MSSP Mckayla.Warwick Ep43

Michael Schweisheimer: [00:00:00] You good? Alright,

Mckayla Warwick: here we go.

Michael Schweisheimer: Speeding.

3, 2, 1.

It's time for the Mission Story Slam Podcast, brought to you by PWP Video. I'm Michael Schwemmer, I'm the executive producer at PWP Video. Mission Story Slam, and I'm someone who loves to write introductory emails like it's not, it's not normal. I look at them as some sort of ultimate writing challenge.

Another writing challenge I enjoy is crafting my host stories for Mission Story Slam, and I am very excited about the theme for our 14th edition. No judgment. Shout out to Proud Theme Mama. Carrie Gonzalez, not only can I announce the no judgment theme, but I can also confirm that we are booked for Tuesday night, May 12th at Triple Bottom Brewing.

We are so excited to bring Mission Story Slam to a certified B Corp venue. But wait, there's more. [00:01:00] I am also excited to shout out our new sponsor, the Energy Co. PWP has been buying our 100% wind and solar generate electricity from them for almost two decades. And recently we learned that we could get renewable natural gas as well.

So of course we added that right away between triple bottom as a location and the energy co-op. As a sponsor, we could not feel better about the community mission. Story Slam is coalescing now, speaking of community, way back at our 13th Slam in November of last year, the theme was Braver Today. And today's guest, Mikayla Warwick, had a story that was absolutely hand in glove for that.

Let's give it a listen.

Mckayla Warwick: It's been said definitely by people on Twitter, but maybe by psychologists as well, that you'll never be braver than you are when you were young. So I'm gonna tell a story that is something that takes across my early twenties. So when I was a senior in college, I sat down for one of the most important meals of my life.

And that was a meal with people who were soon to be the [00:02:00] co-founders of Collective Climb. And we sat down, not because it was an amazing meal, we were actually in our campus dining hall, but it was the best dining hall we had access to. So it felt really special, intentional, and they wanted to ask if I wanted to be on their team to apply for something called the President's Engagement Prize.

And the President's Engagement Prize was a seed fund to be able to start a social venture for graduating seniors. And I was really nervous, right? Um, I didn't feel like I deserved to be picked in that moment. But as we talked and we shared ideas, we left with a merger of supporting black and immigrant youth and creating financial empowerment tools and uplifting what these communities had used to survive for generations.

And we decided we were gonna do it now. Some of you don't know me, others do, and, you know, collective climb and you know that we don't do anything that sounds like what I just described, but that's part of what the story is about today. Um, so I'll just kind of [00:03:00] make this first part pretty brief. We did receive the president's engagement prize for that original idea, and I remember getting the call in April of 2020, so I don't know how many people remember April of 2020, but I was in my house.

Twiddling my thumbs, wondering if I was gonna be able to have a graduation wondering if they were gonna let me back into my dorm so I could finally get the shit out of my closet to move out fully. Um, and now I was wondering how the hell were we gonna pull this off? And the good thing about being on lockdown was we had ample time to study.

So me and my co-founders would get together for eight hours every single day on Zoom, and we would read together and we would talk about what we were reading. And one of those texts was Alice Walker's in search of our Mother's Gardens. And it in, yes. And it introduced us to this concept of womanism or black feminism.

And the text really has these words, outrageous, audacious, courageous, and willful [00:04:00] behavior. So we made a vow that whatever we would build. Would absolutely embody those values and those principles, both in practice as well as in intention. So when it came to deciding who would be the executive director of Collective Climb, we had Tay, we had Kaku, and we had Mikayla.

So they looked at me like this and I looked at them at like this, right? And I was like, oh my gosh, I don't think I can do that. Give me a week to make a decision. And I'll be honest, I did not get back to them in a week. I was trying to stall and eventually I was just doing the job of the executive director and it eventually popped into my email signature, and I guess it was written to be that way.

But the thing there is, we were very intentional in the beginning of creating structures that valued equal distributions of labor and valued shared decision making power. So the second order of business we needed to figure out was, was our mission actually aligned with what we [00:05:00] wanted to do? So if you remember 2020, it was not just a time of the Global Pandemic, but it was also a time where Black Death was constantly on our screens, on our phones and taking place here in our city.

And one day we came to this Zoom and we all had a knot in our chest and we asked ourselves, does financial literacy actually employ all that? This radical moment could actually have. Is that enough? Do we need to build that? And we debated and we debated until we stopped talking about financial literacy and we started talking about hope and we started talking about life and we started talking about how we could actually create communities that are rooted in care and rooted in love for each other.

And so we have to go back to the people who gave us the money, right? And tell them, Hey, so we don't think we're actually gonna do what you gave us the money for, and we hope that you won't take the money from us. And they were not pleased, but they didn't take the money [00:06:00] from us, and we started to move forward as a restorative justice organization.

Focused on keeping people out of the system and keeping them in our communities while keeping our communities whole and safe. And we first tried to do that work with our university that we graduated from and that went well until we signed a petition that did include the words fuck Pin police. And um, then our pivot had to have a pivot, right?

And we felt stuck. We were like, are we actually gonna be able to make this thing happen? But instead of staying stuck in that moment, we decided, okay. Let's go talk to our neighbors, and we did door to door for a whole month of a year. We joined every coalition possible. We also started a program where we paid young people to learn about restorative justice and to engage in that deep study that we were doing at the same time.

And kind of in a weird turn of fate while the Penn Police Partnership fell apart, the District Attorney's [00:07:00] office hit us up and they asked us to take on a case that actually took place on Penn's campus. And I learned after the fact they wouldn't have done that if they didn't realize we weren't working with Penn Police anymore, but that doesn't matter, right?

They gave us the case. It turned out well and we completed, and that young person thrives right To this day, and I guess to kind of land the plane, what I am trying to say is I. 2025 looks a little different than 2020, right? That same hope and that same belief that we can dismantle systems. It's kind of turned into can we even survive with these same values that we've had?

But I'm proud to say as the executive director, even if I was reluctant to be so, I am proud that we are a black feminist organization. I am proud that we are committed to black joy, security, and freedom. And I'm proud that we're focused on restorative justice. And as long as I'm wearing these pants in this role, we are going to be focused on that and we're gonna continue to do that.

And we've met so many incredible young [00:08:00] people along the way. And what I tell them, and I didn't know this was gonna be the theme, I promise I do say something like this. I'm not making it up to just land the plane. I tell them, you'll never be braver than you are today. So harness this energy, harness this creativity, and don't be afraid because one day you'll have risks.

One day you'll have responsibilities, and one day somebody will tell you, well, that's not gonna work. Break the mold before anybody tries to put the box around you. So thank you,

Michael Schweisheimer: Mikayla Warwick. Welcome to the Mission Story Slam podcast, by the way. Thanks for being here. I'm so glad to have you. Did you ever get your shit outta your dorm closet?

Mckayla Warwick: I ended up getting my stuff. Truly a disaster though. Like we weren't supposed to be on campus. Some of us like snuck over, went back in and got my stuff. Luckily, like I was able to put it in my boyfriend's house off campus. Because I lived all the way in Virginia.

Michael Schweisheimer: Oh man. You had to sneak onto campus to get your stuff

Mckayla Warwick: outta the dorm.

It [00:09:00] was, it was a mess. Like they really sent us an email. We were all on spring break.

Michael Schweisheimer: That's crazy.

Mckayla Warwick: And this was my first time ever doing a spring break trip. Usually I actually stayed in Philly. Okay. But I was like, okay, this year I'm gonna go to the Dominican Republic. I'm gonna have my senior spring. And I remember me and my friend, who was also my roommate at the time, we were on the beach.

We had wifi on this. Beach. That was great. And I checked my email and it was from the university president that said, do not come back on campus.

Michael Schweisheimer: Oh my

Mckayla Warwick: gosh. We are in a global pandemic.

Michael Schweisheimer: Did you have like your laptop and stuff on campus?

Mckayla Warwick: I can't go anywhere without my laptop. Like I don't even go to the grocery store without my laptop.

So luckily I had that.

Michael Schweisheimer: Okay. That, that one's weird. I can't take a trip without my laptop, but I can go to the store without Michaela. You've got, you got some, you gotta have some work life balance. I gotta

Mckayla Warwick: work on that. But here's my thing. I'm always like, maybe I'll find a coffee shop along the way.

Michael Schweisheimer: So the story that you shared, do you tell that founding story [00:10:00] about.

Collective climb a lot, or is that a story that you often maybe keep a little bit closer to yourselves?

Mckayla Warwick: Yeah. I feel like I give the high level summary of, we started in 2020, we did door to door. We met some incredible young people along the way, but I tend to skip two major details that I told on that stage one is.

My reluctance to be the executive director due to my own challenges with my self-confidence at the time. Um, and then the Penn Police. Story

Michael Schweisheimer: you, you knew we were filming. Right?

Mckayla Warwick: It's fine. We're good now. Like we'll see. I'll let you know if there is something I have to lose, but for now I don't think so.

Michael Schweisheimer: I sure hope that the last thing, mission story, slammer and myself want to do is cause you any grief, for goodness sakes.

Do you mind telling me a little bit more about like, I know what was going on generally, but I don't actually know if I'm aware of like the specific nature of why there was a. Petition or protest that you guys signed onto?

Mckayla Warwick: Absolutely. In terms of background information, the [00:11:00] division of Public safety at Penn is, I believe the third largest private police force in the United States.

And there was a lot of conversation just amongst students and faculty as well as alumni who wanted to kind of acknowledge University City, which used to be the a predominantly black neighborhood in Philadelphia is. Over policed, and what that often creates is this. Distinct difference in feeling between that and the rest of West Philly.

And so there were students who were calling for a shift in that because this over-policing also corresponds to the continued gentrification of West Philadelphia as that expands, and I remember, you know, being a student on the. Orientation week when I was a freshman, we were told like, don't go past 40th street.

You know, it's not safe there. And that obviously comes from a lot of violent instances that had taken place throughout Penn's history. Mm-hmm. Between the students [00:12:00] and the Philly population. But it also created this notion of the Penn bubble where so many Penn students would feel. Super distinct and never actually feel like they were a part of Philadelphia while they're at this university.

And I felt very different than that. I felt more comfortable in Philly than I did on Penn's campus often, and I even had my own challenges as a student at Penn with the security actually at one time, accusing me of not being a student at Penn because I didn't have my pen card. Man, but then we get to 2020, and Philly was a really big part of protesting after Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and the Division of Public Safety was a part of responding to that in addition to the City of Philadelphia.

And that in included. You know, coming with SWAT gear on.

Michael Schweisheimer: Wow. I did. I'm not sure if I knew that the Penn Police Department had SWAT gear and the whole thing.

Mckayla Warwick: Yeah. So it was a lot going on. And so [00:13:00] those responses were captured on video and it resulted in a, a coalition of since faculty community members and alumni called Police Free Pen.

Michael Schweisheimer: Okay.

Mckayla Warwick: Calling for the dismantling of. Penn Police, um, saying, you know, this is actually a violent force on the community and not a helpful force on the community. And they were asking for students and student groups to sign on and we decided to sign on to it. We were feeling a bit of tension when we first reached out to Penn Police where they were.

Excited about the idea of creating a diversion program. Mm-hmm. But then they kept kind of meeting with us and it was the same meeting happening over and over, and we were like, when are we gonna develop this idea? And they would say things like, well, you know, we just think we gotta get a little bit more comfortable with each other.

And then they started introducing us to other people and trying to morph the project, but then they wanted to. Kind of parade us [00:14:00] around and tell people like, we're gonna partner with these students. Okay. And we kind of realized like we're not confident that you all are actually energized at the diversion program.

Mm-hmm. And more energized at the idea of three students of color, three alumni of color are interested in partnering with you on a public relations thing instead. Exactly. It was giving public relations. It wasn't giving. That we were gonna create some tangible shifts. And so with that in mind, in the background plus, you know, the fact that they were complicit in tear gassing community members.

Yeah. We signed the petition and we made it very clear to Penn Police that we aren't here to be good publicity for you.

Michael Schweisheimer: I feel like restorative justice is, it is one of those. Concepts that I think it's too easy to think we know what it is, just by hearing the name. Mm-hmm. But can you give me just a little bit of a, or give us a little bit of an explanation as to what restorative justice really means?

'cause [00:15:00] I think it matters to understand your work.

Mckayla Warwick: So I think for me, restorative justice is this idea that conflict is inevitable. Then if we can accept that that is fact, then we can really be more intentional about how we respond to that. And so we as a society have gone in the way of, okay, we're gonna focus on punishment, or we're gonna focus on responding to conflict with more conflict and restorative justice is this idea of how do we restore?

The relationship to be back to the place where we were before that conflict occurred,

Michael Schweisheimer: and I'm sorry, the relationship between Fender and the victim or the relationship with community or what relationship?

Mckayla Warwick: I'm glad you asked that question too, because I don't often think of it as an isolated process either.

And what I mean by that is we can use language like victim and offender. We prefer to use. Person harmed and responsible party.

Michael Schweisheimer: Okay.

Mckayla Warwick: But at the end of the day, these are two people who do [00:16:00] live in a community together. Mm-hmm. It might be a school that they attend together. It might even be a household that they live in together.

Right. So the idea is, yeah, how do we restore their relationship? And then how do we restore trust from the community as well? And that's, to me, what restorative justice is about. It's not about punishment, it's about that restoration.

Michael Schweisheimer: And do people get hung up on or pushed back wanting there to be some level of quote, punishment for the person who.

Caused harm.

Mckayla Warwick: Absolutely. It's often easier to be more comfortable with the status quo, right? Mm-hmm. But I think what I want to make very clear about our process and about restorative justice when done correctly, consent is such an important part of it. So if the person who was harmed does not feel this is the way that they want to go, then it won't be the option that is.

Done. Um,

Michael Schweisheimer: so if you have a case referred by the da, like how do you go about [00:17:00] having that conversation with the person who was harmed? 'cause I would think that if I was harmed. And it was scary and difficult and financially problematic. I don't know that my immediate instinct would be like, oh no, let's just sit down.

Like, of course I don't, no matter how mags a person you might think you are, like if you've been harmed, I think it's hard to do that. So

Mckayla Warwick: I argue that it's harder, it's, it's a lot harder than the traditional process, but I think the major difference is that the person who was harmed has a say in this process when they don't necessarily have a say in the alternative.

And they wanna know the outcome. They want to be able to shape that, and they wanna actually be able to be asked the question, in your view, what would make this right? Then that's why they would choose restorative justice. You know, restorative justice is not the opposite of accountability in any means mean.

I just think we have to reframe how we think about accountability because when a young person, when they come to our program, they still have about [00:18:00] four to six months of social and emotional development that they have to work on. They have to attend our programming, consistently write. They have to work on their apology letter.

Plus they'll have to do restitution, which will be like a community project, for example, maybe working at a community garden, maybe volunteering at a soup kitchen, maybe supporting in some other way to actually earn back what they damaged. Philadelphia is a great city in many regards. But it's not a very great city for paying teens or teens having access to employment.

And so,

Michael Schweisheimer: yeah,

Mckayla Warwick: and a lot of the families of the young people that we work with, they don't have the money to come out of pocket. Right. So we were like, okay, if you can do something positive in your community, something prosocial, we will pay the person harmed.

Michael Schweisheimer: You've told me a little bit about the President's Prize, and you mentioned a tiny bit about it in the story, but let's just give people that are listening a general sense of what the President's Prize.

I guess [00:19:00] was,

Mckayla Warwick: yeah. So, uh, the President's engagement prize, it still exists actually. So yeah, it's, it's awesome. But each, each year, the University of Pennsylvania basically decides a group of students, or you could apply. As an individual, but most of the time people choose groups of two or three to apply and put together a proposal for something that you're gonna do anywhere on the planet that is in service of a social mission.

And so we had seen before that there were groups that had done things in Philly, but there are also groups that had started projects in Ghana and Liberia and India. Right. Um, so students can choose what's near and dear to them, and basically there's a certain level of innovation that they're seeking.

What are you doing that would actually have the potential to impact this community that no one else is doing? And you could decide that you wanna partner with an existing entity to do that as like a project, or you could start your own organization. And what [00:20:00] you get if you win is a $100,000 seed grant.

For your venture, and you also get a living stipend of $50,000 to be able to do that work, hopefully uninterrupted. And while it is for one year, the idea is hopefully that what you create is something that will last. And we were very adamant that if we are going to apply for this and we're gonna build something, it needs to be sustainable and it needs to be able to exist beyond us as the facilitators of that project.

Michael Schweisheimer: I like the part about having exist beyond you. 'cause that was one, one of my questions was like, tell me a little bit about this first five years. Is collective climb larger in terms of staff or larger in terms of outreach? Or tell me a little bit about the journey.

Mckayla Warwick: We grew very slowly during our first five years.

We had. 2020. And I think the benefit of that is we were stuck inside. We were focused on learning, we were focused on [00:21:00] studying, but that also meant the a hundred thousand dollars that we had gotten wasn't getting spent as fast as we thought it would.

Michael Schweisheimer: Mm-hmm.

Mckayla Warwick: Because we couldn't do as much in person. And we're in on Zoom, we're not paying rent.

Right. So, um, we ended up being able to have like a cushion, um, to help sustain our, like, original team members. Mm-hmm. Um, for a additional six months after that first year. And once we had like a stable basis, that's when we kind of kicked things up a little bit. So at the beginning, our team was the three of us.

Mm-hmm. Plus, we worked with a contractor who had been doing restorative justice work for 30 plus years in her community in Norristown. Oh wow. And again, I feel like. So much of what we were doing was learning, you know, learning from elders and collaborating with elders in the community like Mati. That's the woman from Northtown that I mentioned, as well as folks in the restorative community, um, initiative of Philly.

Then we ended [00:22:00] up. Paying young people as well. So we have something called the restorative Community, okay. Which is our paid fellowship for teens to learn about restorative justice and to become community organizers and the stewards of their community. That's what the bulk of our work was at the beginning, like doing that program and then collaborating with the community members to help us do the.

Referrals from the district attorney's office that would be focused on supporting youth and supporting survivors who had been in an incident. You know, that a real harm was caused, but how do we heal that and how do we return everything back to feeling like a stable community

Michael Schweisheimer: with a diversion program?

Is it all non-violent?

Mckayla Warwick: No, it's, it's predominantly violent, really. So the number one thing that makes the difference is it has to have an identifiable person who was impacted in order for it to be considered eligible. Like that's the first decision that's made to see if it'll go into restorative justice.

And [00:23:00] so we're primarily looking at things that would have become felony, um. Charges if it went further in the In the process.

Michael Schweisheimer: Oh, so you're not really touching misdemeanor cases.

Mckayla Warwick: When you look at the list of like what charges it might have been, there usually is a felony as well as misdemeanors on top of that.

So for example, sure we've gotten a lot of felony assaults and then you'll have like. Terroristic threats underneath that too.

Michael Schweisheimer: Not being a lawyer, I did not realize that terroristic threats would be a misdemeanor, to be honest, but Okay. Yeah,

Mckayla Warwick: that's what I'm saying. And, and when you talk to the person and you're like, so what happened?

And they tell you what they said, you're like, oh, I might have said that in my car to a stranger the other day, you know? So

Michael Schweisheimer: I was able to do some work a number of years ago, but it was about helping returning citizens, figuring out employment. And so I got to learn a lot about. Criminal justice impact impacted folks and the challenges that they face.

And a great thing that I learned from an amazing person, Linda Manson, who at the time was at the [00:24:00] PA Prison Society, was that the difference between someone with a criminal record and the rest of us is just that they were caught. We've all made bad decisions. We just don't all end up with a. Police involvement and criminal justice involvement from those bad decisions.

And that stayed with me. Absolutely. Because yeah, to your point, I'm sure I've made some terroristic threats from behind the wheel. I just hopefully had the, the windows rolled up at the time.

Mckayla Warwick: Exactly. And I don't even mean to like make light of it, but I think

Michael Schweisheimer: No, I'm serious. I've said some really nasty things.

Mckayla Warwick: There you go. Yes. Okay. I believe you.

Michael Schweisheimer: How often do you get to bridge between individuals who are clearly directly harmed and a broader community, and like how broad does that community get? So obviously if you have someone who has done harm volunteering or volun, you know, doing things within the community, that's cool.

But at what point do you bring a broader community? And to talk about like, you know, I don't what assaults in the neighborhood have been doing to the block and not just the people in the house that were assaulted.

Mckayla Warwick: It's something that I want to do more of going forward. I will admit [00:25:00] in the past it's been more ad hoc and not necessarily a part of every youth's experience or every person harms experience.

In our program, and I'll give an example, we had a group of young people who were involved in going into a store and. They like destroyed the store. They took items and so it was like a group thing that happened. And what we ended up doing was actually finding someone who used to also work at that store as well as finding like parents and community members to be able to come in and talk, to say like, when this happened, this scared us all.

And even. The person who used to work at the store getting to share like how scary it would be for them when they were alone working a shift. And a bunch of people would come in and he'd have to consider like, if you all steal things and I don't stop you, right? Well, I lose my job. And I think that ended up being like a helpful way because at [00:26:00] first the young people were like.

This isn't your store, you just work here. You know, like we don't feel like we didn't feel bad. And then once they heard, oh man, like, oh, I, that person might lose their job, which means they might not be able to feed their family. They started to think like, oh, every action really does have both an intended and unintended consequence.

So I think it's been helpful when we bring in community members and bridge that gap for people to see like, oh, people are actually noticing me.

Michael Schweisheimer: So I know you said you're only dealing with. Offenders that are under, see people causing harm. Anyway, I'm, I'm

Mckayla Warwick: impressed and I appreciate the effort.

Michael Schweisheimer: So I know that the referrals are all for juveniles.

How, what's the age range of the young people that you're serving? I'm like, I'm as I, it's easy for me to just assume they're all like 15, 16, 17. Yeah. But I'm imagining that from that story that maybe there's some younger people

Mckayla Warwick: we've worked with as young as 10.

Michael Schweisheimer: Wow.

Mckayla Warwick: So 10 to 18, I will say there are a lot of 13 to 15 year olds, and [00:27:00] you'll see like the types of instances vary based on age, you know, 10 to 13.

Those are typically your assaults and your car thefts.

Michael Schweisheimer: 10 year olds stealing cars,

Mckayla Warwick: but I'm gonna be honest. Yeah. People physically get hurt and you know, the young people

Michael Schweisheimer: Yeah.

Mckayla Warwick: Are caught because they need emergency medical attention. And then after they get this medical attention, then they have to participate in a process.

You know, it is really a lot. But I would say for older youth fights tend to be typical throughout the aggravated assaults and the regular, uh, simple assaults.

Michael Schweisheimer: I wanna

Mckayla Warwick: be

Michael Schweisheimer: clear, I'm asking like this isn't morbid curiosity. I'm wondering like what the DA's office considers eligible for diversion. Do you feel like a restorative justice process?

Can be applied in different areas, including things that might involve deadly weapons, or would you be open to that, or do you think that there's a limit to where restorative justice processes have the same impact

Mckayla Warwick: or

Michael Schweisheimer: [00:28:00] effect?

Mckayla Warwick: Yeah, I absolutely believe it can be for more serious things. I think it takes a deep level of capacity and a really skilled facilitator as well as all parties really being open to participating fully.

And what that means is not just saying we're gonna have our circle where we get together and we talk about it, but it's gonna be like, are you also gonna be open to the therapeutic supports that you might need from this? Are you also gonna be open to like reprogramming your mind around like usage of weapons and violence in your community?

Yeah. And what does. Safety actually look like, and what does safety mean? Carrying a gun becomes like how we think about keeping ourselves safe, right? Or it just becomes a defacto part of life depending on certain communities that you're a part of.

Michael Schweisheimer: I do want to get a sense how many, how many young people are you serving in a year at a time?

Like how, how big an impact? Is this starting to have, at this point, five years in?

Mckayla Warwick: So I will say the numbers aren't as big as you might think. We're working [00:29:00] with between 30 and 40 young people in a year. We did tell the DA's office that we have capacity for up to 50 in a year, and part of that is because again, we're working with.

Everyone between four and six months at a time. And when we're doing that one-on-one support, that also looks like helping the mom, helping the brothers, helping, you know, of course the survivor as well, and the family that loves them. So we're also doing emergent needs supports. So that's like, if I'm completely honest, like going through a case and getting arrested is one of the smallest crisis.

Like crises that a person might be facing, they might also be dealing with houselessness at the same time.

Michael Schweisheimer: Oh, okay. I was gonna say that sounds like a pretty big crisis to me, but yeah,

Mckayla Warwick: it's a big crisis. But you know, if you don't know where you're laying your head every night when I meet you, the, the bigger concern is can you help us get a place to live?

Like, can, can that be the thing that we focus on first?

Michael Schweisheimer: [00:30:00] Yeah, I need the bus fare to get here to talk to you about not having a place to live. Yeah, I

Mckayla Warwick: get it. You know? Yep. And so we end up having to do a lot of that. Very deep work to even get to a place where it's like, okay, now let's talk about in a deeper way what has happened and how we can make that right.

Now that you're stabilized, now that you have that support,

Michael Schweisheimer: have you seen it have any impact on the number of cases that are happening in Philly for young kids? Is that part of the hope is that by adding this level of understanding within the community, that it might actually prevent other incidences from happening, or at least reduce that?

Mckayla Warwick: I'm like nodding, but I realize we're on audio, so yes. That

Michael Schweisheimer: nod louder.

Mckayla Warwick: Will

Michael Schweisheimer: you? I want to hear your brain shake.

Mckayla Warwick: That is definitely the hope. I mean, and that's why we're a part of other initiatives like the Restorative Cities Initiative, which is a coalition of community members and organizations whose goal is to spread restorative justice from the porch to city hall through community-based trainings.

Mm-hmm. As [00:31:00] well as eventually taking community-based referrals. So instead of. Calling the police, right? Um-huh Or getting the justice system involved. The real hope is that they'll be able to call the Restorative Cities Initiative and the groups that are part of it, and, but depending on your neighborhood or depending on your identity, we'll be able to find someone who can tend to that and support you Before there's, there's a case right?

Michael Schweisheimer: 30 to 40 lives a year, being able to be diverted from a juvenile felony conviction. I know that it's not as big a percentage of the 2000 annual cases that you would like to see your guys impacting, but 30 to 40 to up to 50 lives is a big deal.

Mckayla Warwick: Yeah.

Michael Schweisheimer: That's 30 to 50 people who have been harmed also. So that's double the impact.

Mm-hmm. There, right? Yeah. It feels like it's gonna have some real ripples to me.

Mckayla Warwick: No, I greatly appreciate that. About 95 young people have gone through the program. Only one person did not complete. And of those that have [00:32:00] completed, only three young people have been rearrested.

Michael Schweisheimer: Are there kids from those early years that you're still in touch with?

I assume you've got some juveniles who are over 18 by now.

Mckayla Warwick: Literally last night, I'm not, I wasn't supposed to be there, but it was the, our last session for the year, we have this thing called guys group.

Michael Schweisheimer: Why weren't you supposed to be a guys group? Mikayla? No, I'm just kidding.

Mckayla Warwick: This was my literal first time being there, and at the end I was so moved, one of the guys came up and was like, all right, y'all have a good one.

And I was like, wow. That was my first time. I really felt like one of the guys. But anyway, last night we had a young person who graduated in 2023. He came by and hung out with us for guys group and he's 19 now and he was just like, I'm just checking on y'all making sure things are good, but I'm gonna stay plugged in.

So

Michael Schweisheimer: that's cool. Are there other aspects of the work of Collective Climb that are not the restorative justice work? 'cause like. One question I have is like, what's a kickback?

Mckayla Warwick: Oh yeah.

Michael Schweisheimer: Okay. What comes up to me [00:33:00] is like, yeah, there's kickbacks are classic in, uh, you know, bribery for people to get government contracts or I think about radio payola where someone would pay DJs money to play records and make them hits.

But anyway, but that is not a kickback in the form

Mckayla Warwick: of collective what is no brick kickback to mean. Just like kick it back with us. Like, come hang out with us. And so we have a really cute. Space, and I mentioned we have young people who either come back after they've done a diversion program or we have a restorative community project for young people who are interested in building community and repairing relationships in community, and they actually can stay with us and get paid to organize events.

Here at our space. And so we have like a mindfulness Monday that is every third Monday of the month. We have our open mic nights that we do. Um,

Michael Schweisheimer: what kind of stuff happens at an

Mckayla Warwick: open mic? Is it like, oh, so

Michael Schweisheimer: cool because Yeah. 'cause I always think kids love poetry.

Mckayla Warwick: We have a 19-year-old poet who spear and one of our team members, Andres, he is, [00:34:00] um.

A poet himself, and so they host like a poetry workshop that helps people like learn how to like take what they're feeling and their emotions and turn it into a poetic form that they can then perform at the open mic night.

Michael Schweisheimer: Where's the space? I assume it's U University City or

Mckayla Warwick: No. So we've actually moved because our, like referrals and stuff started coming from all over Philly.

Yeah. But um, we're at 15th and Pine now.

Michael Schweisheimer: Okay.

Mckayla Warwick: So we're right near the Broad Street line.

Michael Schweisheimer: Everybody can get to you. Yeah.

Mckayla Warwick: Yeah. It's fun.

Michael Schweisheimer: Poetry slams came first before the idea of a story slam. Mm-hmm. So the thing that I'm doing in my free time, I owe to poetry. So I just, I was just being a jerk because I'm good at that.

Alright. Where do people find out and learn things about? The work of Collective Climb and about the work that you're up to individually.

Mckayla Warwick: I mean, you can send me an email, mckayla@collectiveclimb.org if you wanna get connected. Um, I would love that. I appreciate it. I will definitely respond.

Michael Schweisheimer: And we should [00:35:00] just say M-C-K-A-Y-L-A, right?

Mckayla Warwick: Yes, that's perfect. You can also follow on Instagram or Facebook where we do post events that we're having.

Michael Schweisheimer: Do you guys for the socials or is it just at Collective Climb?

Mckayla Warwick: That's it.

Michael Schweisheimer: And then. I would really be interested particularly, you know, you talked about like some of the older kids that have come back around and stuff like that.

I would love to hear from someone who has been through collective climb, either someone who has caused or been harmed. Mm-hmm. Either way, I think hearing a story from one of them on our stage would be really powerful.

Mckayla Warwick: Absolutely. I'm

Michael Schweisheimer: not trying to twist anyone's arm. That's some very personal stuff, but if someone has the motivation and bravery to do that, I would love to welcome them.

So let us know.

Mckayla Warwick: Okay, I will, I'll definitely do my part to share the invitation because I also would love to hear that kind of story and have that story exist in the world as a narrative to maybe shift the idea of like how mysterious this is.

Michael Schweisheimer: And I think the power of [00:36:00] stories is humanizing a difficult concept, right?

Mm-hmm. Like it becomes more tangible and understandable when we can see it through the eyes of someone who's been through. Something very difficult.

Mckayla Warwick: Absolutely.

Michael Schweisheimer: So mission story slams a side project for PWP video and one of the things that we really hope is that smaller organizations or larger ones would really be able to potentially leverage the recording of the story.

Mm-hmm. Do you think that you might be able to use your story slam story to, to help explain collective climb a little bit to someone? Or is, is there a life for that do you think? Besides. The YouTube channel and the Makayla day?

Mckayla Warwick: No, I definitely think so. Maybe I cursed a little too much for certain forums, but, oh, well we're redoing our website.

Mm-hmm. I've been thinking of it as like a potential video we could plug on, like organizational history.

Michael Schweisheimer: Well use it however you want, whatever seems appropriate and comfortable. But yeah, that is something that we put the energy to make sure that we've got those recordings and we really do wanna see people use 'em.

So is there anything else that you would wanna talk about today, or do you think we're, [00:37:00] have we landed? Landed this plane?

Mckayla Warwick: I think we've landed the plane. Um, but I've enjoyed this conversation as I've enjoyed all our other ones. So thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Schweisheimer: Thank you again. Makayla really appreciated you joining us on the podcast and thanks to the audience for joining us as well.

I know you've all heard me say this before, but we are trying to build a community with mission Story Slam a community for all of us doing the hard work of doing good. And a community cannot be built alone. It's kind of against the definition, right? So we need you, our missionaries to do the supportive things.

So that includes rate and review, the podcast, directing people to our website, mission story slam.org. Or you can have them follow us on our LinkedIn or Instagram pages. So remember, mission story slam 14 is officially coming up on May 12th, and the theme is No judgment. I suggest having a story ready, even an inkling of one, because everyone who volunteers to put their name in the coffee Can of Destiny will get a free [00:38:00] drink on us.

So you don't even have to tell a story, you just have to volunteer to do so. I mean, your name could be drawn, so be ready. So listen, don't drive on autopilot. Matter of fact, I prefer you take a bike or public transit. But remember, we're at a new venue. Philadelphia's only B Corp Brewery Triple bottom brewing.

I cannot wait to see you and all of the people you bring with you that will help us grow this community mission story. Slam 14 is being sponsored by our friends at the Energy co-op. Be like PWP video and purchase your energy from the Energy co-op. They offer renewable electricity, renewable natural gas, and even affordable heating oil.

I also want to thank our media sponsors at the Philadelphia Citizen. The Mission Story Slam podcast is produced by Dave Winston, and it's edited by James Robinson. The podcast is brought to you by PWP Video. We are video with a Mission. You can find us@pwpvideo.com. Until our next episode, I shall remain Michael Schweitzer and I look forward to sharing the next story behind the story with you [00:39:00] soon.