This is Community S1 Trailer Script

[This script was for Purpose Built Communities' narrative podcast series, This Is Community. You can listen to the series here.]

NARRATOR (0:00)

Poverty is the neighbor of wealth in America's cities.

[moody music fade-in]

And those who are poor don't lack ambition for a better life. Quite the contrary. The American Dream is in the hearts of people in every zip code. But not every neighborhood offers the same chance to achieve that American Dream. And many of those areas—they were excluded on purpose.

EDDY MORATIN - LIFT ORLANDO (0:23)

I don't expect the neighborhood to be 100% Black forever. But I just don't want it to be like we were never here.

NARRATOR (0:30)

For more than 50 years, America has tried to eliminate poverty. Good intentions and billions of public and private dollars have failed to move the needle.

MICHELLE MATTHEWS - PURPOSE BUILT COMMUNITIES (0:39)

Our founding documents and this idea of all are created equal. We often operate as if that how what we have practiced. And instead, it really is what we aspire.

[moody music cross-fade into fermata/pause in theme music]

NARRATOR (0:53)

But there's a better way.

We can choose to change the status quo, to build communities where everyone has the opportunity to succeed.

OTHELLO MEADOWS - SEVENTY FIVE NORTH (1:03)

Is that fire still burning? Do they still feel like they could be whatever? That's one of the things that you walk into a school, and I look for those girls - they still got, they still believe they still think they can do whatever.

NARRATOR (1:17)

Welcome to This Is Community, a podcast series by Purpose Built Communities.

KIA BAKER - SOUTHEAST RALEIGH PROMISE (1:21)

Number one is to always lead with equity. And so we're really framing our work around a racial equity lens. Because we can do all of this, right? But if we don't blow up the system that created the problem in the first place, then 20, 30, 40 years from now, we're really just going to be in the same place.

NARRATOR (1:39)

This series will show how the Purpose Built Communities model for holistic community revitalization is working to break the cycles of intergenerational poverty across America.

CAROL NAUGHTON - PURPOSE BUILT COMMUNITIES (1:49)

This kind of change and growth doesn't happen overnight, no matter how good you think you are. Because if you come in and you think you can change everybody's performance in a year, you're lying. Or you're just naïve. And I like to think people aren't naïve.

NARRATOR (2:06)

We'll hear stories about:

• interstates dividing communities;

• walking out your door and feeling it;

• both public charter schools and traditional public schools helping students in neighborhoods;

• the struggles of fighting against the forces of gentrification;

• waking up and walking with a purpose every day; and

• coming back, full circle.

Go to purposebuiltcommunities.org/podcast to listen to This Is Community, starting October 23.

[theme music last chord, slow fade-out]