Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: So in true nerd fashion, I have a birthday on
Speaker 1: Pie Day this weekend on March fourteen, and to celebrate,
Speaker 1: I wanted to honor one of my heroes, A sell
Speaker 1: A Pie from You might have seen her story in
Speaker 1: a Super Bowl commercial in Mrs Stella spent fifty years
Speaker 1: in public education, serving low income kids in a Title
Speaker 1: one school. Now, while teaching, she saw that many of
Speaker 1: her kids couldn't always do their assignments because they didn't
Speaker 1: have access to a computer or reliable internet at home.
Speaker 1: So she created a Stella's a Brilliant Bus to bring
Speaker 1: the computers to them. My name is Stello and the
Speaker 1: creator and founder of Stella's Brilliant Bus. The Stella's Brilliant
Speaker 1: Bus is a mobile learning center where we provide education
Speaker 1: and technology for underserved community to children and underserved communities,
Speaker 1: and that's what we've been doing since we started. But
Speaker 1: realizing that the children have other siblings and other relatives,
Speaker 1: let me own service, we have expanded our service to
Speaker 1: include not just children, but adults in unserved communities. That's
Speaker 1: what the breed much is all about. It's not just
Speaker 1: the tech center, it's the learning center, but we use
Speaker 1: above to provide the technology to accomplish the mission that
Speaker 1: we set out to do in the communities. After retiring
Speaker 1: in her seventies, Mrs Stella spent her life savings on
Speaker 1: a bus that she turned into a mobile learning center
Speaker 1: to help bridge the digital divide and help bring technology
Speaker 1: to the communities who meet it most. Knowing that I
Speaker 1: was getting older and I was pretty much I would
Speaker 1: say we all over seven through one, I knew that
Speaker 1: if I was going to doing anything other than work
Speaker 1: at the school, I needed to look at what that
Speaker 1: option might be. And when the hurricane devastated other people
Speaker 1: in all means in other places, it's shopping. My ideal
Speaker 1: about going out into communities and doing something that I
Speaker 1: thought would be worth while. I had the idea of
Speaker 1: creating something to think out in the community, but put
Speaker 1: it on hold because I wasn't really sure what I
Speaker 1: was gonna do. But after that hurricane and I thought
Speaker 1: about this is it. According to Pew, a quarter of
Speaker 1: lower income teams don't have access to a home computer,
Speaker 1: and one quarter of black youth that they often or
Speaker 1: sometimes can't do their homework assignments because they don't have
Speaker 1: reliable internet access or a computer. Compare that to just
Speaker 1: white youth. This is sometimes called the digital divide and
Speaker 1: it presents a big barrier to kids in all communities
Speaker 1: being able to succeed. I figured if I could create
Speaker 1: a project that I could take and didn't the community,
Speaker 1: because we knew that this was age of technology, and
Speaker 1: I knew from working with Type one schools and there
Speaker 1: was that did you do divide? So I wanted to
Speaker 1: keep that going because I know if as out community
Speaker 1: is a concern that we served the children that and
Speaker 1: the Tide one school was missing at home the technology.
Speaker 1: Mrs Stella was relentless and she also dreamed big. Her
Speaker 1: first thought was to use her old minivan and she
Speaker 1: even told her with the idea of trying to get
Speaker 1: her hands on a semi truck to turn that into
Speaker 1: a mobile computer lab. So, in putting my ideas together,
Speaker 1: the first thing I asked myself how can I provide
Speaker 1: technology to these undeserved communities? And I stop thinking about
Speaker 1: it a while. I knew that the band that I
Speaker 1: had would not be enough because it was just not
Speaker 1: big enough. Sird more than or five children at one time?
Speaker 1: If that meaning? So I decided, after thinking about it,
Speaker 1: what is it that I would be comfortable with? Knowing
Speaker 1: that I didn't have a lot of money, But how
Speaker 1: can I make it work? Because I was of the failure,
Speaker 1: it's not an option mindset, so I knew what I
Speaker 1: was gonna do had to be successful because flee you
Speaker 1: was not an option. So I thought about the band
Speaker 1: and I ruled that out. I thought about it, say
Speaker 1: my truck and I said, I can't drive that I'm
Speaker 1: on the back went out during my lifetime, and then
Speaker 1: the bus came up. I said that I use a bus.
Speaker 1: I have a lot more space, and of course I
Speaker 1: can drive a bus because I learned to drive a
Speaker 1: bus through my childhood because my dad had no boys
Speaker 1: and six girls and I was the only girl that
Speaker 1: was brave enough learn how to drive the truck and
Speaker 1: the bus. So I thinkured I could save some money
Speaker 1: if I got if I used a bus, because that
Speaker 1: was something that I could drive when I needed. So
Speaker 1: I grabbed some paper and pilsu gets started drawing figured
Speaker 1: out what I wanted to do and started working on it.
Speaker 1: And it was an idea that I together on a
Speaker 1: pool and then I was successful in lifting that idea
Speaker 1: of the paper and put it into reality. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that you actually drive the busy yourself. My goodness,
Speaker 1: you really drive the bus. And when we first got started,
Speaker 1: I drove the bus. And most of those videos that's
Speaker 1: on the website on YouTube, they didn't believe I could
Speaker 1: drive the bus either. It all made me drive the bus.
Speaker 1: You'll see me driving up driving the bus, but I
Speaker 1: have someone to help me drive the bus. The producers
Speaker 1: didn't want that. They wanted need to drive the bus.
Speaker 1: That gets to prove that in my age, that I
Speaker 1: could drive that bus. Do you mind me asking how
Speaker 1: old you are? You don't have to say if you
Speaker 1: don't want to, no, I'm eighty four. It was Mrs
Speaker 1: Sella's father who instilled in her the importance of helping
Speaker 1: others and sharing with your community, even if you didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot. My father was a mid contract though,
Speaker 1: and we traveled from Florida to New York for nineteen years.
Speaker 1: The harvest produced thinking beings, worn potatoes and things of
Speaker 1: that sort, and my dad was a very kind hearted
Speaker 1: man who really enjoyed giving and helping people, even though
Speaker 1: he was a poor man. And he would travel up north,
Speaker 1: leaving Florida during the month of May mid May and
Speaker 1: sometimes come we will come back in October. Because if
Speaker 1: you don't have any skills, then you have to do
Speaker 1: unskilled laboring jobs. And that was what was going on
Speaker 1: with my parents, needing one of them ever finished elementary school,
Speaker 1: so they didn't have skills, but they were very smart
Speaker 1: and are working people. Growing up poor in a government
Speaker 1: housing project. Mr Stella knew that not much was expected
Speaker 1: of her, but the power of community helped her subvert
Speaker 1: as a lot of expectations. We lived in a government project. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you have seen the documentary obvious of shame
Speaker 1: but able our moral when they predicted that we probably
Speaker 1: would ever get out of that project, you just stuck
Speaker 1: there for life. And that less than thirty percent of
Speaker 1: us but ever get out of there. Uh. And the
Speaker 1: smaller percentage of us would probably not make it to
Speaker 1: college because you would be stuck in at rut and
Speaker 1: that government project. But I'm proud to say that many
Speaker 1: of us who went to school out there, graduating from
Speaker 1: my school with the college and obtain advanced degrees. Now,
Speaker 1: in the project where I lived, it was the ideal
Speaker 1: of takes the village to raise a child. And all
Speaker 1: of us are poor all about most of our parents world,
Speaker 1: working far away from the in the in the fields,
Speaker 1: but there was always someone home in that project during
Speaker 1: that day, and they would look out for each other,
Speaker 1: and we got longer doing the day. We could go
Speaker 1: to that neighbor's house and they'll give us some bread
Speaker 1: and cheese, or bread and mayonnaise, or bread and peanut butter.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those things where a village actually
Speaker 1: helped raise a child, and we learned to share whatever
Speaker 1: we had, but every resources that we had, so we
Speaker 1: just grew open that mentality. Do you feel that that's
Speaker 1: why you're inspired to give back to the kids in
Speaker 1: your community with the bus to make sure that they
Speaker 1: have the same kind of village that helped raise you
Speaker 1: and your sisters. I'm sure and they had something to
Speaker 1: do with that experience is a thing would brand for
Speaker 1: me into the birds of who I am today, giving
Speaker 1: and sharing with other people who need of the most. Now,
Speaker 1: summers can worsen the divide between low income kids and
Speaker 1: kids whose families can afford things like summer camp. The
Speaker 1: learning loss that students sometimes experience when they're out for
Speaker 1: summer break is sometimes called the summer slide, and a
Speaker 1: John Hopkins study found that by ninth grade, the summer
Speaker 1: slide makes up for two thirds of the reading achievement
Speaker 1: gap between low income kids and middle income kids. To
Speaker 1: combat this, Mrs Stella spent her summers taking kids on
Speaker 1: educational trips in her bus. She self financed them, looking
Speaker 1: for deals on hotels and me else so the trips
Speaker 1: wouldn't cost the families a time. But then COVID head
Speaker 1: and now her bus is in park. We would go
Speaker 1: pack the bus and go into communities. We have worked
Speaker 1: with churches, community centers, schools, and county organizations and we
Speaker 1: would just schedule our activities and we would go out
Speaker 1: in the community and make things happen. There was no
Speaker 1: problem when COVID came along. Everybody was afraid of everybody,
Speaker 1: so business was shutting down. People were afraid of their
Speaker 1: children and other family members, and of course you know,
Speaker 1: they were dying. So we adhere to what the community
Speaker 1: was doing when they shut down business. Since we parked
Speaker 1: the bus and now we have two buses now and
Speaker 1: we would take these kids across the country to travel
Speaker 1: the Freedom Trail and also get more exposure to technology,
Speaker 1: education and technology, and we would get on the road
Speaker 1: for ten or twelve days with one hundred teenagers going
Speaker 1: across country. Don't get more exposure because many of the
Speaker 1: kids who living those roots in communities, they don't get
Speaker 1: to go to a town. So they speak because sometimes
Speaker 1: their parents can't afford to take them. Many of them
Speaker 1: are working, or they just can't afford the other expense
Speaker 1: that going along with it. So three years in a row,
Speaker 1: I was very successful in taking the kids across the
Speaker 1: country for ten or twelve days, giving them exposure and
Speaker 1: not having to charge them one set and then we
Speaker 1: were able to expose them to technoledging and address the
Speaker 1: summer slide. But this pass do not We did not
Speaker 1: because we were right, I'm going into involved with COVID.
Speaker 1: So again we didn't want to be responsible or exposing
Speaker 1: kids to COVID because they're just learning a little bit
Speaker 1: more about it, but they didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: They didn't know very much I would say about it.
Speaker 1: So we just decided we'll just stay in close up
Speaker 1: like other businesses until they signed out more how to
Speaker 1: keep people and I'm talking about adults and their children
Speaker 1: say from the lunavirus, COVID has only shown how important
Speaker 1: it is for all kids to have access to technology.
Speaker 1: If low income kids didn't have computers are reliable internet
Speaker 1: at home before, how are they supposed to keep up
Speaker 1: with remote learning during COVID. P actually found that one
Speaker 1: in five parents with kids at home because of COVID
Speaker 1: say it is very or somewhat likely that their kids
Speaker 1: won't be able to complete schoolwork because they don't have
Speaker 1: access to a computer or internet. It's so important to
Speaker 1: support community leaders like miss A Stella, who won't let
Speaker 1: a generation of kids get left behind because of their
Speaker 1: economic circumstances. In miss A Stella's community, they looked after
Speaker 1: little ones like a village, sharing what little they had
Speaker 1: with one another. She's a living legend and her work
Speaker 1: and legacy is a testament to the fact that anyone
Speaker 1: can make a lasting difference. Ms Stella, what a life
Speaker 1: you have lived? What a what an inspiration? What do
Speaker 1: you want to say if somebody is out there and
Speaker 1: they think, gosh, I want to make a difference, but
Speaker 1: I don't know what I can do. What's your message
Speaker 1: to them? Because you've made your one woman and you've
Speaker 1: made such a big difference on your community. What is
Speaker 1: your message to other people who might be listening, who
Speaker 1: want to do what you're doing and make a difference
Speaker 1: in their communities? No, mid age up there with your dreams.
Speaker 1: One thing and the other thing is if you can
Speaker 1: believe it and willing to work, you can achieve it.
Speaker 1: I so appreciate it. I appreciate you. I appreciate all
Speaker 1: that you do. Miss Stella. You are an icon friend
Speaker 1: of Oprah Winfrey, the board in my book, Oh my good,
Speaker 1: have a book out there. Let's go the legacy of
Speaker 1: a humble Black woman from fear to back to it
Speaker 1: to a brilliant bus. It's a web for my birthday.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll consider supporting Ms O Stella's vision for
Speaker 1: the future by making a donation to A. Stella's Brilliant Bus.
Speaker 1: If you're able, go to Tangoti dot com slash bus
Speaker 1: to donate. That's Tangoti t A n G O t
Speaker 1: I dot com slash bus. If you're moved by Mrs
Speaker 1: Sella's story and want to donate but aren't in a
Speaker 1: position to do so right now, hit me up at
Speaker 1: Hello at tangoi dot com and we'll donate in your honor.
Speaker 1: We keep us safe and we keep us strong, So
Speaker 1: let's all keep striving to be the change we want
Speaker 1: for our communities. Just like miss O Stella, you are
Speaker 1: a living legend that such an inspiration to to me personally.
Speaker 1: When I saw your Super Bowl ad, I cried before
Speaker 1: we spoke. Today I watched it again and I had
Speaker 1: the same feeling. There's just something so beautiful about what
Speaker 1: you've done for your community. So I'm so I'm so
Speaker 1: very grateful for you and then here doing everything that
Speaker 1: I could do, make doing it down, then down here.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi, You can reach us at
Speaker 1: Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet was created by me Bridgetad. It's a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your
Speaker 1: host bridgetad. If you want to help us grow, rate
Speaker 1: and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio, check out the i heeart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. H