Kintsugi Heroes

You're made for more than this⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide, abuse, violence, which some listeners may find distressing.If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.auBrett Murray was chronically bullied throughout his teenage years, targeted for being small, late to puberty, and creative in a rigid school environment. The bullying followed him home, intensifying his isolation and suicidal thoughts. At 16, an inner voice told him he was made for more than this. He found refuge in surfing and Christian Surfers, a community that offered male mentorship and faith. After leaving school, he built a life in trades and public service, but was drawn into a controlling religious group for nine years. He escaped, rebuilt his family, and channelled his healing into anti-bullying education, eventually founding a charity now being rebranded as the Resistance Foundation. Today, he continues training educators and speaking in schools, grounding his work in the belief that knowing your worth is the key to breaking cycles of harm.Brett Murray is a bullying prevention advocate, CEO of the Resistance Foundation (formerly SafeHeart Foundation), and an Order of Australia medalist. For over 20 years, he has spoken to approximately half a million young Australians about bullying, leadership, and self-worth, drawing on his own experience of chronic bullying at school and spiritual abuse in adulthood.In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Brett shares the story behind the moments below.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 The bullying years: small, late to bloom, different08:52 What made him a target: being the outsider at a new school15:36 Sport and hypervigilance: how he survived each day21:42 The edge: suicidal thoughts in year 1024:48 Allies: one mate from footy, his protective brother28:25 The escape: leaving school, finding work, finding purpose34:04 Christian Surfers: the community that changed him42:40 The trap: nine years in a controlling religious group49:36 Finding his voice: from unemployed to building anti-bullying programs56:57 What he's most proud of: being a father, breaking the cycle1:00:36 The state of bullying now: worse, but the pendulum is swinging1:12:07 His closing message: knowing your worth is incomprehensible🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #FromFractureToDream #ResistanceFoundation #GoldInTheCracks #bullying #mentalhealth #fatherhood #coercivecontrol #youthadvocacy #suicideprevention #malerolemodelss #selfworth———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The pavers we lay downNick grew up with every external advantage, loving parents, good school, material security, but turned parental encouragement into internal pressure and guilt. He struggled with bullying and didn't have space to name his struggle without feeling ungrateful. Years later, reflecting on his own childhood and a chance mentoring moment with a student, he realized what he'd needed: not fixing or diagnosis, but a trusted person to move through life alongside him. He founded Pave to offer exactly that to teenagers navigating identity, belonging, and the gap between who they are and who they think they should be. Now he's building a model that combines physical activity, intentional habit-building, and genuine vulnerability to help young people discover their own capability.Nick Crott is a 27-year-old mentor and founder of Pave Mentoring, a social enterprise that works with young people through side-by-side activities and intentional guidance. Raised on Sydney's Northern Beaches, he moved from primary school teaching and associate therapy work into mentoring after recognizing the gap between formal support and the informal spaces where real growth happens.In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Nick shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Privilege can silence struggle.• Mentoring is not fixing.• Identity and behavior are separate.• Vulnerability compounds when modeled.• Physical experience teaches mental truth.• Connection is not a luxury.• Third spaces need intentional design.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Growing up privileged, silent07:03 The gap between support and safety12:15 A teacher who separated behavior from identity15:38 From struggle to purpose20:55 What mentoring actually looks like25:22 Vulnerability as courage39:27 Who can be a mentee46:55 The gym as proof of capability52:23 Barriers: comparison and screens56:21 Third spaces and community change1:03:18 Friendship as foundation1:06:26 How to find Pave🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Pave Mentoring website: pavementoring.comPave Mentoring Instagram: instagram.com/pavementoring━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #buildingfromwithin #pavement #mentoring #mentalhealth #youthwellbeing #vulnerability #masculinity #community———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

From the woodshed to the pool ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, grief & loss and trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au Sam Reid found his father hanging in a woodshed when he was six. His mother died two years later. Without the intervention of his older sister and brother-in-law, he would have ended up in the state system. At 15 he took a labouring job to feed his siblings. By the year 2000 he was standing poolside at the Sydney Olympics as a safety manager when Ian Thorpe won his first gold medal. What he didn't tell himself at 15 was possible became real through choice, mentorship and refusal to repeat the violence and alcoholism he witnessed. He has since lost his brother, nephew and son to suicide, experienced bankruptcy, and held the bodies of young men crushed on construction sites. He channels that weight into teaching other men that it is safe to speak, to ask for help, and to choose a different path than the one their circumstances predict. Sam Reid is head of safety, quality and compliance at Paynter Dixon, one of Australia's largest construction firms. Raised in rural New Zealand by his sister after losing both parents by age eight, he came to Australia at 22 with his wife, a six-month-old son and $500. Over four decades he has rebuilt his life through work, family and a willingness to speak openly about grief, suicide, mental illness and loss. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Sam shares the story behind the moments below. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Finding his father in the woodshed04:35 A family of ten without parents11:35 His father's violence, his mother's death15:11 Coming to Australia with $50024:01 Leaving the gangs behind, building a career38:32 Teaching his children and grandchildren46:01 His son's mental illness and the system's silence52:16 Rising to safety leadership in construction55:19 Bankruptcy and the choice to stay1:07:00 The death of his son1:12:52 His legacy: mentorship and speaking from the heart1:15:12 Closing 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #rebuilding #mentalhealth #suicide #grief #constructionsafety #mentorship #Māori #familyviolence ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

My mom chased me from hell back to earth⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, grief & loss and trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing.If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au• GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.auSamuel fled Sudan during the civil war, experiencing militia threats at school before his family was resettled in Tasmania. The quiet safety disoriented him at first, but he adapted fast. He moved to Melbourne as a young adult, where he initially drifted into substance use and confusion. Around age 26, exhausted and broken, he picked up The Law of Attraction while walking home from a bender. That moment catalysed a complete shift: he went cold turkey, set goals, started a cleaning business, and rebuilt his sense of purpose. His mother's relentless support throughout everything taught him that wherever he fell, someone would reach for him. Now he works supporting people with disability, mentors young men, and is driven by gratitude to his parents and a vision of giving back to both his community in Australia and his family in Sudan.Samuel Reve came to Australia as a refugee from Sudan at age 10, escaping civil war. After arriving in Tasmania, he rebuilt his life across Australia, but spent his twenties struggling with drugs and drinking before discovering discipline and purpose. Today he works as an NDIS support coordinator and is building community programs to help young people from African backgrounds.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 From Sudan to Tasmania, a family's choice05:18 Landing in a different world09:15 School under siege, learning to hide15:37 Being the token African in Tasmania17:45 Moving to Melbourne, discovering hustle26:36 Energy in, energy out, a simple formula35:25 Bridging two worlds, African family in Australia42:00 Serving others through NDIS work46:56 The mother who chased him back from hell51:29 Young men in crisis, where the mentors went57:29 Comparison, cleanliness, and the room that matters59:00 A farm, a team, gratitude, and giving back🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline: https://www.lifeline.org.au/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #GoldenJoinery #RealCracks #FromThereToHere #MentalHealth #RefugeeStories #Discipline #FamilyStrength #CivilWar #MigrationStories #Mentorship #PersonalGrowth———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

How Queer LooksRuth and Ash met in Year 7 and found each other through shared online interests during the early years of social media and queer community discovery. Ruth came out as attracted to women in their mid-teens in a supportive family environment; Ash came out as queer at age 9 and later came out as non-binary at 13, becoming their school's first openly non-binary student. When they moved into community youth work, both noticed a gap: younger queer people had no local role models or connection to older generations who could show them that happy, long queer lives were possible. They pitched the idea of a documentary featuring older queer adults to Youth Affairs Council Victoria's HEY grants program, won $10,000, and produced How Queer Looks with professional filmmaking support. The documentary premiered at their school and has since been approached by cinemas, though technical barriers around file formats have limited its wider distribution. Ruth and Ash continue to push for grassroots community building in regional Victoria.Ruth Carter is a 19-year-old from Ballarat, Victoria, who uses she/they pronouns. Along with their friend Ash Crawford, Ruth created How Queer Looks, a documentary featuring older LGBTQIA+ adults sharing their lived experiences. Ruth and Ash secured a $10,000 grant through Youth Affairs Council Victoria to produce the film, which aims to show younger queer people that long, fulfilling lives are possible within the community.Links to How Queer Looks Short Film:https://youtu.be/yHyuqxm9ws0si=FYBUJXsHhe76Fbo0 and https://yballarat.org.au/how-queer-looks/In this Pride In Stories conversation with John Dwyer, Ruth shares the story behind the moments below.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Welcome and introductions01:26 Ash and Ruth introduce themselves and their work03:08 How they met and their unlikely friendship06:46 Ash's queer awakening and early realisation09:13 Ash's experience as the first non-binary student12:39 The motivation behind How Queer Looks documentary14:15 Finding and connecting with participants17:49 The impact of older queer voices on younger community20:20 Winning the grant and bringing the documentary to life32:39 Future vision for the LGBTQIA+ community35:44 What allies can do better41:41 Final messages and closing thoughts🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262718400868059📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic): https://yacvic.org.au/Minus18: https://www.minus18.org.au/The Y (YMCA): https://www.ymca.org.au/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #PrideInStories #LGBTQIA #QueerCommunity #YouthLeadership #NonBinary #RegionalQueerness #CommunityBuilding #Allyship———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

The kettlebell in the garage ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Matthew grew up in domestic violence, found stability in his stepfather, and joined the army at 25 to honour his stepfather's dying wish and his own calling to serve. In Afghanistan, he excelled as a machine gunner and paratrooper but witnessed the killing of three mates in a green-on-blue incident that fractured him with unearned guilt. Back home, he broke his neck surfing, lost his footing to medication and despair, then threw it all in the bin and picked up a kettlebell in his garage. That decision led him to youth mentoring, which gave him back his purpose. For the past decade, he has built a model that pairs veterans with struggling kids, arguing that only those who have survived real adversity can credibly teach others to do the same. His mission now is policy change and leaving his daughter a better world. Matthew French is a former infantry soldier and paratrooper who served with 3 RAR in Afghanistan in 2012, where he experienced combat and lost three mates in a single incident. After medical discharge, a broken neck, and a spiral of medication, he found purpose mentoring at-risk young Australians and now runs youth development programs nationally, employing veterans and working to reshape how Australian society supports both returning soldiers and struggling children. In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Matthew shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• A childhood fractured by domestic violence taught Matthew early what not to do, turning a negative role model into a blueprint for the opposite. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Purpose before the fracture03:16 The stepfather's final words05:50 Growing up with domestic violence11:28 Signing up for service15:06 The calling to fight22:06 Landing in Afghanistan30:44 First contact36:02 The casualty incident42:00 Throwing it all away48:39 The mentoring call57:28 Building a movement1:04:49 Legacy and leaving things better 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #hiddenvalue #veteranstories #mentoring #youth #PTSD #service #militaryveterans #mentalhealth ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.

It doesn't help to have a bad attitude ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse, grief, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Bill Stahl's fracture came gradually, through dozens of injuries sustained across a lifetime of pushing his body in sport. Each setback, torn Achilles, ruptured quad tendon, twelve surgeries since 2011-could have stopped him. Instead, he treated recovery as his job, returning to running weeks or months faster than doctors expected. The turning point came when his friend Paul Bradley, dying of cancer, told him: "It doesn't help to have a bad attitude. You might as well have a good one." That conversation crystallised what Bill had been living: attitude is a choice. Today, he channels that philosophy into coaching young athletes, showing them through his own example that circumstances need not define you, and that doing hard things by choice builds resilience that carries into every part of life. Bill Stahl is a high school coach, ultra-marathon runner, and race director based in Colorado. For nearly four decades, he has shaped young athletes through track, cross-country, and basketball, founding and directing the American Heroes Run to honour military veterans and 9/11 responders. His philosophy centres on turning adversity into growth, a practice he lives out through multiple surgeries and endurance challenges. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Opening: A question that changed everything07:19 How Bill stumbled into coaching in 198912:52 Teaching inner-city kids what positivity looks like20:56 Where does this come from: the New York pessimist26:00 Paul Bradley's final lesson: attitude is a choice29:48 The Be Positive bracelets: a simple tool, a bigger message34:26 Staying calm: coaching without rage, living without it40:13 The ripple you never knew you made50:42 Do hard things: the philosophy that carries56:30 The American Heroes Run: a race for everyone1:03:00 Can we just talk? Seeking understanding in a divided world1:09:42 Where to find Bill: socials, podcast, and the next challenge 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 💬 Tell us what this conversation meant to you. Take our listener survey: https://form.jotform.com/262719186957070 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Bill Stahl's Instagram: @stahlorWe Are Superman Podcast: Available on all podcast platformsAmerican Heroes Run: ultrasignup.com (search American Heroes Run) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldeninjoinery #ripplesofcompassion #attitude #choice #resilience #coaching #hardthings #ultrarunner #recovery #mentorship ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

The film over the eyes fell away⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing.If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.auDavid's career began in journalism at the Bankstown Observer, where he worked alongside young Paul Keating. His ADHD, undiagnosed until age 70, drove him through multiple careers and into a Pentecostal healing ministry that became a cult led by a woman claiming to be God. For 23 years, he was isolated from family, including hanging up on his mother's calls. After the cult leader died, David led a five-year dismantling process, reversing isolation, reconnecting members with families, and eventually dissolving the group. He has since worked for International Needs, the Red Cross, Guide Dogs Victoria, and now runs a disability support business. His vision centres on kindness as a practice and framework for society, taught through children.David Ayliffe is a journalist, charity CEO, disability support worker and children's book author who spent 23 years in a religious cult before dismantling it from within. Now 72 and recently diagnosed with ADHD, he works with people with intellectual disabilities and advocates for kindness as a foundation for society.In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, David shares the story behind the moments below.🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Late ADHD diagnosis can reframe decades of 'failures' and offer self-compassion instead of shame.• Fundamentalism thrives by declaring certainty; it requires turning off critical thinking by designating something sacred.• Cult recovery works when the leader loses credibility; collective realization can dismantle even deep isolation in a single moment.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Young David at the Bankstown Observer06:17 ADHD diagnosis at 7016:19 The path into the cult: from journalist to believer22:09 How fundamentalism silences critical thinking27:20 Cut off from everyone but her32:35 The moment she lost all credibility35:28 The Emperor's New Clothes moment37:48 The dismantling: five years of reversal and reconnection42:04 Disability work and the kindness vision51:00 Kindness as something you practise56:51 Admitting what you got wrong1:03:17 Humour as the thing that saved me🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: lifeline.org.au━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #goldintheCracks #cultrecovery #ADHD #latelatediagnosis #kindness #disabilitywork #mentalhealth #fundamentalism #family———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

What that little child's brain did to survive ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing and mental health & wellbeing, which some listeners may find distressing. If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au Ezra grew up in a country town, the only Black child in a white family, enduring prolonged childhood sexual abuse by a primary perpetrator and others. The trauma fragmented their sense of self into distinct alters as a survival mechanism, which went unrecognized until their early twenties. For years, they struggled with suicidality, shame around disability, and profound isolation. When they disclosed the abuse to their family at 24, they were not supported and went no contact with their mother's side. Moving to Sydney, accessing NDIS support, and beginning intensive therapy marked a turning point. Ten years on from their darkest period, Ezra now works in advocacy roles, speaks to psychiatrists about lived experience, and has rebuilt a life grounded in self-compassion rather than productivity. They describe their journey not as recovery but as ongoing integration and functional multiplicity, where different parts of themselves can collaborate safely. Ezra Burke is a 30-year-old advocate, artist, and person with psychosocial disability living in Sydney. They have dissociative identity disorder (DID) and complex PTSD stemming from prolonged childhood sexual abuse. Through years of therapy, advocacy work, and the support of their assistance dog Peanut, Ezra has moved from crisis to a place of functional multiplicity, where their different parts collaborate rather than fracture. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Ezra Burke on surviving fragmentation and rebuilding03:07 What is psychosocial disability07:47 Forgetting years of childhood11:03 Complex PTSD and childhood trauma14:11 Disclosure without support19:28 Why disorganized attachment shapes DID26:22 Parts learning to work together31:19 The only Black child in a white town42:38 How trauma reshapes gender and sexuality1:00:40 What life looks like at 301:07:27 Recovery as ongoing work, not destination1:14:03 From survival to advocacy 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: https://www.lifeline.org.auNDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme): https://www.ndis.gov.auDisability Support Pension: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #TheGoldInTheCracks #OurHiddenValue #MentalHealth #TraumaRecovery #DisabledAndHere #DID #ComplexPTSD #AdvocacyMatters ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.

What recovery has given me⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing, addiction & recovery and abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing.If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available:• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au• SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au• ReachOut: au.reachout.com• 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.auBorn into a legacy of civic leadership in Cowra, Dave Oliver was a high-achieving student, school captain and rugby player who excelled outwardly while carrying the weight of childhood sexual abuse from ages 9 to 12. He masked his trauma through alcohol and drugs that escalated into his twenties and thirties, cycling through 32 employers in 25 years while his behaviour spiralled. A turning point came 10 years ago when mates intervened and he entered a psychiatric facility where therapy helped him name what had happened and begin healing. Today sober and purposeful, he works in mental health and mentors individual men, driven by a mission to become the support he needed as a young man.Dave Oliver is a 45-year-old survivor of childhood sexual abuse who spent decades using alcohol and drugs to survive unresolved trauma before entering recovery 10 years ago. Now a peer support worker and programs coordinator in mental health, he mentors other male survivors and has launched You, Me, Us, an initiative connecting men through shared lived experience.In this Kintsugi Heroes conversation with John Milham, Dave shares the story behind the moments below.🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction and Cowra legacy06:31 The fracture: childhood sexual abuse12:00 Boarding school and coping mechanisms15:25 School success masking inner collapse18:04 The pattern: 32 jobs in 25 years23:17 Trauma, shame and sexuality in rural Australia38:11 From survival to recovery45:09 Reparenting the wounded child50:24 Purpose through lived experience mentoring57:15 The hybrid model: lived experience plus resources01:04:00 Practical steps and You, Me, Us initiative01:09:31 Closing and resources🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Survivors and Mates Support Network (SAMHSA): https://www.samhsa.org.au/Lifeline: 13 11 14You, Me, Us: Instagram: You, Me, Us Australia━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Welcome.We're glad you found your way here.Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan.Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John DwyerEvery story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected.Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here.New episodes are released fortnightly across our series.If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donateThank you for being part of this community.We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes#KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #JohnMilham #mentalhealth #childtrauma #recovery #peerSupport #masculinity #survivors #mentalhealthawareness———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian EnglishMentioned in this episode:Thank You For ListeningFollow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.Support Kintsugi HeroesKintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible.