work some way.
- I did that five-minutes work,
- Okay, (Edwards laughing)
- I walked across the stage.
- I did that five-minutes, oh my gosh.
Well wait, take us back to the beginning
because what were those early days
of single-parent life like for you?
It had to be hard.
- Oh, they were hell and traumatic.
so-
- Those are two really good descriptions, yah.
- Yes, because that's just,
that's what it is,
and it was also a little bit of grace and mercy.
So I think that we tend to be our heaviest critic
when we're in that.
So I looked up and
I was in a separated marriage at the time
and I had a three and a five-year-old
and I had to show up for them.
It's hard because you're blind sided.
You didn't see this type of thing coming,
but you have to deal with it because now it's your reality.
But really through prayer,
it allowed me to be able
to open up and get through the years
of the hurt and the pain
and what happens and this is something
that I've seen happen with single mothers
that I've worked with.
When we aren't open and communicating
and when we're hurting,
'cause there was no therapy like really back then.
Okay, so when we do those things,
we'll wind up with more children
because we've entangled ourselves, entangled,
that's how we know that.
- Entanglement, we know that.
(crowd laughing)
- We've entangled ourselves.
Okay, in other relationships.
So by the time 2004 came around,
I have four children and I said
you got to deal with that pain.
Okay, because pain will keep you confined
and it'll keep you trapped up.
Okay, and so that's one of the main things I work on
with our women of Empowering Single Moms,
is dealing with that pain.
Because pain will blindside you
and you will have more children thinking
that you just wanna be loved.
You just wanna have that security again.
And you're not going to get that when you're broken,
because what I know
is that half a man will attract half a woman
and vice versa and nobody's holding either situation.
- Oh (beep)
(crowd applauding).
- Come on now Kelly, okay.
- Am so glad you...
That was it.
You said children honey,
I was like you can come home with other things too,
- Hell, you come home with one thing, again
- Half a man will attract half a woman.
- All the time because the very thing
that you are lacking is the very same thing
that you were seeking in someone else.
And if they're broken,
the very same thing they're lacking,
they're seeking in you.
- All I needed was this moment,
not tons of therapy.
That was amazing.
- No charge.
(group chattering)
- That was great. I like it. I like it.
Well, tell us about creating,
Empowering Single Moms. Why'd you do this?
- I'm gonna tell you
when that really was in me to do that
is when I looked at this newborn,
I had Zion Ishmael is my baby boy and I was in the hospital.
He was just born. And I said,
"You gotta do this thing differently.
Because you got to deal with you."
These children are beautiful.
You want to give them the best lives you can.
You're gonna intermingle with their, with their-
but girl, you got to get it together.
So as I started doing my self-work,
I started then talking and helping other women.
Because the one thing I knew is that I was going to live
this life and had lived this life.
I was gonna make damn sure another woman didn't have to go
through with it. - And not alone.
- You not gonna have to do this alone
because I'm gonna be here for you.
Like I didn't have, not had my girls who were able to,
watch my children when, 'cause I had a tight schedule.
You don't have no free time in this work. Okay.
Everything was, it was regimented.
Right.
But I started putting little bags together of generally used
clothes, a few Pampers that my son needed.
Even my older children and you know,
clothes that were professional
I could no longer use and going out and networking with
women who needed, who needed to be heard,
who needed a word to get them together.
And from that's where Empowering Single Moms.
So I created a network,
I started mentoring,
there were a little tangible items to get them through
that other people take for granted.
- Yeah.
- But how did you find the women?
How did you know who was in need?
- Listen,
because you can feel a broke spirit
from where you've been broken.
It's like a surge.
- Wow.
- And you just start talking
and you'd hear just how....
Even at the job.
Okay.
And that's just where it just got around word of mouth.
- Everybody welcome Sydney.
(audience applauding)
- So how did you meet Crystal?
- So I had just gotten out of an un-healthy relationship
and I have three kids and we didn't have
a house or a car to call our own.
So I was on public transportation
and then my sister actually knows Crystal.
So she introduced me to her and because of COVID,
I was able to meet with her virtually
and I learned how to manage money.
And Crystal really just uplifted me.
She helped me with the legal things that I had to do.
'Cause I had no idea what I was gonna have to do to
protect me and my children.
She walked me through all of that.
So, and she never....
She always would tell me like, "Don't let them tell,
you no, whatever you need, go get it and get it done."
And she really put a lot of confidence in me
to understand like it's okay to be a single mom.
'Cause when I was in the relationship,
I always wanted to be a good mom,
but I just felt like I couldn't really fulfill that.
And she really taught me that like you were that person
the whole time, this, because you didn't see it.
It was in me the whole time.
And she just always saw that in me.
- [Kelly] That's invaluable.
- And just always would be-
Yes.
(audience applauding)
- And you're into mentoring women, Kim, Right?
So had you get so much joy from that?
- So much joy, just joy, even listening to this
and finding out her story and how she helped.
And that's why I wanted to know, how did you find find her?
And it is true women. We, we do connect
and some women are afraid, now COVID,
but if you see a spirit and you see they're broken
or they need help, even if people are weird,
you just always say,
"Hey, can I help you with anything? Are you okay?"
Sometimes you just want a stranger to say, "Are you okay?"
So you're like, "Yeah, I'm okay."
But you'll never know what it will open up.
Seemly.
- So, what does your life look like today?
- Oh, okay.
So I just wanna say Crystal really changed my 2021. Like,
so I have been out of school for 10 years
'cause I had my daughter and I wasn't able to finish
and I actually got money to go back to school,
but I need another $600 and Crystal
and Empowering Single Moms gave me the $600.
And so in August of 2022, I'll be a college graduate.
(audience applauding)
In public health yes, so yeah.
- [Kelly] That's amazing.
Yeah. So I'll be able to support me and my kids.
And I won't have to worry about being on anybody's anything
anymore, it just be me and my kids.
And I'm looking for it so much.
- She will stay in that network.
- Yes.
- Because now she has to pay it forward
because there's some Sydney's out here.
Okay.
- There's everybody out here.
I think everybody thinks that you're invincible and it can
never happen to you. You have no idea.
"I didn't think I would end up divorced.
I didn't think I didn't have a single mom."
Nobody plans that like.
- Nobody plans on being a single mother.
- [Kelly] No, that's what I'm saying.
Nobody really plans it.
- And this work I have yet to meet
one mother that has come and said, "oh-
- She can't sit right beside you. She adopted.
(everyone laughs)
- We don't have moms who show up like, "Oh no,
I just wanted to lay up and I had these babies."
No, that's not what to do...
listen, I want to have a better career.
I don't wanna have to report my income
every year to re-certify,
to live in this rat-infested place.
Like we, and so I go into HUD with moms and say,
"Hey, this apartment is not up to code.
This house is not up to code." They need to help,
They need support and they want to thrive.
And that's what we're here for.
And I believe in Empowering Single Moms so much.
We don't have a funding stream.
That funding stream is 10% of my salary because
I give to Empowering Single Moms every month. Okay.
I pay a storage bill, I pay for the van gas.
Okay.
Those things like that.
If a mom needs something immediately
or we don't have it in the stores
because we have a great relationship with
a retail group who gives us things,
I'm going out and buying it, because they're in need.
And I have to be what I didn't have.
And that is the ministry of what we do.
- Now why that book?
Yeah, you have to be what you didn't have.
I love that.
Dr. Crystal Edwards you're doing amazing things
and we want you to continue doing more.
So Third Love, makers have the most comfortable
and 1/2 cup size bras, underwear,
lounge wear and active wear is one of the leading
donors of undergarments in the US
donating over $50 million to date.
That's amazing.
They love the work that you're doing to empower women.
So they're going to donate $10,000 to your foundation.
(audience applauding)
Not only just the money, they're gonna donate $5,000
in product, which you talked about,
like bras, underground, that kind of stuff really.
- Thank you so much.
- So $5,000 of product as well.
(audience cheering)