Jay Ruderman:

Welcome to All About Change. Now is a great time to check out my new book about activism. Find Your Fight. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy books, and you can learn more about it at jayruderman.com.

Welcome to All About Change. I’m Jay Ruderman. Many years ago, I was involved in opening a program in Boston that trained people with disabilities in food service. The program was a huge success, and they’ve gone on to work in restaurants across the Boston area. But I remember folks outside our program asking if people in our program could be good employees. This is the same question that my former guest, Steve Preston of Goodwill, is asked when his organization helps folks who are returning to society from prison find work. And it’s the same question that today’s guest, Kerry Brodie, is asked about her suit employees at Emma’s Torch as well.

In all three cases, the question is founded on stigma, not facts. People with disabilities, people returning to the workforce, and in Kerry’s case, refugees, are all fantastic workers, key parts of our national economy.

Kerry Brodie is the founder and executive director of Emma’s Torch. Emma’s Torch is a non-profit social enterprise that provides refugees with an in-depth culinary training, as well as employability, equity, and empowerment training.

Kerry came up with the idea of Emma’s Torch while volunteering at a DC homeless shelter. She met refugees looking for jobs, and connected this to report she was reading of understaffing in restaurants. She named her organization after Emma Lazarus, who wrote a poem now emblazoned on the Statue of Liberty that says, “Give me your poor and huddled masses.” In a moment where refugees are demonized in our society and others, Kerry is living Emma Lazarus’ words, and I’m so excited to have her on the show to talk a bit about community activism and welcoming refugees.

So Kerry Brodie, welcome to All About Change. I’m so excited to have you as my guest today.

Kerry Brodie:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Jay Ruderman:

So let me talk to you about Emma’s Torch, which has been recognized this year as part of a growing movement of mission-driven restaurants. And even earlier this summer, Emma’s Torch was a finalist for the Rammy Awards, which, Washington DC’s recognition of honors for restaurants and bars. Why do you think that food activism has become more of a thing now than when you first had the idea for Emma’s Torch?

Kerry Brodie:

I love this question, because I think it speaks to something that’s so central to our humanity. I think that people connect over food in ways that can transcend language barriers, backgrounds, trauma, all of these other pieces. But I think to the point about why does it feel so prevalent right now, is I think people are looking for ways in their day-to-day lives, we all eat every single day, hopefully, to live their values.

And so I remember during, I was at a protest in the first Trump administration, and somebody said, “Protest is the new brunch.” Joking that we don’t go to brunch anymore, we go to protest. And I actually think that for many people, brunch is a new protest. If I’m going to buy a cup of coffee, if I’m going to go out on a date, if I’m going to pick up lunch from the workplace, how can that live into my values? Which I think is really a wonderful movement.

Jay Ruderman:

I myself started my career a long time ago in politics, and my feeling back then was, well, politics was really the way to change society. And then I evolved over the years and said, “Well, listen, as an activist who’s focused, you can actually have a tremendous impact.” So when did you make that switch from saying, “I’m working a public policy and I’m having an impact, but I can have a different kind of impact by being out there in the community and actually starting a business?”

Kerry Brodie:

I think it’s important that we all take stock of what our skills are and where we are best suited to serve. I think that everybody in their everyday lives has something to contribute. For me, I thought I was going to be in public policy forever. I grew up watching the West Wing. I wanted to be Sam Seaborn. That was my goal. And I studied for that, and I worked at the Israeli embassy and then the Human Rights Campaign.

But I learned a lot about myself. One of those things was that I’m not very patient, and I think that that impatience is a challenge when you’re working on changing these huge policies. I had the honor of getting to be on the steps of the Supreme Court when marriage equality was announced, and I looked around me and I saw people who had spent decades doing this type of world-changing.

And I so deeply admire them, and so many of my colleagues from that period are still very close friends. But it made me realize that that wasn’t my skill set. My skill set was how do we do some of those nitty-gritty, on the ground changes that opens up people’s hearts and minds, and gives space for those bigger policy changes?

And so I think that there’s so much space if we think about any of the big challenges facing us, in my case, it was the refugee crisis is really a driving force. There’s space along that continuum. There’s public policy changes that need to be made, there’s local policy changes that need to be made, and then there’s that grassroots work. And I think impatience and a real, perhaps sometimes misguided belief that there is always something we can do is why I think I have been so comfortable and been able to find a space in that more grassroots work.

Jay Ruderman:

You make an important point. People think a lot of times that activism has to be on a national level or international level, but sometimes the most effective activism comes on the local level. How did you actually make that change? Because a lot of people can’t make that change. And where did you get the idea and also the impetus to really say, “Okay, I’m going to make this change?” Which is a big step.

Kerry Brodie:

I’m very fortunate that I’ve had amazing mentors at every stage, including in my family. And I think something that I’ve always appreciated is when we think about activism or just think about, in a very simplistic way, making the world a better place, it requires the humility of recognizing that the world’s a very big place and that these are very big problems.

And I think sometimes when we get sidetracked, we get into this headspace where it’s all or nothing. We must be changing everything at the federal level, otherwise it doesn’t count. And for me, it was a very important learning to have a little bit of humility in that, that actually it’s good enough if it is changing the story for one person, it’s good enough if you’re changing the story for one person for one day. Because if everybody focused on changing the story for one person for one day, we’d be in a much better place than we are now.

Jay Ruderman:

Exactly.

Kerry Brodie:

And that’s not to say that there’s not space on that other end, but you asked about how I made that shift. I think it was a couple of factors. One of them was definitely recognizing my own limitations. I really enjoyed the work that I was doing, but the part that was filling me up and giving me a lot more hope and really motivating me throughout the day was volunteering at a homeless shelter in the mornings on my way to work. And I was just handing out muffins. That, for me, felt world-changing, and really catalyzed a lot of my understanding of interacting with people across barriers. But it’s not the most exciting thing to ever happen to somebody at 7:30 in the morning. And so those conversations I was having at that shelter while I was volunteering helped me come to the realization that this jump might be worthwhile.

And then very fortunate, I had a crazy idea that I told my husband, and in the naive way of 25-year-olds, he was like, “Well, I don’t know. Why don’t you give it a shot? What’s stopping you?”

And I do sometimes think that we don’t ask ourselves that question of what’s stopping us, because the answer is scary sometimes. The answer is our own insecurities, or our own beliefs, or our own unwillingness to recognize some of that humility. So that was my story, at least, and I’m very grateful that I’ve had my husband as well as so many great friends and mentors who helped me go from that to starting Emma’s Torch.

Jay Ruderman:

So can you talk a little bit about, way back when Kerry’s volunteering and handing out muffins. And what were the interactions like? What did you learn from that experience?

Kerry Brodie:

It was really interesting, and I think about this a lot, because we work with people every single day. And I think that putting a human face, and not just … We often talk about storytelling, and I think storytelling is incredibly powerful, but it’s not just storytelling. It’s seeing somebody else’s life.

So the interactions were really mundane. I will always remember handing out a muffin and joking around about how I don’t know what a morning glory muffin is, and even though we sell them at the cafe to this day, I still don’t really know what the technical … But getting a little bit precious about it, right? “I’m giving you this muffin. Do you know what’s in it? Are you excited? What are the muffins you like?” And it sounds so silly, because it should be obvious, but that’s a conversation that you can have with anyone. And I think that the interactions were like that.

It was, “What do you have planned for your day? What types of food do you like to eat for breakfast? Oh, you don’t want the cereal? I get that. What cereals do you like? Because I like the sugary ones.” My parents always taught us that when we go to museums and we see pictures from different things, they’re often in black and white. And it’s so easy to forget that people live their lives in color. And I think about that when I think about reading the newspaper, even though those are color photos, but these people have much bigger lives. It’s not just this moment of trauma.

Jay Ruderman:

This is not a political podcast, it’s a podcast about advocacy, but this is an issue that we’re facing as a society. And all of us, no matter who we are, your grandparents, my grandparents, everyone’s grandparents, or themselves, or their parents came to this country, unless you are a Native American that was here for who knows how much time, we are all immigrants to this country, to the United States. How did the issue of refugees become so politicized, and how do you deal with that when you’re on the front line, you’re dealing with the issue of refugees?

Kerry Brodie:

It’s such a good question. And I think sometimes we are living in a particular moment of history, and one where the refugee crisis is the largest that it’s ever been, and it has grown substantially, even since I started doing this work.

But at the same time, it’s not a new idea. We often fear newcomers. We often have a difficulty bridging between our current lived experience and other people’s. And that gives me hope, because I think that while we’ve never totally lived up to the words on the Statue of Liberty that we’re named after, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” we’ve had that as an ideal.

And so that does give me a lot of hope that even though we are living in this politicized moment, this moment where I think that a lot of political actors are using this as a scapegoat, as a way of hiding behind other things because we’re not born hating one another. We know what it looks like when the world turns its back on refugees and we have a responsibility to do better.

And if we can get people onto that headspace, and if we can help them reach this understanding of, this is not a nice thing to do for someone else, it is a thing to do because the society we live in, the country we live in is stronger when we welcome in the stranger, I think that we can make progress. But that progress is slow, and it’s hard work. But I do think that those little … kind of chipping away at that divide, whether in our case it’s through meals shared, having a cup of coffee, or through more educational support, or just calling out the lies for what they are, I think that we can make progress.

This is maybe my cynical view. I think that frequently politicians want to divide people because what would happen if those two groups came together? What would happened if you felt passed over and you paired up with somebody new to this country, and together maybe you advocated for better workplace protections? What happens if together maybe you advocated for child care being more accessible? Because that’s a limiting factor for all people. What happens if we ask more of our government, that puts people in a spot where they have to answer for who they’re accountable for? And so I think that it’s definitely self-serving to divide people.

But when I look at, especially in the industry where we’re working, employers are trying to fill jobs. The refrain of somebody taking your job. That’s a slogan. That’s not the reality on the ground. And I think that something I’ve noticed, and this is actually, I think, on both ends, is I think it’s really important that we hold deep sympathy and understanding for the perspective of being passed over, of being left behind, no matter where you come from, ad with that empathy, see if we can bring people into our movement.

I think for my work, we need to have people from all backgrounds, all political identities, all, you name it. The more people in this coalition, the better. And so are there ways to bring people together without saying, “Well, you complained about this or you feel this way so you’re not welcome.” Actually, this is one of the biggest problems of our generation. We’re going to need a lot of solutions from a lot of different places.

Jay Ruderman:

What you’re talking about, and which I think is the right way forward of saying, “Hey, we have more in common than we do differences.” I don’t think that’s being promoted. And I think what is great about what you’re doing is that when people meet face-to-face, they’re like, “Oh yeah, we have something in common. I understand it.”

I think the other important point that you make is that people are not necessarily taking jobs away. There are jobs that maybe the general American population does not want to do. And I look at my grandfather in the early 1900s was a peddler, and used to take his truck from place to place and sell garments, or whatever people would buy. I don’t think that was a job that most Americans at the time wanted to have, but he was an immigrant and that’s what he had to do, and that’s how he had to support his family. So I think there’s this view of like, “Oh, well, they’re coming in, they’re taking our jobs.” And I’m not necessarily convinced that that’s the case.

Kerry Brodie:

I think that the economic data supports that that’s not the case. I mean, on the macro scale, most economic studies indicate that it’s actually universally good for communities when more new arrivals arrive. It is good for the GDP, it’s good for creating new businesses, creating new jobs.

But then I look at our anecdotal data, we track what the wage increases over time have yielded for the community. Our students have created more than $27 million of wage increases. Those are dollars that are paid in taxes. Those are dollars that go back into our community. High waters float all boats.

But I agree with you that unity doesn’t sell, and it doesn’t help get people out to protest. I want to be clear that it’s not just that unity doesn’t sell because it creates divisions. It also doesn’t fire up your base on whatever issue.

But when we’re thinking about grassroots change, that might be okay. I think that’s a big lesson that I learned from my work at the Human Rights Campaign in particular, when you’re doing community work, you need to listen to what things bring the community together.

So language about hate and division doesn’t always work. Sometimes it’s, “Hey, we’re going to have a playground playdate between these different community centers,” and that’s going to be the act of activism because we’re going to all bring our children. We’re going to realize that everybody is trying to figure out how to get their two-year-old not to have a tantrum, no matter where they’re from, and that’s good enough to get started. And that’s not going to make a headline and that’s not going to get people to donate to political causes. But I think that is actually what’s going to make the difference.

Jay Ruderman:

I want to get a little bit into Emma’s Torch, because we haven’t talked about that a lot. But just tell us what it is, where it is, how it operates, and some of the successes that you’ve had.

Kerry Brodie:

Absolutely. So Emma’s Torch, we’re a non-profit social enterprise where we work with refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking, and we provide them with culinary education, both in our classroom setting and on the job at our cafes.

So we’re currently operating, we have three locations in New York, two cafes and one catering facility. And then in DC we have one cafe, and we’re going to be opening a much larger location in early 2026 just over the border with DC in Maryland. And we’re really excited about this. I started working on it about nine years ago, and it’s just been a joy to see our students thrive, but also to see what happens in these spaces.

So the way that it works is that our students enroll in the program. They’re earning full-time wages, whether they’re working with a social worker in an English class, interviewing for another job, or working in our cafe.

And every day, our cafes are open. You can come in, get a cup of coffee, get a sandwich, come in for, we’ve had people bring their first dates to our space, or bring their children. Really, it’s a normal cafe with, I think, quite excellent food.

But what it does is it gives our students the dignity of from day one, earning a paycheck, and seeing visibly that what they have to offer has tremendous value. It also gives our students an opportunity to practice and to learn what it’s like to be in the American workforce before we help them find long-term jobs with upward mobility. And it also gives people a chance to live their values. So we also cater, so we cater weddings, we cater events. All those things so that people can use food as a way of connecting with one another in a place of shared dignity.

And it’s just been really wonderful to see our students thrive. Next week we will have graduated 600 students. We’re at 596, by the end of next week, it’ll be like 625. So really excited.

And each of our students is on their own journey. We’ve had students go on to open their own restaurants. We’ve had students get promoted. One of my favorite things that just happened was that we have a cafe that’s based in New York that has hired a lot of our students. They just opened their first DC location, where they hired, 20% of their opening workforce is Emma’s Torch graduates from D.C, and they’re bringing the Emma’s Torch graduates from New York, the alumni from New York to help do the training.

Jay Ruderman:

Wow.

Kerry Brodie:

And so I think that that, we always want to make the business case to our employment partners, like, this is a great hire. They’re going to be the backbone of your team. They’re going to bring heart and soul to your work. And I get to see that play out and what that ripple effect is.

Jay Ruderman:

And how do you get your students, how do you get these students, and who is teaching the students? How do you get the teachers? Because I understand that there’s probably various degrees of levels that the students come in with food service. Some of them may know more from their home country, some of them may know less. How are you getting them, and how are you getting the people to teach them?

Kerry Brodie:

So our students come to us through two main channels. One of them is when I was getting started, I knew that I knew nothing. And so I met with a lot of nonprofits that work in this space, like refugee resettlement agencies, homeless shelters, legal aid clinics, that whole world of community-based organizations.

And so they helped us refine our curriculum, and then turned into our first referral partners. And so that number, when we got started, it was nine referral partners. Now I think it’s over 120. And these are organizations that work with refugees through all different intersecting points, which means that they’re referring clients to us, but also it gives us a network.

So if we have a student who has a challenge outside of what we’re able to serve, it’s not just, “Oh, you should look up this organization.” It’s, “Oh, I’m going to call this person and I’m going to make sure that we can solve this together.” Because again, collaboration is key when we’re thinking about these issues. And so that’s been a really fruitful partnership. The other big thing for us, though, is word of mouth. And so we’ll have one student graduate and next thing, everybody from the same shelter, everybody from the same English class, or so many other people will start applying. We love seeing people’s families. It’s just really special. And synagogues and churches and mosques who refer clients, because that’s the families that those services are working with.

And in terms of teaching, we have a team made up of a combination of social workers and people on the more programmatic side. And then we have amazing chefs who have decided that the next step in their journey in this industry is teaching. And so our culinary team has worked in the industry for a very long time. They understand what is expected of our students. They understand what it is to run a kitchen, and can teach from that perspective. We do a lot of team training around trauma-informed care. We really want to create what our team has taught me is not just a safe space, but a brave space. And I think that every one of our educators, and we really think of our entire team as educators, takes that perspective.

Jay Ruderman:

And you’ve been great at sort of connecting with influencers. I saw that Rachel Ray was involved in your restaurant, which is a huge, I would have to imagine, a huge boost in getting your recognition and helping you. I saw that they did a remodel of one of your restaurants. How have you gone about that, of sort of elevating and getting people of influence to pay attention to what you’re doing?

Kerry Brodie:

We’ve had a lot of luck, I would say, in how we’ve happened upon people, and then remembering that people are just people. So Rachel Ray, I reached out to a synagogue and I reached out to the head of their social action committee and I said, “I’m given to believe that you’re doing some work on refugee resettlement. Can I pick your brain?”

And it turns out that somebody on the committee had a connection with Rachel Ray, who told her about our work, and she wanted to get involved, and she wanted to get involved in a tangible way. And that is how that translated into using her design team and her home goods to really bring that cafe into such a beautiful space that it is today.

And really across the board, that’s been how we’ve approached this work. We’ve talked about it with so many people. We’ve really tried to be a part of the community and then see what comes to us. We’ve gotten more than our fair share of press recognition, and I’m very grateful for that, in particular where it highlights and elevates the stories of our students. And where I see that, then, people reach out to me and say, “Hey, I want to do this in my community,” or, “I want to get more involved.” And so we don’t do it for the recognition, but it is very nice that that has come to us. And for the most part, it really has come to us. We haven’t really made that a priority strategy.

Jay Ruderman:

How have your Jewish values shaped the work of Emma’s Torch?

Kerry Brodie:

Definitely a lot of chutzpah. I like to think that, I often get asked, “Is Emma’s Torch a Jewish organization?” And I said, “No, but also kind of,” which is a very Jewish answer. So for me, Emma’s Torch is really the thing that is, it feels like the most Jewish thing that I get to do. I am a member of Jewish community. I’m very grateful for that. But the work itself is an extension of how I think about Judaism. There’s a reason that one of the most mentioned commandments, mitzvah, in the Torah is welcoming in the stranger. It is so critically essential to who we are from a religious perspective, but I also connect to my Judaism through a historical perspective. And so I think a lot about what it means to be a Jew in America in 2025, and learning the history that I know, and thinking about my family’s history, and so many of my friends’ family’s histories. We know what it looks like when America doesn’t open its doors. We know what it looks like when we vilify the other.

My sister graduated from a university that was created because there were quotas not to have Jews in the Ivy League. There’s so many stories, and I think about how easy it would be to say, “Oh, but that was a different time, but we’re doing it. We’re doing it all the time when we vilify the other.” So for me, it’s both the religious imperative, but also this idea that having been a part of the history that the Jewish people were a part of, we have also an obligation to build the future that we would like all people to be a part of.

Jay Ruderman:

Yeah. I want to talk to you as a followup. We live in a time all over the world where Jews who run organizations face anti-Semitism, refugees are demonized. Have you personally, or your students as a whole, or individuals come under this type of scrutiny?

Kerry Brodie:

I think that we all have, to different degrees. I think that there’s also different degrees of the fear that comes with it. I have definitely had interactions that were either unpleasant or were based on assumptions because of my Jewish identity or because of who I am, who I’m married to, where I’ve worked, all of those things.

And I think that it’s definitely the case for our students. We’re obviously seeing a huge increase in ICE presence, and so our students are very afraid. Even from well-intentioned people, sometimes I get questions, and I want to remind them that we’re talking about people. We’re talking about people who have hopes and dreams and wake up in the morning like all of us.

And especially if you read the headlines and then sometimes the way that we think about others is just so antithetical to the idea that, no, this is just a human being who wants better for themselves and wants to be part of this world. And so definitely I think everybody on our team, even if their background isn’t in the refugee world, has faced some sort of prejudice or some sort of vilification, and somehow come out on the other side still believing in the good of humanity. And if we can cling onto that and help each other when we feel it slipping, it makes a big difference.

Jay Ruderman:

Yeah. You talked about how many graduates you’ve had, which is quite an impressive number. Can you share a couple of stories about one or two students who have made an impact on you?

Kerry Brodie:

Absolutely. I think a lot about on the personal impact, one of our students very early on, she was part of the pilot program, she had come to this country, she was a single mom with six kids, she was living in a shelter.

When I interviewed her, I didn’t think that she spoke any English. And her case manager was like, “No, no, no. Just trust me. She’s going to figure it out. Give her a chance.” And this was early on in the program and I said, “If she wants to come, that’s great.”

And I learned a lot from this person, not just watching her in the program. And she’s like very small, tiny woman from Afghanistan, who she was not messing around. She once cut herself in the kitchen, and I was of course quite worried about this, and everything was fine. She’s like, “No cut, no learn,” and just kept on going. And I think that’s kind of what it takes, to have six children and to be navigating this challenging world. And we’ve kept in touch, and she still reaches out to me every Mother’s Day. And when I was pregnant, she was reaching out a lot. And then some of her children went through our program. Others have gone on to go to college.

And her impact, I think she gave me such a model of perseverance, and of faith, and optimism. And I cling to that a lot, because she’s gone on to have a tremendous career. And so many of our students, we track the metrics, and I could tell you about the restaurants and the partners and this, but it’s that humanity and the ability to continuously fight for what you really do believe is out there, that has impacted me and has gotten me through much less difficult circumstances than she ever faced. But when I think about the pandemic, when I think about other moments that have had a lot of uncertainty for the organization, that perseverance really changed how I think about leadership.

Jay Ruderman:

That’s beautiful. So when someone goes into Emma’s Torch, what type of food is being served? Does it depend on who’s working behind the counter and what they’re producing? Or is there a set menu?

Kerry Brodie:

So it’s a set menu. We call it New American prepared by New Americans. And our goal with the menu is that we’re trying to bring people along. So there’s a very familiar, we’re in a library, we’re across from … All of our locations are embedded in the community. So we’ve got chocolate chip cookies, because sometimes that’s really what you need. But we also have black-eyed pea hummus, which has a different flavor profile, and pulls ingredients really from all over the world. We have a shakshuka. We have all of these different items that are both deeply relatable, so you’re not going to be too nervous to order them. You won’t be scared to mispronounce it, but do also help to expand palates a little bit.

And we rotate the menu seasonally. We’re always trying to bring in local producers or more environmentally-conscious sourcing, trying to play our part in being good stewards, and also keeping people coming in day after day.

Jay Ruderman:

Yes. Well, thank you so much, Kerry. It was a pleasure having you as my guest on All About Change. And I wish you to go from strength to strength. I think you’re changing our world, and it was so interesting having this conversation with you. So thank you.

Kerry Brodie:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really so grateful.

Jay Ruderman:

Thank you for being part of the All About Change community. We aim to spark ideas for personal activism, helping you find your pathway to action beyond awareness. So thank you for investing your time with us, learning and thinking about how just one person can make the choice to build a community and improve our world. I believe in the empower of informed people like you to drive real change, and I know that what we explore today will be a tool for you in that effort.

All right, I’ll see you in two weeks for our next conversation, but just one small ask, please hit subscribe and leave us a comment below. It lets us know that you value this content, and it supports our mission to widely share these perspectives. If you’re looking for more inspiration, check out this next video. I chose it for you, and I know you’re going to enjoy it. I’m Jay Ruderman. Let’s continue working towards meaningful change together.

Today’s episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation.