Join hosts Monique Velasquez and Piper Kessler for an inspiring

conversation with Shaunelle Curry—educator, author, and founder of Media

Done Responsibly. From starting her first nonprofit at age 6 to

teaching 20,000+ youth about media literacy and digital wellbeing,

Shaunelle shares why preserving marginalized stories isn't just about

history—it's about our future in an AI-driven world.

In This Episode:

The "Trash Picker Uppers": How a 6-year-old's nonprofit shaped a

lifetime of activism

Why representation in media is a human rights issue, not just diversity

checkbox

The shocking radio incident that sparked a nationwide movement

How young people are leading the charge for ethical AI and digital

wellness

The urgent need to preserve marginalized stories before AI learns

without them

Creating safe spaces for difficult conversations across cultural divides

Key Timestamps:

01:21 - Introduction to Shaunelle Curry

04:45 - The Trash Picker Uppers story

08:40 - What is HELP (Hello Elevated Life Purpose)?

17:06 - The "nappy headed" incident that changed everything

27:07 - Why inclusion matters systemically

37:13 - Connecting people across ideologies through storytelling

46:03 - What young people face that we never did

48:18 - The AI warning: "We're not only erasing history, we're erasing

our future"

Powerful Quote: "If AI learns off of public records that we are now

deleting and erasing, we are not only erasing history, we are erasing

our future."

About Our Guest: Shaunelle Curry is the founder of Media Done

Responsibly and professor of journalism, TV, film, and media studies.

Creator of "Shattered Glass" and author of "Shairi's Journey Through

Darkness Into Light," she's equipped over 20,000 underestimated youth

with media literacy rooted in justice and care.

Connect with Shaunelle: Website: shaunellecurry.com Organization: Media

Done Responsibly App: MDR Hub and Innovation Lab

Production: Velasquez Media - LGBTQ women-owned, Latino-led video

production

#MediaLiteracy #RepresentationMatters #DigitalWellbeing #AIEthics #StorytellingForChange #SocialEntrepreneur #MediaDoneResponsibly #YouthEmpowerment #DigitalJustice #DiversityInMedia #CulturalPreservation #WomenInMedia #ChangeTheReel #VelasquezMedia #AuthenticVoices

You know, you might be a person like me who's like, oh, I see a need.

Let me step in here and create an initiative or create a business to fulfill this.

All of that is critical when it comes to preserving legacy of sharing value and sharing our values and passing those forward to future generations.

I am talking about humankind.

I'm talking about a world that works for all of us.

We are all diverse.

We just happen to be in societies that have named a dominant culture

through which every other culture is identified.

Change the Real, a podcast with Monique Velasquez and Piper

Kessler.

For over 20 years, we've run a video production business

that has achieved what only 3% of women entrepreneurs have done,

exceed $250,000 in revenue.

We want to see business owners that look like us succeed.

That's why we've started this podcast.

Change the Real will drop twice a month.

We'll release two types of episodes.

One is with Piper and I kicking it and talking about using video in business.

And the second features conversations with business owners using media

to drive diverse perspectives.

This is Change the Real.

presentation starts here.

Hey

y'all.

I'm Monique Velasquez. And I'm Piper Kessler. Today I'm

excited to get to know and introduce our guest, Chanel Curry. I want you to know that I'm such a

fan of Chanel's work. I could talk about it for hours, but I promise you I'll keep it the conversation

to just 45 minutes.

Wah-wah.

Chanel is an educator,

an author,

social entrepreneur whose work uplifts communities

and transforms the digital landscape.

She is the founder of Media Done Responsibly

and a professor of journalism, television,

film, and media studies.

She's also a creator.

Chanel created Shattered Glass, a stage play,

and I'm going to get this wrong already.

Shairi's Journey Through Darkness Into Light, a poetic memoir based on the play. Her work has

equipped over 20,000 underestimated youth with media literacy and digital well-being education,

the type of education that is rooted in justice and care. Chanel has been featured at international

events like Global Sync Digital Wellbeing Summit in Saudi Arabia, the Skoll World Forum at Oxford,

the Berkeley Forum at UC Berkeley, and the Namely Summit. Hey, get this,

she was even featured on

The Dr. Phil Show, The New York Times, and Wired Magazine. She's also curated and moderated the

Digital Wellness Day panel with the filmmakers of Netflix's The Social Dilemma.

Through her new

initiative, Hello Elevated Life Purpose, H-E-L-P, help.

Chanel helps executives in transition to restore their creative voice and unlock the story they

were born to tell.

Her work is inspiring to change makers, those who are bridging truth, supporting equity,

and forging human connection in our shifting digital world.

Chanel, thanks for joining Change the Real.

Thank you so much, Monique and Piper.

I'm excited to be here.

I want folks to know that you are out there helping the next generation of media creators

and storytellers and creating space for people to step into their authentic selves.

And you are consciously doing this as a woman of color and helping people see that their voice

matters and can change or shift different perspectives out there.

We know you're out there.

You're trying to change the real and the story about who should be considered experts.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Let's give credit where credit is due.

Even if this is not a person you've ever met, who would you hand out your flowers to today

for shaping your entrepreneurial journey?

Oh,

wow.

Hands down, my mom.

Hands down, my mom.

She, Jane Curry Lee, shout out to her, from a very early age, she was just this incredibly tiny but powerful woman.

And she supported really all of my creative endeavors.

When I say I was in everything growing up, I was in everything.

Tap, dance lessons, ballet, piano lessons.

I was in choir and the church and all the plays, any sort of academic writing, drama, like all of the things that you can imagine.

My mom made sure that I was a part of it.

And she saw something in me and really just allowed me to be who I was.

I joke that nowadays I'm in a million things because I was always in a million things growing up as a child.

And I hosted and she she really supported this my very first business when I was like six years old.

It was my first nonprofit organization. It was called the Trash Picker Uppers.

So the Trash Picker Uppers was a group of friends of mine and I and I we were walking one day on our street and there was a high school next to it.

It was an abandoned high school at this point with the gate.

And there were all these candy wrappers and potato chip bags and all of this along the pathway on the sidewalk.

And I was just really upset.

I was steamed.

This is our neighborhood.

You know, we need to make sure that it is clean.

And so I had this idea we're going to go around our neighborhood and collect money so that we can purchase trash bags and gloves.

And we were going to clean up the neighborhood.

And we had to, of course, have a name.

And what better name than the Trash Picker Uppers?

Very mission-driven.

You know, these cute little kids are picking up,

are going door to door to talk to our neighbors.

And they loved it.

They gave us money.

And my mom really supported that.

So we did.

It was hard work, too, my goodness.

But ever since then, any time that I have seen

that there was a need for something that was important to me

and important to the community. And I didn't see anyone doing something about it. I took it upon

myself to usually create a business or create some sort of idea or initiative where we could tackle

that.

Well, I love the story that you have with your mom. And I find that, you know, often family

members are these supportive roles in her life. And I also love that she helped you be a busy person

and let you practice being the doer of all the things. So that is something that...

At the age of six.

At the age of six. Well, you know, there's a lot going on in that story. So I love that you can shout

out your mom and to and explain that that is where a lot of what you have been practicing all your

life to be standing where you are today. Right.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And she was a great model

of it herself. Even though she did not have businesses, she was so engaged. And so she would

say, oh, no, no. You know, it's something she doesn't think about. But she absolutely has been

that for me.

Yeah, I love that. I love that we've given you a little platform to say, hey,

give it up. There you go. So tell us a little bit about your work at HELP. What's the heart of what

you do there and what keeps you motivated to show up and do this work every day?

Right. So HELP

is an acronym, Hello Elevated Life Purpose. And the vision for that is really to unlock the story

born to tell. All of us has a story. All of us have stories and they may come in different forms.

So they might be written, they might be sculpture, they might be a song, etc. And I'll tell you a

little bit about twofold, I think, really why this came to be. One of them is I feel like I work with

so many people who are executives and who are administrators. And once we put on that administrative

hat. Sometimes our creative hat goes to the wayside. We're focused on the busy work that's

needed and our soul really longs to create. And we will constantly say, oh, I have a book I want to

write. And I know several. I have a book I want to write. I have this song or this play or this

film script that I want to produce. But one day, as soon as the kids graduate, as soon as I get

my promotion as soon as there's always as soon as and that constantly gets pushed into the future

and what I say is as soon as I decide is when we can start doing it so I really want to support

people in taking action to create some element of their journey some some project or some component

of the project whether it's a book proposal it's a few chapters whether it's the outlay

whether it's completing the book itself, whether it is connecting and making sure that you have your

lyrics for your song registered on BMI or something, you know what I'm saying? So whatever we need to do

to start to move that process forward is really important. The other element connects back to my

work with Media Done Responsibly, where that's my nonprofit. And the focus of Media Done Responsibly

has been to ensure that there is equitable representation in the media, as well as digital

well-being and digital wellness in all of the spaces that we engage with media. I have a focus

on young people as leaders. Young people oftentimes are seen as people that we must teach and support

and help. And yes, and while that is the case, it's also critical for us to understand that

when we open the platform for them to share their ideas, to share their stories,

it can be something that is really, really powerful. So the work that I started originally

with Media Done Responsibly was making sure that there was a pathway and an open door for stories

that are not traditionally shown, stories that are more marginalized, for them to have a place

in our society, for them to be amplified and centered. And right now, I think in where we are

in society, especially where we are dealing with museums right now, for instance, the National

Museum of African American History and Culture, there's so much backlash on something like

enslavement and what should or should not be told, there is a process that is not new. It was very

much a part of colonialism and those structures that strip people of their identity. But this

process of erasing stories that are critical, this is in some ways an answer and a response to that.

There's a whole lot to unpack. And I want to talk a little bit about, like, let's circle back to

help. And I think that that is, you know, a great way to get people that are busy to remember that

the micro steps, the micro movements, and being accountable for those micro movements are very

important for their journey to getting to there someday, right? Because every day we don't do

something, it is just another day we don't do something. So I mean, the little steps are what

turn into, oh my gosh, I got a book deal, or oh my gosh, I have the screenplay done, right? It's just

the little steps. So kudos to you for doing that. And I find it also interesting for you, like what

got you to really focus here on this, in this way? I mean, what was it there that made you go,

I need to be doing this.

Because I'm one of those people. I am literally one of those people who

I have so I wear so many hats. Like you said, I'm a college professor. I teach TV, film and media

studies and journalism studies. I also run a nonprofit myself. And I was really hungry to be

able to rewrite a book. So you mentioned Shairi's journey. Shairi is Kiswahili. That word means a

of poetry, a line of song. It's also the name of the character in this book that is a poetic

narrative of her journey from trauma and struggling to self-efficacy and self-worth and value and her

also her spiritual journey to opening up to the fullness of who she is. And we took that book and

made it into the stage play, Shattered Glass. And until COVID happened and shut everything down.

And what I have wanted to do is rewrite, well, I wouldn't say rewrite the book, but write a second

edition of the book, where I have so many more elements to include in it, new introduction,

new works that were related to the poem, I mean, I'm sorry, to the play. And so,

But finding the time to do that and having a supportive community that helps me to be accountable to that has been so necessary.

And I know how it feels when the important work that we are doing and the work that we're doing that pays the bills becomes obviously priority.

Our families become priority.

And those projects that we have that are a part of our heart and soul get pushed to the back burner.

and so this is in essence why I decided to do this. It's a gift that I have. I know how to turn a

vision and put a strategy behind it and put a plan into place and get it done, you know, and I support

students with doing that all of the time and so because I think this is a critical, critical moment

in our history for us to be able to preserve legacy throughout communities that have been

marginalized communities that have been underrepresented, and even communities that may not have think

they have, but may be in the future, it's critical for us to prioritize our stories in a variety of

forms so that we can maintain our legacies.

Can you share a moment when that like that aha moment,

maybe several different ones, but when you realize representation was missing and

you know, that you were called up to be a model for that? And how did you push to create that

change? Excellent

question. Thank you, Piper. Years ago, there was a shock jock who really

devalued certain women, African-American basketball players. And he called them,

quote-unquote nappy-headed hose on the air. And at the same time as that occurred in a very public

space, I also had a friend call me, and it was like 11 o'clock at night, and she said,

I want you to hear something, and she put the phone to her window. And there was a nine-year-old girl,

and I will spare you the exact lyrics that she was yelling at the top of her lungs, but she was

singing this very salacious song at the top of her lungs with kind of really words you really

would not imagine that she should know at nine years old, nor should she be out by herself at

that age. But her mom worked, you know, double shifts, etc. And I'm hearing this and it really

hit my heart that the only ways in which African American women and girls were being represented

in the media were hypersexual, were around violence, were around just very demeaning

language and roles. And I knew that something different needed to happen. And so I called up

friends. And I said, wow, wouldn't it be amazing if we just had one day to honor women and girls

through music in ways that we don't normally hear? And so we started this campaign at the time called

Mother's Day Radio. And for 24 hours, we petitioned, and by we, I mean young people, young people in

Los Angeles, in St. Louis, Missouri, in Chicago, in PA, petitioned their local radio stations to

participate in this day on Mother's Day weekend to honor women through music and song. I thought

that was it. I thought, okay, I did that thing. You know, we did that. It was great. But it was

the young people who said, you know what, we want more. And so we had a symposium with a fabulous

filmmaker, Byron Hurd. He had a film called Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes that talked about the

ways in which Black and Latino men and Black and Latina women were put in boxes in the music

industry, in particular in hip-hop, but not just in those genres. And the young people who attended

kept saying, my eyes have been opened, you know, what can we do? Can you please provide us with

mentors so that we can understand how to talk to our friends about this? And so from there, we really

began this project with the universities where we trained college students to go into middle schools

and high schools to support young people in understanding that the ways in which they were

represented are not always the ways that fully represent their humanity, and they didn't have to

accept that. And so from there, it grew. Anytime the young people said, you know, Professor Curry,

we need this, you know, we jumped on it. And that's what I'm saying, you know, understanding

the voice and the power of the young people is really critical. So we then began to look into a

variety of issues like body image in media and feeling like you have to look a certain way. We

dealt with cyberbullying and suicide. So it just really expanded. But that was my opening. That was

really the beginning, that just fierceness, that idea that we are more than who we're being represented

as. And that's important for us to create a space in the media landscape that really shares and

reflects the fullness and the diversity of our humanity.

Wow.

I

told you you'd be excited.

Well, I mean, it's

the thing of, well, it's so, it's, what's interesting to me is it's so simple,

but yet not, of you see something and you recognize it as there's trash in the neighborhood

and I need to do something and you take action.

Maybe there's a roadblock in there that I'm not hearing, but, you know, for a lot of people,

they don't have that confidence.

They don't.

But I mean, it sounds like from a young age, you've got the backing of your community.

And so there's not a roadblock.

It's like I see a lack.

I need to engage other people and do something and do something.

I mean, that's kudos.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, I told you, you know, having this conversation a bit longer, you get to know a little bit more about what Chanel's mission in life, not just what she does, is amazing.

And, you know, we talk about representation and your story is, you know, you had a specific story about this little girl.

And we're making the assumption of the ethnicity or the, you know, what the color of her skin is or what her, you know, cultural background is.

If she's singing the song at the top of her lungs at 11 o'clock at night.

But those are, you know, cultural biases on me because I don't know that you said what, you know, what neighborhood it was coming from.

Could have been a Latino or the Asian or, you know, some other neighborhood.

But I think it's important to recognize that as a person of color and having some privilege through education, that that helped the weight of your capacity and your natural gifts to see the need and push through.

Right. And so I think those things are what are like captivating for me and like want to like put some rocket fuel under what you do and make sure that it gets out there in a bigger way.

And so, you know, talking about inclusion and when you see this idea, it's like, OK, you're talking about you saw this need and you're going like culturally and systemically, why inclusion matters in these spaces and what you talk about and what you do.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. So much to unpack from what you all both just said. And Piper, yes, there have been roadblocks or continue to be roadblocks, you know, especially I would say one of the biggest, especially in the nonprofit realm, is funding and also unrestricted funding.

specifically for Black woman-led agencies, we get probably less than 1% of unrestricted funding.

And so it becomes very difficult to do these things. It requires a lot of creativity

in terms of getting support from the community, building collaborations.

And I would say this, I used to wonder all the time because I just had so many passions,

why doesn't everybody just do the thing that they love?

Like that just makes sense to me, right?

Why doesn't everybody just do it?

And so, but what I have learned is that it can be a rough road.

And that is part of why I created help, right?

It's the name help.

We need help.

And it's Hello Elevated Life purpose because when we push through,

I say there are four stages.

The passion stage is that first stage.

We're so giddy. We're so excited. You know, we're going to change the world with this.

And then we bump into some of those roadblocks and we get into that commitment stage.

And so then we're like, OK, I'm committed to this. I've got my plan.

These are the things that I'm laying out. This is the direction that I'm going to go into.

And then we hit those major walls and we have to let me go back to my day job for a couple of years or whatnot.

And that's when I say we get into that resilient stage because we've started and stopped and started and stopped a thing.

But once we push through that resilient stage, we're able to get to this stage of rise where we have the energy to actually sustain what we are doing.

And so to your point, my being able to get through those various roadblocks, to continue to see something and say, you know what, this is on me.

Let me do something about this to move it forward. It's not been easy, but it is a testament to the resilience that I have and the levels of commitment that I have and strategy as well that I'm able to now impart to other people through the HELP program.

For us to get our stories out, we're going to need to do this. And then the importance of

representation. I think sometimes people hear these terms representation and they hear inclusion and

diversity and it kind of becomes a stale term without understanding really the meat and the

heart of it. And I will say this. I am talking about humankind. I'm talking about a world that

works for all of us. We are all diverse. We just happen to be in societies that have named a dominant

culture through which every other culture is identified. And so, and what I mean by that,

we look at the world through the lens of a dominant culture and everything else is kind of on the side

of that, or it's a American plus. So African American, right? So there's the American, and then

you have an idea of what the American is, but then you have Asian American, African American,

right? You have indigenous American or whatever it may be. It becomes like an add-on as opposed to

part of the fullness of that human culture. And so when we're talking about stories that are diverse,

life itself is diverse. The stars in the sky are diverse. You know, the ecosystem is diverse.

It is a matter of giving equal weight to all of us. Just the idea that the importance of our stories, all of our stories, are really critical for us to be able to understand one another, to be able to see how we can work together with one another, to be able to utilize the various technologies that different cultures and different elements of society have used to support moving forward.

I believe so many solutions that we are looking for can be found when we very openly and honestly share with one another.

And that's going to require building trust.

And that requires connecting with people from a heart space, from understanding that they are valued human beings.

And so I think really, especially in the age of AI, that is critical.

And so what kind of work do you do when you're trying to connect people in different ways from different, you know, ideologies, cultures, viewpoints, perspectives? What do you do specifically?

So thank you. That's a great question. You know, there are a variety of things that I do. One of them is we have film festivals that are we have the media done responsibly film festival. It's a hybrid virtual and in-person film festival. And what we do is center the stories of those people who are traditionally marginalized or who may not be centered in their own stories.

They may not normally be the ones who are telling their stories.

And so we make sure that we open the door to very unique stories that are centered from perspectives that are really non-dominant.

And then the second thing that we do is a process called cafe conversation or living room conversation that we've worked with our partners at Living Room Conversations in designing these.

And that is where people from a variety of different perspectives come together to talk about really touchy issues.

Like this is something I believe, you know, in the U.S., we really need to have these conversations as opposed to just wiping out historical facts and items from these museums.

But having conversations that are civil dialogues where we are able to practice the art of listening to others who have a different perspectives with from a space of non-judgment and practicing the art of listening while also having authentic communication.

It is something that we are truly, truly listening to one another, learning from each other and moving forward from that space.

So that is really critical.

And then the other is the work that I'm doing with HELP, Hello Elevated Life Purpose, where we are essentially having people tap into their personal stories and understanding that it may come in a variety of forms.

It might come through a business that you have.

It might come through an art installation.

It might be a book.

It might be poetry.

It might be songs.

It might be an album.

It may be a business that you are creating.

You might be me.

You know, you might be a person like me who's like, oh, I see a need.

Let me step in here and create an initiative or create a business to fulfill this.

All of that is critical when it comes to preserving legacy of sharing value and sharing our values

and passing those forward to future generations.

I think we are, one thing I tell my students all the time is we are in a small moment on

the long timeline of humanity.

What are we going to do with it?

Are you going to let someone else tell

that story?

Yeah, I love that.

And, you know, and here's the thing that I like about the kitchen table idea.

And that is, as people of color, you know, we're in different spaces, women on different

spaces.

And a lot of times, because we're in the LGBTQ community, we are asked to represent the whole

community in different spaces.

You know, it's an uncomfortable thing because I know my viewpoint does not always match somebody

who is also in the same space.

And so these dialogues that happen in this situation, you kind of go in knowing you might be asked to represent an entire block of idea.

And it also creates a space where potentially you could be asked or to think about an uncomfortable, you know, topic.

Like, why can't you use so many different words?

Right. I mean, queer space, Latino spaces.

African-American spaces, Asian spaces. You just can't use certain words. And why is that? Well,

let's break it down. This is a space where we can talk about it versus we're at work and near the

water cooler and this is not the space to do that. And so I like that you're out there, you know,

creating these spaces and these opportunities for young people to really get their eyes opened about

how to navigate some of these uncomfortable topics. I have a follow-up question here about

what, with the young people, what topic keeps coming up that you're like, huh, that's something

that we didn't have in our generation, or maybe it's, huh, maybe we should start seeing how we can

change this about society or our culture or our systems.

Yeah, thank you. You said so much, and

And I will address that, Monique. And I also want to say that what you said really is the crux of it, that you find yourself having to represent everyone, you know, who is a part of the LGBTQIA community, right?

And you should not have to because it is, you know, it's not a monolith.

It's not everyone does not walk around as, you know, robots with the same type of thinking.

We are all human, right?

And so we have a variety of backgrounds and we can speak from our perspectives, but they're going to be different.

And we can learn from that.

One of the questions that I always ask my students is how many of you have ever lived with someone before?

And how many of you have always agreed with everything that the people that you've lived with has said?

Right?

We don't.

We don't always agree with everyone in our own household.

How do we expect to agree with everyone in the world?

Right?

Like that is just a completely unrealistic idea.

And one of my favorite 20th century poets is Audre Lorde.

And I love the way that she speaks about all of the intersections in her life and the various groups that she found herself in, whether it was as a Black woman or as a queer woman or as a woman in an interracial relationship, as a mother.

And all of those various groups would sometimes conflict with one another, but she was a part of all of them.

And so this idea of understanding that our differences don't have to mean that we have to other someone else. It doesn't have to mean that we make other people wrong in order for us to be safe and to be okay. And I think once we begin to hear more stories from traditionally marginalized communities, we can begin the process of no longer othering folks.

OK, so that was one. And remind me of what your original question was, because I just when you were saying that, I was like, I have to I'm in your amen corner.

I need to.

So students, students, what surprised you and what they revealed to you and what your system, what you came from and what you see as potential trends and changes from them?

There's

so much with the advancements in technology right now. It has, I think, amplified what we went through. So I used to work with young women who did not know that they had been sexually assaulted because they did not know that they had choice.

They did not know that if they were in a room that they could say no and that their body was their own.

And so that is one thing.

Bullying was prominent, of course, you know, for young people growing up.

But now it's amplified in online spaces.

And so you may have young people who are bullied online and you have no idea who has started this.

It's

such a scary

feeling to not, yeah, it's anonymous to not know who is hating on you.

And so you do have young people who are taking their lives, who have attempted suicide, who

it's very heart-wrenching.

And we actually have some of our college students worked with a seventh grader who in sixth grade

had attempted suicide because of that type of bullying.

And they were able to really create a safe space for her to share and to heal.

And so, you know, those are some of the things.

But also now in gaming spaces, we have young people who are groomed or who are who don't understand how to stay safe in those spaces.

And so we're really, really working on understanding how do we utilize technology, which is moving rapidly, right?

AI is faster than anything that we can imagine.

And the advancements in AI are faster than we can imagine.

And so how do we create ethical AI?

How do we create ethical digital spaces and gaming spaces?

That's really a big part of my focus.

And with the storytelling, if AI learns off of public records that we are now deleting and erasing, we are not only erasing history, we are erasing our future.

Because AI and future AI and all that it will do, now it's an assistant, but in the future,

it will begin making decisions for us and for our lives, which algorithms are already

doing these days, but on a much larger scale than we can imagine right now.

Imagine if whole communities are erased from that.

Imagine if we are not able to understand legacies like the legacy of enslavement and how a whole

group of people were able to be resilient and still build their lives after that and work in

community with other cultures to expand society and make powerful contributions to society.

If AI has not learned that, then that culture and that contribution to our humanity is not just lost

in history, it's lost in the future as well. And so all of these things, I think about these things.

It's not just, oh, we need to tell a story. We need to preserve our humanity for the benefit of

all of us, not just for one of us.

Yeah, that is an amazing call for attention

on our part to really be attentive to what we're putting into the big machine.

Yeah, it's been magnified in what kind of erasure that we encountered that this generation's encounter.

It's just crazy.

We love having a chance to introduce our audience to amazing change makers and folks that are showing up authentically and change the reel for people that

look like us, right?

If folks want to know more about working with you or how to get your message to their students or how can they get more information?

You can

definitely reach me at shaunelcurry.com.

That is S-H-A-U-N-E-L-L-E-C-U-R-R-Y.com.

You will see information both about help, Hello Elevated Life Purpose.

I have a five-day challenge and also a mastermind that's coming up for people, as well as Media

Done Responsibly.

So you'll see links to Media Done Responsibly as well to determine, you know, where you want

to get involved.

But I will say this, as much as we can look at what seems to be going wrong in the world,

there are those of us who are dynamic and who have just this powerful drive to create change,

to come together across disciplines, across cultures, across genders and gender, you know,

ideas, ideations, and to really talk about how can we build solutions where we're all

working together.

And so that for me is inspiration.

I'm inspired by that.

I don't, you know, we have this moment in time that we're here and I really feel like

we have an opportunity to do some great things. Anytime something is torn down, that means it's

time for the Phoenix to rise. How can we build it back up better? How can we now, you know, instill

the values that we wish had been there in the first place? So this is that time for us to do that right

now.

Yes, absolutely. And, you know, and I, you know, I forget my short time on the campus with,

the, you know, teaching that the students and even in high school, the students always, always

give so much back to me when I was there. And it sounds like, you know, we have that hope. We have

the capacity and all those things that are, you know, uplifting. It's out there. It's in us.

Thanks to you, Chanel, people are really finding that and uncovering that for themselves. So,

Thank you.

We had a lot of fun.

Yes, this has been so much fun.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you 100%.

One last thing I'll tell you, we created an app called the Media Dumb Responsibility, our

MDR Hub and Innovation Lab.

And it is for those young people who are innovators, who are thinking through solutions, who want

to understand more about our media landscape and how they can create change and really be

ready for our movement forward.

Okay, we'll put those in the show notes so people can find all that information.

So now we're going to let you go and enjoy that California sunshine.

We love that you're out there doing all the

things.

And thanks, everybody,

for checking in.

Thank you. I appreciate you.

Thank you so much, Mom.

Thank you so much, Piper.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Change the Real.

If you like the episode, subscribe, share it, or leave a comment.

And remember, representation starts here.

Hasta pronto.

See you soon!