podcast 1

Davis Hope discusses his experiences growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina. He highlights the privilege and wealth in his neighborhood, but also acknowledges the struggle with drug addiction in the city. Despite these challenges, integrity is a core value that he learned from his community. He emphasizes the importance of staying true to one's beliefs and values, even in the face of success. Overall, Wilmington's culture has shaped him into a better person. Alright, hello, my name is Davis Hope, and today I'm here to talk about my experiences and my culture and ecology that I grew up with in Wilmington, North Carolina. So I'm from Wilmington, North Carolina, and it's really, it's a beach, southern town, you know, a lot of people go to vacation there and go and have fun and go visit and do a lot of things, but living there was awesome growing up, we had a lot of activities to do and a lot of cool things that we could do, and, you know, especially my neighborhood, we kind of all were defined similarly, like we were all kind of from the same economic status, we had a lot of privilege in our neighborhood, a lot of people with some wealth and some people who could afford to do good things, and so that definitely impacted how I grew up, but Wilmington as a whole, you know, even people in the neighborhood, I know people who struggle with drug addiction, and Wilmington is really, like, there's a huge problem there because of the port and all the things they have to deal with, you know, it's a huge epidemic in Wilmington. So that is definitely a struggle that defines us, for sure. But also, like, through all these struggles and through all these privileges, you know, especially in my neighborhood in general, which is kind of most impacted me, you know, I learned some good values, and especially, you know, the one value I'm going to focus on is integrity, and so integrity is, you know, it's a key thing that helped a lot of people out and I definitely was taught a lot about it growing up, so, you know, my personal definition of integrity is, you know, it's when you do not compromise your beliefs and you always stay true to what you believe in and try to do that thing as good as you can. So, like, for example, growing up, you know, I'd go over to my friends' houses in my neighborhood and all my parents' friends, a lot of them are very successful, but they never would compromise where they're from, they would, you know, if they were from the country, they would hunt, they would, you know, they would always be, they would still always be, like, kind to everyone and all those things, and, you know, even if they got some wealth or got all this stuff, they still stayed true to, like, being kind and compassionate to others, and, you know, I think that really stuck with me, because, you know, once you get wealth or once you, you know, get successful in life, you don't want to lose track of your values and, like, what you grew up with, and so, in general, I think that's kind of, like, the culture college that shaped me and how I've become a better person because of the place I grew up in, which is Wilmington. Thank you.