『The Town Square Podcast』のカバーアート

The Town Square Podcast

The Town Square Podcast

著者： Trey Bailey Gabriel Stovall
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【Amazonプライム会員限定】今ならプレミアムプランが4か月 月額99円。

10月19日まで。※適用条件あり

Not just another podcast, but a place to meet in the messy middle and have difficult discussions with transparency and diplomacy where the outcome is unity, not uniformity.

The primary topics will be the local interests of Newton County, Georgia residents and those in the surrounding community.

All rights reserved. スピリチュアリティ マネジメント マネジメント・リーダーシップ 人間関係 個人的成功 政治・政府 政治学 社会科学 科学 経済学 自己啓発
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  • Zayvion Sheppard on For Atlanta. By Atlanta., Mentorship and Community Giving — E103

    Zayvion Sheppard on For Atlanta. By Atlanta., Mentorship and Community Giving — E103
    2026/09/22
    What Ten Dollars a Month Can Do for Your CommunityYouTube: https://youtu.be/zaKh0YOmQYMTen dollars a month may not sound like the beginning of a community investment strategy. Zayvion Sheppard thinks it is a perfectly good place to start. Get 50 people to commit, and those small gifts add up to $500 a month, or $6,000 over a full year. For a grassroots organization helping students prepare for college or neighbors find work, that can mean something practical.Zay returns to The Town Square Podcast with an invitation to participate in that kind of giving through For Atlanta. By Atlanta., known as FABA. He also brings a book announcement, an honest account of nearly giving up on the organization, and a reminder that the people who invest in a young person may never see the full reach of what they started.Making room for everyday donorsZay describes attending an Atlanta benefit and leaving energized by the generosity in the room. He appreciated what large donors and corporate partners could make possible. He also wondered how more people could experience the same connection to the work without a high price of admission.That question helped shape what he calls “affordable impact.” The FABA 50 invites 50 people to give $10 a month. It is a way to make regular community giving accessible to people who want to help but may never write a large check.In the conversation, Zay is candid about how hard it can be to ask. At 22, he has had to challenge his own doubts about whether people will trust him with their money. The response from his network has pushed him to take that trust seriously and to stop assuming the answer will be no.Raise invest and elevateFABA’s approach centers on raising money, investing in community organizations, and sharing the stories of what those investments make possible. Zay wants donors to see the people and work behind a contribution.He points to the Taylor Made Foundation as an example. In his account, FABA’s support helped the organization send five graduating students off to college with dorm-room supplies. Refrigerators, microwaves, toiletries and school supplies may not sound glamorous. For a family getting a student ready to leave home, they are real needs.Zay also discusses support for after-school learning and workforce development. When asked whether education, housing and employment define the organization’s limits, he clarifies that fighting poverty is the broader purpose. The team wants to find trusted organizations doing effective work, including those that may not fit neatly into a predetermined category.Finding the people a neighborhood already trustsThe way Zay describes finding partners is refreshingly local. Talk to people. Ask who has helped their children, their families or their neighbors. Pay attention to the organization that keeps showing up, even if its leader is too busy doing the work to promote it.He wants that community knowledge to matter in funding decisions. Many of the leaders he describes hold another job while running their nonprofits. FABA aims to support their work without adding a heavy administrative burden. Follow-up conversations still matter: What did the support accomplish? What need remains? What could additional funding make possible?That approach also puts responsibility on FABA. Zay describes board oversight and regular conversations about the organization’s decisions. He tells a particularly personal story about a donor who preferred to hand over cash: a $20 contribution covering two months of support. He does not know what it took for her to spare that money. He knows he has a responsibility to use it well.The part of leadership people rarely announceZay admits that there was a point when he hoped FABA might quietly fade away. The ambition was big, and the team had overcommitted. Then someone at a professional program asked about the organization after Zay had deliberately left it out of his introduction.That conversation helped him reconsider. Instead of trying to do everything, the team focused on work it knew it could carry out: raise funds, support organizations already serving their communities, and tell their stories. Starting with a small group of partners gave them room to learn how to manage an investment cycle responsibly.It is a useful part of the story for anyone who has started something and then wondered whether they were qualified to keep going. Zay’s confidence has grown alongside that willingness to narrow the work, ask questions and accept help.A book about the people who invested in himZay also shares that he has completed a manuscript. Its working title is A Dollar’s Worth of Impact, a callback to a story he told during his earlier Town Square appearance. The title and publication plans are still developing.He hopes the book will speak to young people trying to lead and to the adults mentoring them. Writing it has meant revisiting family support, the loss of his grandfather, and the people who made ...
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    57 分
  • Rev. Dr. Terrence Evans on St. Paul AME Church and Faith in Community—Episode 102

    Rev. Dr. Terrence Evans on St. Paul AME Church and Faith in Community—Episode 102
    2026/09/15
    History Is in the Spirit: Rev. Dr. Terrence Evans on Faith Memory and Civic LifeTown Square Podcast Episode 102 | Faith and CommunityWatch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/73cI1WtGUGgA church can hold a community’s history in ways that a courthouse file or a history book cannot. St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church has served Covington since 1878. Its congregation rebuilt after fires, lived through segregation and integration, helped people register to vote, and carried its ministry from Stone Mountain Street to a larger home on Brown Bridge Road.In Episode 102 of the Town Square Podcast, Rev. Dr. Terrence Evans joins the Faith and Community series to talk about the life behind that history. His story moves from Opa-locka and Miami to Georgia State basketball, eighteen years serving people experiencing homelessness, a call to ministry, and his 2023 appointment as senior pastor of St. Paul AME Church in Covington.The conversation also offers a plain-language introduction to the AME tradition: why the denomination was formed, how its structure works, and why worship, memory, social action, and grace remain connected.The Barbershop TestBefore Evans was a pastor, he was Sherry and Willie’s son, a six-foot-seven basketball player from Opa-locka, Florida, and a young man deciding where a scholarship might take him. He knew Miami. Atlanta was new.Georgia State began to feel like home almost immediately. Evans arrived without having gotten a haircut, asked his coach for help, and was taken straight to a local barbershop. That ordinary act told him something important: he could find community here.His years as a Panther also shaped his approach to leadership. Evans remembers one coach as quick and direct and another as deeply relational. The second model is especially visible in his ministry now. He believes leaders should offer clear direction, trust people to use their gifts, receive feedback, and pivot when a better path serves the church and the gospel.Grace in Action at Jefferson PlaceAfter earning a criminal justice degree with a minor in sociology, Evans considered law enforcement. His mother, a Miami police officer, urged him to remain in Atlanta. A summer youth-employment job opened the door to Fulton County government, and an overnight position at Jefferson Place became an eighteen-year vocation.Jefferson Place was a transitional housing program located in the former Fulton County jail. Evans began by checking residents in at night and later became a case manager. He watched men complete technical training, build businesses, restore family relationships, and move toward stability. He also witnessed relapse, disappointment, and the painful consequences of rules that could not simply be wished away.That work changed his understanding of ministry before he had a pulpit. “It helped me to see grace in action,” Evans says. “It helped me to see how it is that there are consequences.” Holding those truths together became part of his pastoral formation: compassion does not erase accountability, and accountability does not cancel a person’s humanity.A Call and an Immediate AssignmentEvans was raised Baptist and did not grow up expecting to enter ordained ministry. While serving at Jefferson Place, raising three children with his wife, and worshiping in an AME congregation, he began to recognize a persistent call. He entered the AME Board of Examiners process and studied at Turner Theological Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center.The transition from preparation to pastoral responsibility came quickly. In 2010, almost immediately after his ordination as an itinerant deacon, a presiding elder told him about a small church that needed a pastor. His first appointment was St. Paul AME Church in Dallas, Georgia. He later served Greater Ward Chapel AME Church in Columbus before being appointed to St. Paul in Covington in June 2023.There is a fitting symmetry in beginning and continuing his pastoral work at congregations named St. Paul. There is also a consistent thread: Evans’ ministry grew from service, relationships, and the belief that God was already present in places he had not expected to go.What African Methodist Episcopal MeansFor listeners who have seen the initials without knowing the distinctions, Evans breaks the name into three parts. African points to a church founded by people of African descent. Methodist identifies its Wesleyan theological roots and disciplined approach to Christian life. Episcopal describes a structure of governance led by bishops, with pastors appointed to congregations and layers of accountability that extend from the local church to the denomination’s General Conference.Evans describes a connectional church rather than a collection of independent congregations. St. Paul belongs to the East District of the Atlanta North Georgia Annual Conference, within the Sixth Episcopal District. Local church conferences, quarterly ...
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    1 時間 2 分
  • Rep. Clint Crowe on Affordability Housing and Data Centers | Candidate Conversations — Episode 101

    Rep. Clint Crowe on Affordability Housing and Data Centers | Candidate Conversations — Episode 101
    2026/09/08
    The Cost of Staying Home: Clint Crowe on Property Taxes Housing and Data CentersWatch the conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XjBIapdxdqIFor many homeowners, affordability is no longer an abstract campaign issue. It is the tax bill on a house they have owned for decades, the price of a starter home their children cannot afford, and the argument over whether new development will ease the pressure or create new costs.Representative Clint Crowe brings several perspectives to that conversation. He represents Georgia House District 118, chairs the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, serves on Ways and Means and four other committees, and has worked in law enforcement and real estate. In Episode 101 of the Town Square Podcast, he explains how those experiences shape his approach to taxes, housing, data centers, and the work of representing a district that includes parts of Newton, Butts, and Monroe counties.This Candidate Conversations episode presents Crowe’s record and positions in his own words as voters prepare for the November election.A Career Built Across Public Safety and Real EstateCrowe was first elected in 2020 and took office in 2021. Before entering the legislature, he volunteered with a fire department, worked as a 911 dispatcher, served in law enforcement, and built a real estate company with his family. He describes those jobs as different versions of the same work: dealing with people, solving problems, and trying to find an outcome that competing sides can accept.His family story also informs the way he talks about public service. Crowe and his wife, Kristie, raised two sons and later adopted a great-niece and great-nephew who came to live with them as very young children. He says his decisions at the Capitol affect his own children and grandchildren along with the rest of the district.Why Legislation Moves SlowlyCrowe offers a practical explanation of a process that often looks needlessly slow from the outside. A House bill may pass through subcommittee hearings, a full committee vote, the Rules Committee, and the House floor before beginning a similar path in the Senate. Tax referendums and some other measures require a two-thirds House vote rather than a simple majority.He argues that the friction is intentional because state policy must work across communities that differ sharply in population, tax base, and public-service needs. Crowe says committee hearings are among his favorite parts of the job because local officials and residents can explain how a proposal would affect them before lawmakers vote.The Property Tax QuestionThe longest policy discussion begins with residents who fear being priced out of homes they already own. Crowe says he has heard from seniors on fixed incomes who cannot keep up with rising property-tax bills. His guiding view is that a primary residence should eventually become secure from that pressure. In his words, a homeowner should not have to “continuously rent that from the government for your entire life.”Crowe discusses House Bills 581 and 92, including the effort to limit increases in taxable value through a floating homestead exemption. He also describes a proposal that did not pass in the most recent session: replacing property taxes on homesteaded homes with revenue from an additional one-cent sales tax and other funding sources.He acknowledges the central tradeoff. Local governments and school systems depend on property-tax revenue, and a sales tax spreads costs to renters and consumers as well as homeowners. Crowe argues that visitors would pay part of the sales tax, while communities with weaker retail activity would need another way to replace lost revenue. The episode does not pretend that the arithmetic is simple.Housing Costs Begin Before ConstructionCrowe also connects affordability to the shortage of homes within reach of first-time buyers and public-safety employees. Drawing on his real estate background, he says permitting delays, minimum square-footage rules, low-density requirements, infrastructure costs, and limited housing supply all raise the final price paid by a buyer.He supports local planning and zoning, but questions rules that prevent smaller or less expensive homes even when they meet accepted safety standards. His concern is that every delay and development cost eventually appears in the home’s sale price. The policy tension is familiar: communities want control over growth, while the same restrictions can narrow the supply of attainable housing.Data Centers and Local ControlThe conversation then moves into one of Newton County’s most contentious subjects. Crowe opposes broad moratoriums on data centers and believes local comprehensive plans should determine where major industrial uses belong. He points to Stanton Springs as an example of placing a data center inside an established technology and industrial area rather than near homes.Crowe frames data centers as infrastructure tied to ...
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    1 時間 15 分
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