How to care for your community with radical hospitality (with Doniece Sandoval)
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You're listening to How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. So to start off today's episode, let me ask you a question. Do you volunteer in your community? Don't feel bad if the answer is no. No need to feel bad. Whether you currently volunteer or not, you probably have some mental image of what it means to be a volunteer.

Maybe you picture someone who is just like truly next level, someone who's on a different plane of existence, a person who is so pure and good that they've never done anything wrong. Or maybe your mental image is a little bit less generous and you imagine someone who is very sanctimonious and holier than thou bragging to you all about the incredible work that they do in the community. Like most things, look, the reality isn't typically either of these extremes.

Some aspects of volunteering that I think don't get talked about either way are that, you know, having a regular commitment can be a great way to meet people, to make friends and develop new skills. For me, I started volunteering when I moved to L.A. and I didn't know that many people here. And I also didn't have reliable work. And so let's just say I had a lot of free time. And also, to be honest, I really wanted to have a better answer to the question, what are you up to these days? Because the one that I was giving kind of made me feel pathetic.

So I've been helping out at a homelessness nonprofit that felt like, oh, that's a much better response.

And I have to say, though, that by volunteering, I did end up making friends. And I also learned a lot about one of the most pressing issues that faces this city that I now call home. And I learned about it by meeting people who are directly affected by homelessness and hearing from them about what would be helpful. So today on the podcast, we're going to talk about volunteering and we're going to talk to someone who's gotten way deeper in on these issues than I have.

Denise Sandoval has been doing transformative work for years, and it's all driven by this idea that she calls radical hospitality. Here's how she described that in her talk at TEDxSanFrancisco. If you live or work in San Francisco, or just about any community in California, or sadly, even in this country, you have lightly witnessed the seemingly intractable challenge that is homelessness. Yet when most of us pass a houseless neighbor on the street, we're not

We look the other way. It's understandable. It's hard to reconcile ourself to the suffering of others around us, especially when we feel powerless to help. That was me until that day, sitting in the cab, when I connected with the simple but powerful truth that these were people with hopes and dreams and fears just like mine.

People who, because of one or two turns of bad luck and no safety net to catch them, just kept falling until they hit bottom. And so sitting in the cab that day, I decided I was going to try to help. A few weeks later, I read that Muni was retiring its old diesel buses.

And I got this crazy idea as the bells went off in my head to take those buses and convert them into mobile showers and toilets for people, to do something good with something that people love to hate. To me, the obvious need was -- it was simple, but I knew that it was about so much more than just getting people clean, because at the end of the day, a shower --

something that we almost all take for granted, connects us with our sense of self and with our dignity. And dignity is a big and powerful concept, and one of its meanings is a sense of pride in oneself and self-respect. Homelessness destroys your dignity and your sense of self-worth. It makes you invisible and unwanted.

Being seen is something that we all need and long for, but it is particularly important to our houseless neighbors. We see it in our work every day as it helps them persevere through seemingly insurmountable challenges. When we call the way that we work "radical hospitality," it's radical because this level of care is rarely extended to people moving through homelessness.

We believe that raising the bar on how you serve people is revolutionary. Hospitality, because it's rooted in generosity and our shared humanity.

We go as many miles as it takes to ensure that our guests leave feeling better than when they arrived. Underpinning it all, again, is this concept of dignity, but this time defined as the state or quality of being worthy of honor or of respect. Because at the end of the day, dignity encompasses both the way that you feel about yourself and the way that you are treated.

I believe that radical hospitality can offer an antidote to some of what ails us. Imagine, for example, what might change if we turned toward a houseless neighbor, if we turned toward each other and offered our own small gesture of radical hospitality. And now imagine if that happened at scale.

which is why I invite you to consider conducting your own experiment in seeing by embracing and unleashing a little radical hospitality in your life. These are small things, but they can lead to transformation. And I believe it can start by choosing to see the invisible. We're going to hear more from Denise on how that transformation can take place in just a moment. Stick with us.

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Find World Gone Wrong in all the regular places you find podcasts. I love you so much. I mean, you could like up the energy a little bit. You could up the energy. I actually don't take notes. That was good. I'm just kidding. You sounded great. So did you. And we are back with Denise Sandoval. Hey, I'm Denise Sandoval, the founder of Lava May. I've heard you talk about this idea of radical hospitality. Can you tell me what that means?

You know, that is like the secret sauce for us. When I got the idea for Lava Mae, you know, I knew that being clean was important to your sense of dignity and self-respect.

But I don't think I thought a lot about this quality, this thing that happens when you're actually serving people and the way that you do it. So pretty quickly after launching, I was out there with the team and just recognizing that something was happening that was about much more than just giving people showers.

And it was about building that connection. It was about, you know, serving them with extraordinary care, learning their names. And if they'd come, you know, multiple times, their stories and sort of creating this community and sense of belonging. Brene Brown talks about how vital belonging is to our sense of selves, to our ability to thrive.

And that was the thing that was happening on the streets with our team. And so we began to call it radical hospitality. And it's this idea that people who are unhoused are our neighbors. They live in our communities. They are far and wide, not from somewhere else, but from the communities in which they became unhoused. And so, yeah, it's interesting. I'm sure that many people who are listening are already familiar with these terms, but I'm sure that for some people, unhoused is kind of a new term.

word for them or a new way of referring to people who are experiencing homelessness? That's exactly right. Right. Homelessness is a set of circumstances. It's not an individual. And the idea of being homeless also, we define home so many different ways. You know, for some of us, it's not the four walls and a roof over our head. Sometimes it's the community that we build that gives us our sense of home. So homelessness is

It's so laden with negativity anymore, right? And so full of judgment and myths, stereotypes, so on and so forth, that to free people from that stigma is so important because the words we choose, the labels we put on people matter. For people who haven't ever volunteered before, it can be intimidating to pick one.

What is a cause that you will work on? And sometimes it feels like unless you have some sort of direct personal ownership over it, you shouldn't be the one working on that. So what would you say to those people and how did you choose that this was going to be the cause that you would work on? Well, let me start with that last part first. I actually think this sort of chose me. You know, it's not that I didn't care about the issue of homelessness.

But it was, you know, I'd been working as a marketing and branding person across different industries. I had just come out of the arts. I was taking some downtime to sort of spend with my daughter who's five.

And right at that time, my neighborhood just completely transformed because of gentrification. California bounced back really quickly. And our neighborhood was a very tight-knit community. And we began to see some of our elderly neighbors, men in their 80s, get evicted and began to live in their cars and then ultimately on the street. And so I think, you know, I was compelled because of circumstances that were very close to me to get involved in this issue, right?

But it's not always that way when you volunteer. I mean, before that, I was spending time doing all sorts of different volunteering. And I read this quote actually fairly recently that I want to share because I think that this is the key to finding volunteer work that is meaningful to you. Don't ask what the world needs.

ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And to me, what that means is whatever the fire in your belly, to use an old tech phrase, is, then that's where you should begin from, right? If it's the environment, if it's

animals. If it's seniors, I don't know, you have to start, you know, to me, that's the very first place to go is think of what brings you joy or makes you come alive because you're just like, oh, I feel so strongly about that, right? Excavate that place first. And I think that that is vital to sort of kicking off and figuring out where you should direct your energies. But when it comes to the volunteer aspect, I think there's two things. One is

You know, this was a very passionate thing for me because of my neighbors. And also, I'm like a total clean freak. So I could totally understand how like getting clean just transforms who you are. But the other half of this is our volunteers and they had

transformative experiences because of radical hospitality, right? They got out there and they saw that we weren't just like handing out tokens or just tossing services at people. We were actually having these relationships that we were building. And so suddenly it was a safe bridge for them to connect with people and they would come away with the sense of,

oh, my God, everything I thought about who the unhoused were or what the issue of homelessness was is wrong. And then that, you know, refueled their energies in a different way. So if someone is listening and they're already sold, but they're a little intimidated about how to start, how do you think someone should have

What should someone do to have their first volunteering experience? Yeah. So I kind of like to think of this the way before I started Lava May, I approached this idea. It was sort of like dating, right? So first thing you have to do is kind of figure out, do you have a type? Like, do I have an issue that I really like? Is it the environment or, you know, it was something else, right? So when you get that narrowed down,

then the next thing is, okay, what are the organizations out there that are doing things? And you can easily Google that up and then begin to date them, right? Say, I'm going to give X amount of time to this organization. I've heard good things about them. And I'm going to do whatever. And kind of get clear also, right? It's like,

Are you the kind of person who's an introvert and rather work on a back of house, you know, product? Maybe they need technology support or database building or, you know, there are some very mundane things that unfortunately nonprofits need help with. But maybe you don't mind doing that because you have a Zen approach to it. Or are you a, I want to plan an event. I want to be out there with people. I want to do that kind of thing, right? So the more you

you can zero in on that by saying, okay, I recognize that I'm not going to necessarily hit the bullseye with the very first, you know, volunteering experience I have, but that's okay, right? Because I'm in the process of exploration, right? So that I think is the best way to, you

to dig in. And then the second stage is, okay, you found the organization, but the stuff they're asking you to do is not really what you want to do. You've learned they're doing X, Y, or Z. And maybe you just then use your voice, speak up and just say, hey, I really am super excited about this, you know, program you're starting or doing or whatever. And I'd love to get involved, right? Because nobody can read your mind.

And if you can't ask for what you need, you're likely not going to get it. So that's the next step is just be bold enough to say, hey, I'm really interested in this. How can I help? What's the heart? What's been the hardest part about getting involved in this work and volunteering?

So for me, the connection with people who are so vulnerable, whose lives every single day have massive amounts of trauma and just being so totally heartbroken to see or hear their stories, right? You fall in love with people and you get to know them and you see that the obstacles sometimes

feel very insurmountable. That is very hard to learn how to protect yourself emotionally and still be available to people. One of the hardest things I've had to learn, because I'm a fixer, right? I like to go in and fix problems, is that really, especially when it comes to people's lives, there's very little you can actually fix, right?

but that to be a witness for what they're going through, to just hold space with them and not try and solve it or offer advice or anything, but just to listen and truly hold space is a very powerful gift. But it's a gift you also have to do a lot of self-care for so that you can be, you know, strong enough to persevere and to keep doing that kind of work.

We're going to hear more about how you can take care of yourself and the world around you in just a minute.

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And we are back. One of the barriers to getting involved in the problems of the world and volunteering is being unable to face them in the first place, right? We have to see the issues before we can take any steps to fix them. And here's a clip from Denise's talk about the moment when she first felt her own blinders come off. Since 2011.

Growth and gentrification have unfolded in San Francisco at a furious pace. My neighborhood used to be part of the Western Edition. With all of the ensuing change, it is now NOPA. Along the way, I watched as three of my neighbors, all gentlemen in their 80s, got evicted, start living in their cars, only to have those eventually repossessed. Around the same time,

I took a cab ride that changed my life. As we hit the Tenderloin, which is a neighborhood in San Francisco with the highest concentration of homelessness, the cab driver turned over his shoulder and he said to me, "Welcome to the land of broken dreams." His words were so jarring that I stopped doing whatever I was doing and I looked out the window. And for the first time, despite having been through the Tenderloin hundreds of times before, really saw people.

And my first thought was that not a single one of them, when they were little, ever dreamed of growing up to be homeless. And yet there they were. So, Denise, it can be such a challenge once we see these issues to then figure out what we as individuals can do about them. Working on housing, for example, it seems to me almost by definition to be not something that one person alone can solve. That's kind of why I'm

I went down the path of the maze because, I mean, I knew what people needed was housing. My neighbors needed housing. I had no clue how to make that possible. Even though I had creative ideas about how you could build housing affordably, you know, the permitting and the, you know, the entities you had to bring to the table were just way too daunting for anything I knew how to do.

And we said from the beginning, we weren't there to solve homelessness, but that we knew that something vital was missing from people's lives, like by going out and talking to them, how this was dehumanizing them, right? It was ripping apart their sense of dignity, which I've said before many times, it's this two-way street, how they feel about themselves, how they felt that people treated them also. And so this thing that seems so small,

was really so incredibly vital for people's sense of self-worth and ability to persevere. And when you wrap that around building community through radical hospitality, it becomes this incredible bridge to opportunities, right? So suddenly people felt like they...

were seen, they had value, they were clean, they could go apply for a job. So I always say to people, do not discount the small, the beauty, you know, what do they say? It's the little things that can unlock so much. And that, you know, I think with our fixation, especially in this country, that bigger is better. And that's, you know, what it takes really deters a lot of people from doing important work.

There's also this idea that we're supposed to know what our passion is and what we care about and what we're good at. And I think so many people, certainly I have these conversations with friends and family all the time where people are like, I don't like I don't really know what my thing is. What is it that I'm passionate about? And I think that one of the beautiful things about volunteering is.

is that it's a relatively low stakes way for you to try and figure out maybe this is something that you care about. Maybe this is a skill that you never knew you had, or maybe it's a skill that you want to have. And also if you, if it's not,

Well, you did something good along the way, right? I think that that's absolutely right. It's unfortunate that when you're young, when you're a child, you are so in touch with the possibilities and the magic of the world and the potential. And you formulate all these ideas about what you want to do, and then the world

kind of slowly beats it out of you. It says, oh, you can't make money doing that or that has no value in our society. And so we began to shed the things that actually lit up the little light bulbs inside of us, right? So I think exactly what you're saying is right.

volunteering can be a path to sort of shedding all of that, those lies that we've been told about what has value in the world and maybe really reconnecting with what we might have had as a child or discovering something totally new that turns us on in that way and fuels that understanding of what makes us passionate.

It's about keeping an open heart and a curious and hungry mind, you know, that makes the volunteering effort so much more rewarding. So with that in mind, do you have a preference or a sense of is it better to volunteer on a regular basis, like doing something weekly? Or is it better to do like a few big, really intense projects a year, like a really big

food or clothing drive or some sort of like big fundraiser gala or something like that? You know, so it's going to depend on the person, right? First of all, how much time do you have, right? It's different if you are building your career in your 20s and 30s versus you've hit the point of retirement and you have a lot of free time to do a whole lot of things.

And, you know, do you have a family or not? Right. So, you know, for some people to be able to to step in every once in a while, we've had other people who've come in for like big projects. Right. So I think it's an individualized thing. How much time do you have?

Is it something that is really fueling your ability, your desire to connect with people or to use your logical brain thinking, planning skills, whatever? Thinking about that, what since so much of this work is really emotionally exhausting. And I think for many people, even the idea of doing it is emotionally overwhelming, right?

What have you learned about how to take care of yourself or to take care of ourselves as we do this work? So I started more regularly meditating. I spend as much time as I can in nature, taking long walks.

holding periods of silence. And then I do these little grief rituals, right? There are people who I got really close to who I still think about constantly when the weather's bad or when COVID broke out, just wondering where they were, how they were doing. And so I have these little rituals that I do that just sort of

It sounds so airy-fairy. And so, of course, you're in California. You're doing that. But this idea of just holding people in light. So I'm so wary of patting myself on the back. And I really want to make sure that that's not what I'm doing here. But in my own experience with volunteering, one thing that has been a pitfall, I think, in the past is I'll either give money or donate or give my time. But it's to a cause that I...

don't really like let affect me as well. Right. It's a one way street. So I like I give some old clothes to an organization and it's not really that I know anything about that organization. It's just like, well, I got to get rid of these clothes and it's better to give them away or whatever.

Oh, a friend asked me if I would donate to their ride raising money for the National Kidney Foundation. And then I only even remember that it was for the National Kidney Foundation when I get an email a year later that I realize I'm on their email list or something. And it's not that that's not a great cause. It's just like I didn't really let it affect me. And I found that recently in the past year, working with some organizations here, right, working with this group that does a lot of work around housing and homelessness,

I've let that affect me as well. And part of that is because like,

It uses things that I naturally like to do. Like I like to talk to people. I like to make people laugh. And so going out and doing outreach with them, all of a sudden it felt like, oh, this is something that you need to have happen. But like all of a sudden now I have the perspective of someone who is unhoused. That affected me in a way different way than like donating every month to an organization did, which is not to say that that's not also important. Am I wrong? Is that not even a pitfall or what are the pitfalls that people kind of can fall into and how can we avoid them?

Yeah, I think it's, you know, sometimes we definitely fall into that trap where we think, okay, I just submitted my donation. I'm good. I've done my contribution to the world. And it's valuable. Absolutely, it's valuable to, you know, to make those kinds of donations. But we are hardwired for connection, right? And the idea of othering, right?

doesn't go away until you expose yourself to proximity, right? This idea that you really need to get out there and perhaps you don't get a chance to really walk in someone's shoes, but you

You meet them, right? You connect with them in some way. And that's what changes you. And it also feeds you, right? People think, oh, it is way too heartbreaking to witness another person suffering. That's why so many of us just walk by people who are unhoused and don't even look them in the eye. We just pretend they are invisible because it's uncomfortable. It's hard. It makes us feel like bad people that we're not in that situation and we're not doing anything about it.

But this is the thing that is so wonderful and surprising. Like when I was out there on the street with our guests, I was laughing, smiling, joking. Their capacity for joy and pleasure is still as rich, maybe even richer in some ways than some of us have it. So I think...

Having that more intimate opportunity to connect with people is where the true beauty lies in volunteerism. And again, not everybody's going to want to be willing to do that. Some people have social anxiety issues that keep them from doing it, and that's fine. You can volunteer in other meaningful ways. But if you can get out there and actually connect with

It is amazing. So what's the biggest misconception about volunteering or philanthropy that you'd like to correct? Oh, that's a good one. That's hard. Let me think. That everybody's doing it. I think people think, oh, yeah, everybody's volunteering because it's so easy. So everybody's donating. So I don't have to worry about it. Right. There's enough of us. There's not. We need a lot of people on every front giving time, giving money, giving money.

you know, their passion and talents. What are three mistakes that people should avoid as they're trying to make a change in the world? Maybe for the first time. Right. Okay. So this one's a little bit tricky. So I think,

Trust that the organization that you go to volunteer with understands the issue that they're working with. So quick example, people would always say, "Well, why aren't you also giving clothes? I have this great idea. You should also give clothes." Yes, that is a great idea, but you really want to understand the organization's mission.

There's this thing called mission creep. You can try and do everything all at once and then diminish what you're doing. So just try and be respectful of the fact that the leadership might actually know what they're doing. So get to know them before you start suggesting a whole bunch of things that they should be doing. Secondly, be as proactive as you can and managing yourself, right? Because if it takes a lot of time for the organization that you're working with to manage you, to follow up with you, it's...

it just diminishes their ability to be effective. And that's the other thing too. Do what you say you're gonna do. If you volunteer, and unless there's like a big emergency, you cannot avoid, show up, right? Showing up is half of it. And it's really vital that they can count on you. What is one idea or book or movie or piece of culture? What's something that has made you a better human? You know, I'm...

When Humans of New York first came out, I was so, so wowed by that concept. You know, this guy was just walking around New York and he was stopping, he was taking photos and he was learning little stories about people, right? And then, you know, he built this website and it was just so powerful to me to remember that.

that each of us has a story. There is so much context, so much richness in every single person's life. And that if I could remember that,

when I encounter any human being that I come across, then I can come from a place of so much more openness and kindness and love, if you will, which I think is powerful, right? And so that was very, very, very meaningful to me. - And what is one way in which you personally are trying to be a better human right now?

So when COVID started in our neighborhood, so I decided, okay, I'm going to take this little wooden stake and put cardboard, you know, square on it. And I'm going to print out hopeful and uplifting quotes and funny jokes and things like that. So I've been doing it for well over a year now. And-

People come by all the time when I'm out in the yard and they're like, oh my God, your messages mean so much to me. Or I run by here every morning and take a photograph of the message you put out there. And that makes me feel so good because it's fun for me to do, but it's just like injecting a little bit of positivity back into the community.

I love that. That's wonderful. Well, this has been an incredibly helpful conversation. You're so good at making it both philosophical and really practical at the same time. And I know that so many people listening are going to be inspired to go out and actually start to make a difference. So thank you for this conversation. And thank you for all of the conversations that will come from this one. Thank you, Chris. It's been wonderful chatting with you. Thank you.

Okay, that's our episode for today. This has been How to Be a Better Human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy. Thank you to our guest, Denise Sandoval. This show is produced by Abhimanyu Das, Daniela Balarezo, Frederica Elizabeth Yosefov, and Karen Newman of TED, and Jocelyn Gonzalez and Sandra Lopez-Monsalve from PRX Productions. PR.