My Orange Duffel Bag Video #3:
CNN Interview – Sam Sam Bracken: Helping Kids in Crisis
Interviewer: This guy grew up in Las Vegas. You know who his role models were? Motorcycle gang members and mobsters. He lived with an abusive step father, a mother who threw him out at the age of 15, a step brother he’d, I guess he’d rather forget, but sports proved to be his one way out and he took it. He got so good he earned a football scholarship to Georgia Tech and something more, a new life today, Sam Bracken, an author and successful businessman devotes his time, energy, life, really, to helping kids who were a lot like you, right Sam?
Sam Bracken: Absolutely. We try to help as many kids as we can.
Interviewer: How do you do it?
Sam Bracken: It’s interesting. We all have our own story. I have my story of being raised like a whacked out version of the Brady Bunch on an episode of Cops. When I was trying to get out of a bad environment, everything I owned fit in this little orange duffel bag. It became a metaphor for me for hope and packing my bags with my hopes and dreams. When we talk to kids and work with them, we try to, first of all, understand their story. A lot of our kids that are homeless or in foster care, they become forgotten, they live in the shadows, and when you listen to them and you really find out their stories, they’re unbelievable.
Interviewer: You did write a book and started a foundation, as you said, called the Orange Duffel Bag Foundation. You’ve got this pilot project going in Atlanta. I understand there’s been a graduation. Just give us one example of a kid who’s gone through this and what the outcome has been.
Sam Bracken: We did write a book. It’s called My Orange Duffel Bag: A Journey to Radical Change. This book was sort of the content for this leadership program in Atlanta. We worked with some foster kids there over a couple months period where we sort of taught them to have bold vision, have meaning, figure out values they wanted to live their life by, and then create a goal setting process to accomplish your objectives. We had amazing contributions from a lot of different kids. Recently, on Monday, we had a graduation of that experience. One young man, Sebatian, who was born in Ghana, has been in several foster families, his dream is to be a physician and to eventually return to Ghana and be the president of that country. We really want to help him make that happen. It’s fabulous when you hear–when these kids, when they lock onto a powerful vision and a long view with really good meaning in their lives and they choose to take those unfortunate experiences that have happened to them in their lives and leverage that for their good and use it to ignite doing things on a daily basis that make life better, it’s amazing what you learn from these kids. We’ve learned a tremendous amount from them. And I think we’ve helped them change the trajectory of their lives. They’re going to end up in a very different place because we’ve spent some time with them.
Interviewer: None of this is simple, I’m sure. I would imagine the biggest hurdle is to get kids who are going the wrong way to actually buy in to going the right way. As a person who’s been there, how have you used your experience to try to reach them, turn the tiller the other way and send them in the right path?
Sam Bracken: That’s a good, good question. Helping kids that have had less fortunate upbringings is messy. When I look back on my life, I was helped by very key people in very specific situations, one at a time; they just helped me, one kid. When you look at these kids’ situations, and when you look at their circumstance, we like to say, “Be that one to help just one kid” because you never know what you’re going to be able to do to someone. Part of it is mentoring, coaching, and teaching kids when you can, but everyone in the audience knows at least one kid that’s at risk. Everyone can reach out to that kid and say– and be a mentor, be a coach, and connect with them on a personal basis. Be uncomfortable. See things in them that they don’t see in themselves. Love them. Extend yourself to them. And get involved in their life. It’s going to be uncomfortable. It might be a little messy, but it can change so many people’s lives.
It can help them become self-reliant and truly reach the potential in life, whereas there’s so many kids that don’t have that opportunity, if we could just reach out and help those kids and do what we can, it can make a tremendous difference.
Interviewer: You held up the book, it looked pretty thin. Is that book written for kids? Or is it written for us that want to reach out to kids? Or is it written for everybody?
Sam Bracken: It’s really written for everybody. It’s a short read. It’s very unique in its approach. It was fitting to have it be in a zipper, be in a duffel bag, its own duffel bag. As you look at it, there’s wonderful graphics in it. We tried to write the book that would impact all learning styles. We want to impact kids, of course, but I think everybody is really enjoying the book. It has beautiful art work in it and photography. My co-author Echo Garret did some amazing things. Kevin Garret has amazing photography in it. It starts out with poetry, moves to a narrative, and then eventually has seven rules of the road for helping people on their journey, sort of where we try to coach people along. We’ve found that it resonates with kids, but it also resonates with everybody. Anyone that’s trying to make change in their life and wants to be exposed to a process of change to improve, learn and grow, I think it resonates with everyone.
Interviewer: Alright, Sam Bracken. Grew up in Las Vegas, came to Georgia, now we’re talking to you via Salt Lake City. Thanks for joining us Sam, I appreciate that.
If you’d like to know more about Sam Bracken and the work he’s doing with kids in crisis go to www.MyOrangeDuffelBag.com.
