5/9/2024 S1E1

The speaker starts by thanking Believers Church for allowing the podcast to take place in their room. Puppet Assassins is a podcast that aims to address poverty based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Christian values. The speaker shares her personal experiences, including traumatic childhood, military service, marriages, and being a single mom. She also discusses her passion for helping people in poverty and the importance of understanding their situation. The podcast will discuss goals and ways to fight poverty, including resources from books like "Broken America" and "Poverty by America". The speaker encourages listeners to reach out for help and support in their communities. The email for Puppet Assassins is provided. Hello everybody we're here for our very first podcast for Puppet Assassins obviously I need to move that a little bit to over there but however this is a view you guys are going to get today. So I would like to first of all say thank you to Believers Church for allowing the podcast to take place here. They have been very generous they've allowed us to use their room which is full equipment full foamed room and it's a big deal because this is something I can't afford on my own right now. Second of all I'd like to thank my enormous amount of friends for all the support. So moving on what is Puppet Assassins? Well let's just first of all go ahead and acknowledge that this is the very first podcast ever so I'm going to acknowledge first what Puppet Assassins is. It's a podcast that will move on to other means if possible such as public speaking and fundraising and things along those lines. It is based off Maslow's Hierarchy of Need and it's intertwined with Christian values and the love of Jesus. When I say Maslow's Hierarchy of Need that first starts off with food, shelter, clean water, clean clothes, things of that nature. My ultimate goal is to rid poverty in as many homes as possible. Since this is our first episode I'm going to go ahead and introduce myself and why I have this passion. My name is Amanda Mangrum. I've lived on this planet for 50 years and I've been through a few things so I know a few things. Anyway so let's start off. I'm from state Georgia and I have seen some pretty traumatic things as a child. My dad was a Vietnam vet. My mom was a social butterfly. So in between the two I have a romantic PTSD from my childhood which most people that have been through any childhood traumas have that. As you get to know me more I had a beautiful and when I say beautiful I really don't mean beautiful stepmother and we will just put her with the letter M. We'll just go with that. We'll call her stepmother M. Anyway she was she was a feisty one and when I say feisty I mean not in a loving way. So I've had a few childhood traumas and then I grew up I went to the Navy. I did my four years service and I did some reserve time as well but no here no there. I ended up leaving as a YN3 and you know my Navy time was pretty incredible I have to say it's one of the proudest things I have besides my son. Second of that I did get married to a Marine which was not my better choice but it was a choice that grew me up a little bit. It wasn't an abusive marriage. It taught me grit. It taught me boundaries. It taught me to stand up for myself and not be afraid of the words that come out of my mouth and you know it's just one of those situations where you have to understand you are not always the victim. Sometimes you put yourself in a victim spot. Now that doesn't go for every abusive situation but sometimes we keep running after the same material and that's what puts us in that abusive spot. I was a single mom for about 18 years and that was a struggle. That was a true struggle. I lived in poverty for a bit. I went a complete month without electricity. One month I've had to pinch pennies and I've had to go for resources to get food all while struggling with depression and PTSD from my childhood and then turn around and my PTSD from my first husband. Second husband was great. Fell in love, ran off, got married. He passed away four months into it. I've had a lot. I've had a lot of different stages. I've seen a lot of different views. You know it's amazing you you grow up thinking you're this and then you have to challenge it and then you realize oh no I'm more like this and it's just learning who you are. So that's that's the meat and potatoes. Outside of being in the Navy I was in EMS for 20 years. I ended up as paramedic. I'm still currently a paramedic in the state of Georgia and National Registry holders but then as you can say it doesn't flip my boat anymore. My passion is here. This is where I am. I saw a lot while I was out in the field and it it really inspired me to help people get out of it. It's sad to see people with empty refrigerators. It's sad to see people wearing the same clothes every day for the last week because that's all they got. It's sad to sit next to someone and not be able to breathe normally. You're sitting there holding your breath while you're trying to be as compassionate as you can. All that goes back down to the basic needs of a human being. So some things that we're going to do today are just talk about the goals of the podcast, what I want to what I want to achieve. You know we all have goals but you know I don't want to just meet a goal. I want to achieve things and also I want everyone to understand that reading about the situation at hand is the most important thing you can do to become advocates. They say an advocate is a person that doesn't go away. I love that. It's the best description. I got it from a book called Broken America. It's by Joanne Goldblum and Colleen Shaddux. Okay anyway it's called Broken America. I got it off Amazon. It's a really good read guys. If you've never lived in poverty, I'm proud of you. I'm happy for you. Great. But there's a whole world out there that lives in poverty on a daily basis and they don't say anything out of fear of isolation, out of fear of being shamed, out of fear of being founded. You know it's not something people welcome. Say man I haven't eaten anything in two days. How are you been? People don't do that. People struggle silently and the thing is poverty doesn't look like the billboards guys. Did you know that there are more white people in poverty than brown and black people? But yet on the poster boards what do you see? What do you see? You see black children, you know brown children, single parents that are you know more have more pigment and it's just it's sad because that's not the truth. And you wonder why is it that white people don't stand in line for the things that are the resources that are out there and I really believe it's pride. I really believe it's oh no we'll just make it work. We don't want to be seen with aka the black people. I really believe that. Please contact me if I am wrong. I love to be wrong because guess what I learned something new and I am not afraid to show where I can have growth. It gives me an opportunity. When you give me corrective criticism it gives me an opportunity to leave. To learn not leave. Sorry. Learn. So with that being said if I'm wrong please show me. I will relearn it. Give me your resource. Teach me because you're educating me. So I don't mind being wrong at all. I don't say I'm gonna love it but I don't mind it at all because I get to learn more. Okay so just to let you know the email to Puppet Assassins is Puppet Assassins podcast at gmail.com and it's spelled p-u-p-p-e-t-a-s-s a-s-s-i-n-s podcast p-o-d-c-o-s-t. Sorry about that. I do have a cell phone designated for that however it's not set up yet because I don't know I got overexcited and forgot to set it up. So another thing about this book Broken America again I got it off Amazon. The coolest thing about this book is that it teaches you all your good stuff. I mean well it's it's sad stuff I'm gonna be honest with you and it will break your heart but after every chapter is a way to fight poverty. I love this stuff right here. Where are we at? Where are we at? Let's see part one basic needs give me give me after the water chapter. If I was prepared I would have had this out already but I obviously I'm showing my lack of preparedness. It's alright so at the end of every chapter it has what can I do and it has a whole entire list of things that you can do as an individual to work on this subject to help your community. Now I will tell you that this this problem is not a person's problems it's a community problem. So what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to work together to donate donate time. What I want to do this is the achievement that I want to achieve is that we go out into the community so you know it's based off Maslow's hierarchy need you know it's based off Christian values so what does that look like it looks like me educating the people on resources that are out there and then to taking those resources out to the communities. So if you cannot afford a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but there's no fault in that I've been there but so odds are you don't have gas if you have a car you don't have gasoline to get there if you don't have a car sometimes the bus doesn't take you by that resource okay you have to work with what you got right so what I want to do is I want to get a community together that that can connect with me via email text messenger Facebook Instagram however you want to contact me let me know you're out there let me know you need something let me know what you need give me a description if you need diapers don't tell me I need diapers honey there's a bunch of sizes there's a bunch of sizes and it's my son is 27 so it's been a long time since I've changed a diaper but I need to know what you need so I can help you the best all right so the next book that I've already started but I probably would need to restart it to be honest with you because it's been a few weeks it's called poverty by America it's from Matthew Desmond okay I'm reading it right now actually I'll start again tonight keep me accountable um that's obviously another form of poverty and another not another form but another picture of poverty but as something through it as I already did the one of the really cool things about this book is it says become a poverty abolish let me get my words right become a poverty abolish it has a QR code guys it has a QR code ask me if I did that QR code the answer would be no I did not but I got the book and I started reading it and it okay so it when you download this it has helpful resources and you can learn how to join the fight against poverty amen so that's two books down the third book I want to talk about is more on the line of the mental health and the thing about it is we as a country have taken our sweet time getting to the point where we can talk about mental health without losing our stuff in our skin like so most people are back in the day when they talked about mental health they would get so uncomfortable that people would just jump to change the subject and that's what I mean uncomfortable in their own skin so this one right here talks about the body keeps the score I got this book at Target but I'm going to tell you if you have some demons that you're battling this might have some triggers so just take it page by page paragraph by paragraph take it as slow as you can but the more you understand what trauma does to people the more you can fight it and the more you can work around it how many of you guys are bosses and have employees that just you know they're just unexplainable different you know just you don't know you don't know what they need you don't know why they're inconsistent you don't know why they shut down you don't know why they only open up to certain people well I'm telling you right now everybody has triggers and for me when I get a big alpha man around me that's very micromanaging and very like I'm a bully but I'm gonna call myself something cool instead of a bully because you know I don't want to be founded like that that type of personality that just is overwhelming and just needs a good kick in the rear I shut down around because my first husband was that he was he liked to think he was an alpha but he came across as an alpha and he was always you know everything was a joke and everything was my fault and everything was just picking picking picking he never could just relax and not pick at me so when I get around men that are real alpha and they never do any wrong and they just want to pick pick pick pick pick I shut down I shut down completely but when I get a man that's very easy in his skin and he's extremely easy to talk to and he carries leadership with grace I'm fine I'll do anything they want because they don't they don't pinpoint any of my triggers and they just let me do my job so we've spoken about those we've talked about the things as I said I'd like to bring the resources out to the community understand one thing when I say that I don't want to go to someone's driveway okay we're not going to go to someone's driveway and drop off things we're not a delivery service so what you're going to see is when we do bring things out to the communities you're going to see us parked in a public place a very well-lit public place and we're going to offer you what what we have hopefully we have the things you need exactly but if we don't we don't we'll give you what we have and then we want to offer prayer we want to hold hands with you and pray and just let you have a moment to be and not just grab the grab the stuff and leave so we understand that you have a busy day and just let us know hey I've got to get to work let us know that because otherwise we want to talk to you we want to see what else you need we want to see where you're at as far as like mentally emotionally we want to know we want to know how we can help you so just understand that you know it's not a grab-and-go however we're not going to hold you caught hostages or anything we're not going to like you know do anything like that we'll be very kind to your time it's just yeah that's all I will have interviews I will have as many interviews as I can I can there are going to be resources that I talk about this is what I'm going to need you guys to talk to me guys I mean I need you guys to tell me hey I would really like it this person was interviewed hey I'd really like if you got to know about this resource and told us what this resource has if you if you find out that there's a resource out there that you just you don't know about but you don't have time to investigate because you've got four kids and and a husband and you know you're just slammed to the wall just let me know about it this is my whole thing this is my baby so let me know I will do what I can I'll have my phone number up and running next podcast hopefully I'll have an interview for you and we're just going to go as it comes and just hope to God that God carries through us through every step and that every ear that is supposed to hear it hears it every eye that's supposed to see it sees it and we just can carry on like that I don't do much editing so what you're getting is completely raw I don't want you to know only my my perfect you know when I say things perfectly I fumble I I'm dyslexic and I'm okay with that I get my words backwards I snort when I laugh hard and yeah I say um a lot so in conclusion for today contact me through Instagram it's puppet assassins podcast it's on the recorder I'll have that link with everything and I'll try and have everything linked that way you guys don't have to listen to me stumble but other than that I appreciate you guys thank you so much for listening thank you so much for watching and just know that everything happens for a reason every season has a meaning and every every blessing is not money so this is a puppet assassins and we believe in you all right bye you