WGRL NYC

Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and the founder and owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. She has been a champion of local sustainable agriculture for over four decades. In 1995 she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project, which advocates for a free school lunch for all children and a sustainable food curriculum in every public school. In this intimate interview Alice shares her passion and life long love affair with food along with some sound advice on eating healthy. Spoiler alert – healthy doesn’t have to mean boring! Enjoy this conversation with a culinary legend.

We were thrilled to have a few of the organizers behind the Women’s March, Paola Mendoza and Sarah Sophie Flicker in the studio a few months back for a behind the scenes glimpse into “the March Heard Around the World”. Meet The Women’s March team here and become a part of this important movement for social justice and change in these challenging times by checking out their latest actions, like Power to the Polls,  This coordinated campaign will build upon the Women’s March’s ongoing work uplifting the voices and campaigns of the nation’s most marginalized communities to create transformative social and political change. We are so grateful that these busy ladies took time out of their schedule to speak with us about their work and inspire us to speak out about the changes we would like to see in our world.  

One of the highlights of our recent trip to our sister city, New Orleans, was a chance to interview the inspiring songbird Princess Shaw! Princess Shaw has overcome tremendous struggle in her life and is a testament to staying true to your gift and the grace of forgiveness. Check out her film “Presenting Princes Shaw” if you haven’t already and tune in for a few words of life advice, realness and a surprise song from this warm, gracious and gifted human being!

  Coco and Breezy stopped by to talk about sisterhood (they’re TWINS!), girl power and the value of being true to yourself and having each other’s backs as women. We hope you are as super inspired as we were by the story of twins who went from not fitting in and being outsiders in school to becoming successful designers, DJs and entrepreneurs. Coco and Breezy exemplify the concepts of sisterhood whether it’s your blood family or your bestie and we were happy to welcome them into our Girl’s Club Fam!

When in New Orleans, WGRL recommends a trip to the Louisiana Products Deli, a neighborhood institution for more than thirty years! Run by charming sisters Martha and Melanie, Louisiana Products is part art gallery, part community center and part old sc hool deli with delicious home cooked NOLA specialities. In this edition of our podcast, Martha explains some of the heart behind this one of a kind store where you can get your groceries with a healthy warm helping of New Orleans culture.

Meschiya Lake was a little girl with a big voice, starting her career at the tender age of nine! WGRL caught up with the sultry voiced New Orleans vocalist who has lived a fascinating life that includes running away with the punk rock circus! From eating glass to her current stint singing jazz with her band The Little Big Horns , we were transfixed by her story and her talent.

We were so happy to host the lovely Connie Girl at our studios for a discussion on  the world of modeling. She even gave us a lesson on how to walk the runway – it’s not as easy as it looks! Hopefully she will be back at Girls Club soon preparing us for our next couture show in our design department!  

We were excited to host energetic entrepreneur, philanthropist and ethical jewelry designer Kara Ross in the WGRL studios recently. Kara spoke on taking a career risk to follow her passion to create Unleashed, a social impact brand whose net profits support girls’ education and job creation globally and gave us some solid advice on pursuing our dreams and attaining our goals. Take a listen for some inspiring advice for teens that passionate people of all ages can apply to their lives. Thanks Kara for taking the time out of your busy schedule to visit WGRL and we hope you will be back soon!

In May of this year we had the incredible opportunity to take WGRL on the road to New Orleans for Jazzfest where we had the chance to meet and interview none other than the Soul Queen of New Orleans, the Grammy award winning Irma Thomas! Irma shared her wisdom from over 58 years in show business in an insightful interview with our teen reporters. We were so inspired by our conversation with the gracious star that our artists on the trip decided to do a portrait which is pictured below. We hope you enjoy our conversation with this great and talented lady!  

Extraordinarily talented Jamar Rogers has been volunteering with us for close to a year now, sharing his gifts for songwriting and performance. We celebrate Jamar’s release of his first solo record “Lazurus” released on the  Tommy Boy  label by posting this interview from the very first time we met him in the WGRL studios! We are so proud to call Jamar a member of the Girl’s Club family and can’t wait to release all the fantastic projects we have been working on with him. Stay tuned for greatness!

Le bon ton roulet in New Orleans! This Spring we had the very special opportunity to visit this world class city of art, culture, food and music. In conjunction with our sister group, the YaYa’s, we had a booth at the legendary Jazz Fest and spent 4 days live painting, experiencing and getting inspired by all this beautiful city had to offer. WGRL was able to conduct a series of remote interviews with some of the most exciting female musicians in the city, both established and rising stars. Tank, the dynamic lead singer of Tank and the Bangas and her manager Tavia made their way to us in the middle of a tropical downpour and the hecticness of rehearsing for their new tour. We truly appreciate these great inspiring ladies words of wisdom! AND check out the live painting we did of the beautiful Tank below!

For low-income communities like the Lower East Side, gun violence is more than a simple tragic event. Guns impact us all- physically, economically and mentally. Guns kill people, but they also kill spirit…and murder communities. The aftermath of gun violence leaves everyone feeling helpless and diminished. At The Lower Eastside Girls Club we are building a strong anti-violence message throughout our organization. This podcast episode highlights some of the members of our community fighting to make a change. We hope you will be inspired to join the fight against gun violence as well! Last Fall, a group of mothers and young women from The Lower Eastside Girls Club’s (LESGC) Moms Speak Out campaign – women who have been affected by gun violence – joined with Council Members Laurie Cumbo and Jumaane Williams, and peace advocates from the Middle Project of Middle Collegiate Church, to launch the distribution of 3500 copies of William Electric Black’s (aka Ian James, Emmy Award winning former writer of Sesame Street) illustrated early reader: ‘A Gun Is Not Fun’. For low-income communities like the Lower East Side, gun violence is more than a simple tragic event. Guns impact us all- physically, economically and mentally. Guns kill people, but they also kill spirit…and murder communities. The aftermath of gun violence leaves everyone feeling helpless and diminished. At The Lower Eastside Girls Club we are building a strong anti-violence message throughout our organization. LESGC’s Moms Speak Out participants distributed the ‘A Gun Is Not Fun’ early reader books in front of every public school and day-care center with Pre-K through 2nd grade classes in the East Village / Lower East Side community. This community has been particularly plagued by youth gun violence over the past five years –  with LESGC girls’ family members killed, ‘stray’ bullets taking the life of a young child simply playing outside, and mothers wounded waiting at a bus stop to get to work. “As mothers and community leaders, we are tired of raising our children in a climate of fear!  We believe that it is never too early to create a climate of peace! We’re starting now and we’re starting here- in our own Lower East Side community.” – Lyn Pentecost, Ph.D., Executive Director, LESGC “It is unacceptable to us that our children are growing up in a culture where violence has become the norm on the streets and in the media.”  – Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Executive Director, The Middle Project William Electric Black (aka Ian James) says, “I wrote this book because we are losing too many young people of color to gun violence. It is a plague facing our nation and something must be done so I decided to use the Sesame Street target audience and start educating them about this timely, and too often deadly, issue”. We love our children and refuse to raise them in a violent world. The message of ‘A Gun Is Not Fun’ is self-explanatory. It is designed to be read aloud and shared with friends and siblings.  

Thanks so much to health and beauty guru, DJ and all around lovely person Hannah Bronfman  for stopping by our studios recently. We chopped it up with the energetic entrepreneur covering everything from DJing to health to eating bugs! Yes bugs! We had a blast and hope she can come back to WGRL soon to share her latest adventures!

Last session we had the good fortune to have the legendary Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Garcia drop by the studio! It was great to hear about their adventures in music, radio and film and the groundbreaking work they did in the nineties with a radio show that started from the pure love and passion for music. We also got into the reasons we come to Girls’ Club and some of the struggles teens face. Thanks for the great interview guys! Give it a listen below and check out their continuing adventures as radio hosts now on NPR by visiting stretchandbobbito.com

We have so much love for HOT 97’s Nessa and her whole team! She has been super supportive of our team of young journalists and we really admire her as a celebrity who stands up for what is right and just. Take a listen to our podcast from one of Nessa’s first visits to WGRL and find out a little more about this awesome broadcaster and supporter of female journalists and girls’ rights!