Alex C.
See you again. It's good to see you
too Murr.
By the time this airs, we
know that little clock on your
website will have been ticking,
ticking, ticking, and it will hit
zero.
Yes, it will.
What has it been like, and how long
has that been?
Clock being ticking to make all this
happen? Oh man, this clock's been
ticking my whole life in some ways,
Merv, more specifically, probably
the last decade, as we
started thinking about putting
together a project team, a campaign
team.
We had to slow things down because
of COVID.
So we started fundraising in
2021.
So it's been a
five years plus countdown in
terms of seriously being able
to see the finish line.
Yeah, and I hate to do the old,
what does it feel like, you know,
that reporters tend It's a great
question. But what does is feel like
Alex Efron?
Oh, it feels like a
dream that's come true.
It's one of those things that's been
in the back of my mind for probably
most of my life. It's why I chose to
stay in Madison, because I have my
sights on doing something in South
Madison where we grew up, where we
spent time in a
community that's given so much to
me.
But to be here and to realize that I
stand on the shoulders of so many
people who rubbed my head and
pinched my cheeks and said,
you're gonna do something, young
man. Keep going to school.
You know, give back to the
community, keep your faith,
to stand on their shoulders and to
realize that they saw something in
me and they encouraged me to stay
here and make the community better
if I could.
And so I feel really honored to be
chosen to do this and pull our
community together the way I've been
able to.
Yeah, and as I was looking at your
website, I saw a line there,
it says this is going to be a
sanctuary for healing, a catalyst
for growth,
where we bring black culture,
creativity, leadership, research,
innovation, all under the
same roof. That's right.
How the heck do we do that, Alex?
Oh, with
lots of partners and lots of
thought.
You know, when we talk about health
and health disparities with African
Americans, typically the
assumption is many of us don't have
health care. We don't take advantage
of the health care that we want.
But research through schools of
medicine and public policy are
showing that many of our
degenerative diseases are
stress-related.
And so I can pick up a magazine and
read 15 different ways you and I die
more federally.
Than our white counterparts.
But what you don't read is, how do
you mitigate that?
So if stress is the culprit, what do
we do to reduce it?
And so in our community,
historically, it's dance, it's swag,
it' food, it hanging out, it's
playing the dozens, it's
intergenerational programming, it's
checkers, it watching TV, it's
watching old 70s movies,
but it's spending time together
where we don't have to code switch
or feel that we have to be someone
other than who we really are.
And so the role here is to use all
of those things that you have said
to reduce the stress.
But the benefit of this, my
great desire, is that black
people live longer and healthier
lives. I haven't raised all
this money so black people can have
fancy places to have dances.
And when you say all this money,
people should know 31 million
probably plus.
Oh, 32, sir.
32. I don't want to go
too short. Who's counting, though,
at this point, right?
You're right, for a debt-free
facility, for completely debt- free
facility.
I'd love for you to paint a quick
picture, Alex, of just, like,
what really is going to go on here.
I mean, yeah, we talked about,
you know, the kind of a mission
statement kind of thing there, but
like, give...
Sure.
Well, some of the, like we're
sitting right here in our senior
space. So this is one of the
programs that's ready to go because
so many of our seniors, once they've
retired, they just seem to
disappear. We don't, we don't see
them anymore. So we want them to
come out and have a place to hang
out right next door to our
children's library where they can
help young, young readers.
We have a program that's for
entrepreneurs, innovators,
and, and folks that
are ready to start their own
businesses.
We're, we're going to work on
leadership development, business
strategy development.
Helping to raise money to launch
those businesses, and then helping
to introduce those people into
our social network so that you don't
have a business that's ready to go
and no place to carry it
out.
We have two
films that'll be showing real soon
in our theater.
We're doing a couple of weddings
here, graduation parties.
But the special thing that I want
people to know, Merv, is that we're
only designing about 25 to 30%
of the programs here.
Because we want the community to
come in and say, You know what we
need?
Like someone came in here the other
day who's
newer to their job and they said, we
need an NABJ, like
National Association of Black
Journalists. There's one in
Milwaukee there, I'm sure you're
familiar with it. I am.
But because there's a space to host
it, someone said, we had to do a
Madison version.
That's the beauty of this space.
Like that's not my job to do that.
A journalist came in and said
that. Others have come in and says,
you know, we need a doula program.
Can we do that here?
We need self-defense programs for
Black women and moms do we have can
we do that here?
So for me the beauty the program is
when we have space to come in
together and say let's create an
Association or let's do something
to bring all the Greek organizations
together the sororities and the
fraternities together So
that we can create a regional office
of working together the beauty of
this is I built it
I've worked to fund it, but
the community is going to have to
fill it
Yeah, and we thank you for that,
Alex. And there's a lot more to talk
about, so this will be continued.
And we appreciate you for
joining us on here now.