Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home
Where are we as a community? Who do we want to become in the future? Join Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, as each week he interviews a resident of Shreveport-Bossier about the community from that particular person’s lens and perspective.
Listen on:
Episodes
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Ananya Bhatia, Junior at Caddo Magnet High School, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development with the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:
0:41 1. Generally, I don’t start an episode with a guest’s bio, simply because I expect the bio to emerge through the discussion. But the bio of my guest today is so extensive and so impressive that I would like to begin with at least the high points. My guest today is Ananya Bhatia.
Ananya is currently a junior at Caddo Magnet High. She is the president of GirlUp, the founder of Caddo Magnet High’s chapter of the Ted-ED Student Talks Program, secretary of National Honor Society, Service Coordinator of Key Club, Vice President of UNICEF, community outreach chair for Teen Advisory Committee of Northwest Louisiana, active member of Model United Nations and a member of the Legislative Youth Advisory Council. Ananya was accepted to the school of the New York Times where she had the opportunity to grow her interest in journalism and international affairs, and she has played the violin for 11 years.
Ananya, welcome and thank you so much for agreeing to come on our podcast.
We have a long history in Shreveport-Bossier of exporting many of our community’s best and brightest talents. They grow up here, go away to college, accumulate great knowledge, build powerful networks, and end up never returning to live here. With all of that said, would you ever consider living here after college? If not, how would Shreveport-Bossier have to change from what you see today to be a place you would want to return to, to live after college?
4:24 2. You are unusually involved, how did you become so service-oriented? Who taught you or inspired you to be such an activist in your community?
6:28 3. Let’s talk hypothetically for a second. You are in Washington DC for a national Ted-ED Student Talks conference and you are having lunch with a group of students from the east coast who have never heard of Shreveport-Bossier. They say, “Ananya, what’s it like where you live?” What do you tell them?
8:22 4. Let’s continue talking hypothetically. You become good friends with one of the students you meet at the Ted-ED Student Talks conference and he or she makes a trip to Shreveport-Bossier to come and see you. They are only in town for one full day. What all do you show or where all do you take him or her to give him or her a feel for your community?
10:38 5. Fast forward two years, you are hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away off at college. What are the things you miss most about your community when you’re away from it?
11:59 6. As you look around the Shreveport-Bossier community, what are the things you see that make you most hopeful that life is getting better here and that we are making progress as a community?
17:39 7. Lastly, what’s the community you want to see here?
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Chris Dudley, Director of Tennis at Querbes Tennis Center, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:
1:08 1. Chris, you grew up in Rockville Maryland, lived and worked in St. Louis and Atlanta, before finally coming to the Shreveport-Bossier area at the beginning of 2020.
New people moving to a community are invaluable for so many reasons. Chief among those, in my opinion, is the fresh set of eyes they bring. It is hard to define oneself or even one’s community, you are too close to the subject. But the newly arrived, because they are viewing things from the outside, can often see more clearly.
So with all of that, what do you see when you look at Shreveport-Bossier? Or in other words, how do you describe this community to your friends and family who have never been here before?
3:16 2. Let’s talk tennis for a second. You are the Director of Tennis at Querbes Tennis Center which underwent an important and significant renovation a couple of years ago. I’ll go ahead and show my hand. I’m an avid tennis player and have been around the game my entire life.
One thing I’ve been most struck by since you came to town is the way you have transformed Querbes into being more of a community center than I ever recall it being during my lifetime. You clearly enjoy bringing people together and you have a way of making tennis and Querbes as a whole a very warm and unintimidating place for people.
Where does this desire to create community come from? How did you learn it?
10:24 3. What are some of the things in the community you like doing most when you’re not on the tennis court?
14:10 4. What have we yet to figure out compared to some of the other places where you have lived and worked?
19:15 5. What do we do better than the other places where you have lived and worked?
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Gabriel Balderas, Owner and Chef of El Cabo Verde and Zuzul, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development with the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:
1:10 1. Gabriel, correct me if I am wrong, but you grew up in Oaxaca, moved to the States when you were 16, and have lived in Chicago, Kentucky, Birmingham and Washington DC. Can you talk a little bit about how you got to Shreveport-Bossier?
3:05 2. What did Shreveport-Bossier feel like or look like to you when you arrived? What did you notice?
4:23 3. You are Hispanic, one of Shreveport-Bossier’s numerous ethnic populations. Can you talk about the Hispanic population locally? Do you feel like it is a healthy population? Are the Hispanics locally unified?
7:20 4. Many people know you as the owner and chef of two great local restaurants, El Cabo Verde and Zuzul. But what most people don’t know is that you are also a board member of the Metropolitan Planning Commission. Talk to me about your work on the Planning Commission. How did it come about and why is serving as a board member on the MPC important to you?
12:05 5. You value this community and are often giving back, whether it is by committing to utilize ingredients from local growers or overseeing a garden at a local elementary school. How did you learn such a sense of community? Who taught you that or where does it come from?
14:56 6. What do you feel is holding us back from being one of the next, great cities in the United States? What are some areas of this community you feel can be improved upon?
17:55 7. As you look around, what makes you prideful of Shreveport-Bossier?
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Saturday Jul 23, 2022
Al Childs, Managing Partner of Vintage Realty Company, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:
1:16 1. You have done something many others envy. You have some way, somehow, convinced all three of your kids to stay and raise their families in Shreveport? With regards to this, what do you attribute your success to and do you have any advice for others hoping to achieve a similar result?
4:08 2. Can you talk about some of the people in the community who inspire you? What business owners and/or organizations currently get you excited by the work they are doing?
7:35 3. You are the owner of Vintage Realty. Can you explain a little about the type of work that Vintage does? What are a few of Vintage’s current projects?
14:46 4. Are there particular cities around the country that provide examples to you of what Shreveport should aspire to in the future? If so, can you talk about a few of the cities and the characteristics of them you feel we should strive to emulate?
21:45 5. As a local employer, what are some of the challenges you face recruiting and retaining people?
26:18 6. I’ve known you for a long time and am always struck by your upbeat, optimistic nature. What makes you prideful of your community?
38:20 7. What is holding us back?
44:12 8. What will propel us forward?