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Ep. 25 - Vito Baldini

Nov 14, 2020

So when stuff is not going the way it ought to, what can we do about them? How does change happen? That's what we're going to be talking about with Vito Baldini. Vito leads a group that believes change happens through small things. So join us on the Behavioral Corner to find out just what these little things are. It's the Behavioral Corner, and we invite you to hang out with us.



The Small Things Story


Small Things was first called Easter Outreach. This ministry had a very simple goal: to feed some of Philadelphia’s hungriest families on Easter Sunday.


In early 2010, a zip code in North Philadelphia was named the hungriest in America. Realizing that this neighborhood was right in its back yard, a team from Liberti Church East felt compelled to act. That spring, they raised some money, put an ad in the local newspaper, and gathered volunteers the day before Easter to distribute 100 dinners. While they knew this wouldn’t fix Philadelphia’s hunger problem, this one meal was a tangible way of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and offering hope to friends and neighbors in need. 


Ten years later, Easter Outreach, led by Pastor Vito Baldini, extends throughout Philadelphia and into Chester, Norristown, and Camden, as well. In 2019, over 75 community partners and 2,000 volunteers helped distribute 10,000 Easter dinners in the greater Philadelphia area


Pivoting During Covid-19When COVID-19 struck, the ministry brought together area churches, community organizations, and food providers like Philabundance to launch a rapid COVID-19 response. Having trusted relationships across the city allowed Easter Outreach to provide over 100,000 people with 1 million meals by the end of Summer 2020.


It was clear that the organization had expanded beyond a seasonal day of service, so the name Easter Outreach was changed to Small Things. This new name reflects the fact that change often starts with one small step, one small gathering, one small sacrifice. The name recognizes that Small Things can change the world. 


Contact and Volunteer Small Things


Ep. 25 - Vito Baldini Interview Transcript

The Behavioral Corner 

Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us, as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and wellbeing. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while. 


Steve Martorano 

Hi, everybody, Steve Martorano hanging on the Behavioral Corner as I speak to you right now where I am. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous, autumnal day. I love saying autumnal. I hope it's similarly nice wherever you are. You know, here's what we're going to be talking about today on a topic we have not spent nearly enough time about. The next time you're wandering through a supermarket, as I do often trying to figure out which of the 1.400 varieties of a loaf of bread to pick from. Ask yourself, "How is it possible that anybody in this country might be hungry or not having enough food?" It's incomprehensible but true. So if it's true, how do we change that? Well, we're going to take a look at somebody who's making a major effort at changing things. It's a great question that we're going to address directly to how does change happen with our guests? Vito Baldini, Vito is an ordained minister, he's a native Philadelphian, and he's credentialed all up in that regard. He joins us on the Corner to talk about the work that they're doing to address the issue of hunger or food insecurity. Vito, thanks for joining us here on the Corner.


Vito Baldini 

Steve, thank you. It's really a privilege to be on here with you guys today.


Steve Martorano 

Well, we know you're busy. It's so it's a big mandate, you have to try to help people with their food insecurities. But first, I've got to pat you down for a wire. Vito and I are acutely aware that when two people whose names and vowels are speaking to one another, the chances of somebody recording the conversation... Making Italian gangster jokes. I'm sorry. Listen, let's dig right into this. Nobody's born a minister. How did that happen for you?


Vito Baldini 

It's never a place that I think anyone? I don't know. I mean, most people that I know, you don't think that it's something that you're going to be when you grow up. Like when I was a kid in school, I wasn't thinking, Hey, I'm going to grow up and I'm going to become a minister. Um, it's not something that was on my radar. But as a result of my past and my story, and all the things that I came through, I kind of felt that this was just, it was a calling. And people always talk about it as a calling. It's something that you can try to avoid, but you can't really avoid it. So for me, I mean, it's woven into my story. And who I am.


Steve Martorano
And your story is, is remarkable. 16 years sober, and we're gonna find out about that battle right now with Vito. I love the idea that our calling is something you can't avoid that is well put, believe me. So yes, 16 years sober, which means obviously, you were abusing substances. Tell us that story.


Vito Baldini 

Yeah, I mean, it's, that's another story, no one grows up and is like, hey, I want to be a heroin addict. Um, but that's, that's what happened with my life. I started out like every individual, um, you start doing different kinds of substances. And next thing you know, you find yourself in a place that you don't want to be and I'll never forget, I remember that you have all those things. You're like, I'll never do this. I'll never do that. And one of my things was like, oh, I'll never use a needle. I'll never shoot drugs in my arm. I just like to have fun. I just like a party. And I mean, really, next thing, you know, I was that person. I was the person that was shooting the drugs in my arm. I'll never forget a story about the way addiction. It takes away your humanity. It robs you of your personhood. It robs you of who you are. And I'll never forget, I was outside of a supermarket. And I was begging for change because I needed to get some more drugs. And there was a woman. And she stopped and looked at me and she was like "Vito?" and I'll never forget the look. It was someone that I was in grade school's mom, and that look at it like pierced me to my soul. And it was this look of disgust. And it was exactly the way that I had felt about myself. As I was sitting there begging for that change that looks that that woman gave me defined who I was in that moment, but it also spoke to who I'd become through my addiction. And for me, addiction robbed me of my life. It robbed me of my personhood it bought robbed me of any confidence to accomplish anything. And I remember my whole life just kind of revolved around getting drugs. And I mean, I did the treatment and I did methadone clinics and I switched drugs. I did all the things that every good addict does to try to get through the situation that you're in and nothing worked. I just remember that my humanity was taken from me and my addiction.


Steve Martorano

How long does that process take, you know, of active use? And then the awareness that this isn't working for me, how long were you in that kind of active substance abuse?


Vito Baldini 

I started marijuana in high school, I think that's probably how most people start. And it wasn't when I graduated in senior year and went to college is when I really started to get into Stuff. At that point, it was all fun, even though it wasn't healthy. I mean, I wasn't living a manageable life. But it was all fun. It was partying, it was experimenting with drugs. But really, once I got into the painkillers, and then I shifted from doing the painkillers every day to the heroin, I'd say that I hadn't good four years, from 20 to 24, where I used really hard and near the last couple years of that, like I didn't really want to live anymore. I just kind of felt like I was stuck in this spot and was never going to get out. It wasn't that I wanted to be there. I just didn't think there was a way to get out of it.


Steve Martorano 

Right. Do you know that story? I say this a lot. It's a cliche. But cliches are true. That's how they become cliches. Most substance abuse and recovery stories are the same, except they're different. So I do want to take a moment and just you say, look, you recognize your behaviors a little out of control, but you're just having a good time. And there are lines in the sand you've drawn, I'll never do this, I won't do that. I certainly am not going to stick a needle in my arm. What was the moment when you cross that line? You remember that moment when you just went well, maybe I will shoot some heroin.


Vito Baldini 

I'll never forget it. I was dating this girl. And we went and we picked this couple up. And we went to Kensington now I was I grew up in West Philly. So I didn't really go to like Kensington, that often, it was the first time I'd ever been there. And someone was like, hey, you should try, you should try to shoot this. And I was like, "Alright." and I just did it. And then like, at that moment, hit that I was like, oh, man, like I realized what I did. And it just kind of was like a natural trajectory. But I do feel like when you start to make those decisions in your addiction, you start to like, go deeper into it, you really are losing yourself. And each one of those choices that you make even further.


Steve Martorano 

Yeah, you know, it's one of the fascinating things about talking to people about the process of descending deeply into an addiction. And that is that each decision along the way seems perfectly logical. You don't even think about making the choice. It's just, you're on a trajectory. Now, if you're really in the grips of this disease, where you're gonna wind up doing the worst possible stuff for you. So you're a serious heroin habit. How long were you seriously using heroin? How long did that last?


Vito Baldini 

I feel like it was like, probably like, so I said, I got into the pills like 18 I guess it was around 21. I started heroin. And in the last couple of years, the last two to three years were really bad. And I was on the methadone clinic in the end, to try to just like manage my daily habit. And then I started to realize something about addiction that I never realized before that the substance isn't actually as relevant as the like the use because I was on methadone. And I had never like smoked crack. And I started smoking crack every day because I was on the methadone clinic. And then I started shooting cocaine, something else that I had never done. And the addiction just beat me to the ground.


Steve Martorano 

Well, what's the moment...16 years ago this came to an end and you're now... and congratulations, 16 years of sobriety and doing great work. What was the moment? When you went I got to try something else. That was it. That woman who recognizes you what was the moment?


Vito Baldini 

Yeah, so it was a progression of stuff. It was that that woman that looked at me and I knew that I didn't want to be I felt the way that she looked at me and I didn't want to feel that. I remember trying to go to my parent's house for the holidays. I think it was Christmas or Thanksgiving, I might have been Christmas. And all I wanted to do was go there to try to get money and like no one wanted me in the house. And I just went in because I wanted to try to get some money that crushed me, no one wanted anything to do with me. And then I had a counselor on the methadone clinic that she looked at me and she said, "Vito," she says, like, "if you keep doing this, you're going to die." And I told her, I said, "I know." And a part of me didn't care. Like, the death part was almost like a, it almost seemed like it would have been like relief from what I was living in. And I remember her saying that I went back out I used for about two more weeks. And I said, "You know what, I'll go to rehab." I said, "I'll try it. I'll give it a shot." This one last time. I've been to rehab multiple other times. And I remember that night, I had, like, the counselor myself that convinced my family to let me back in the house for that night just so that I was because I was saying in an apartment that was kind of like a crack house. And I was, at that point, I was like, well, if I stay at my parents, like, I'll at least make it to rehab the next day. Because a day in an addict's life is a really long time. And that night, I went through my parent's house, I stole some stuff, I went out and I got high. And I came back home and I will never forget I was at the end of the night, I was trying to go steal from a retail store to go sell stuff. And I got to a point that night where I just remember I just was so exhausted from trying to like maintain this, like non-stop, like, feeding my drug addiction. I said, I yelled at God. I said, "All right. I'll try your freakin' way!" And at that moment, when I cried. I didn't use the word "freakin'" at that moment. But I curse that. And I put my head down and I walked back to my parent's house. And I went to rehab the next day, and I've not used drugs since 


Steve Martorano 

Yeah, it's amazing. And it's another illustration of the power of sobriety. If it can be achieved, and it can be millions of people managed to get sober and live productive and long lives. Vito Baldini is with us. His story of substance abuse, which ended 16 years ago, didn't end his life by any means. Obviously, it transformed him into someone who, as I said, in the beginning, wound up with a Bachelor of Science in biblical studies, a master of divinity at a biblical Theological Seminary, and now as a minister. It's a remarkable story. I know that your mission now...your work now outside the church, it grew out of your church work, but now revolves around a nonprofit that you guys put together, called SmallThingsPhilly.org. Tell us how that came about. First of all, why did you pick the name "small things?"


Vito Baldini 

To me, I looked back during our COVID response. And I looked at how much food we were able to get out there. And like just the size of the organization we were and how we pulled it all together. And I was like, this is way more than we could actually do. And I said, but it was all the people. And it was all like the small pieces that came together to make this happen. So when I started to think about a name, this idea of "small things," really was appealing to me. And the name to me is more of like a belief, and a why. I believe in the name Small Things because I believe that's how change can happen. It's from the counselor telling me when I was on the methadone clinic that you're going to die, to the woman that looked at me to discuss I felt at my parent's house, to me crying out to God, it's all of these pieces, these interactions, these relationships that actually lead to change. You don't just snap your fingers, and it happens in someone's life. It's always a process. If we can pack one food box and get one volunteer to donate two hours, we have started to achieve our mission of solving food insecurity, just by having one volunteer pack one box. And we just have to multiply that across the spectrum. So small things to me. And then you create the relationships, you make the connections with the people that you serve, and you invite them into the community. This is like more of a movement that helps not only the individuals that are serving, but I've seen volunteers during this covid response that have been so depressed, and so isolated in their homes, and they've come out to pack boxes, and it's given them life. So it's like this whole idea of us coming together. And each of us playing our part to really make a difference is why the name small things came about. Yeah, it's a brilliant name.


The Behavioral Corner 

I mean, sometimes we miss the forest, you know, for the trees. And you're right, the biggest things begin with the very smallest. Well, you know, there's a million phrases that apply here now, but it's a great name. And what's it dedicated to?


Vito Baldini 

I have been doing work with people experiencing homelessness for years, um, and some of them are housed and some of them are what we call food insecure. And really, if you want to classify what this idea of food insecurity is, it's people that some of the work and have houses, and they are hard-working, and a lot of them are even harder working than I am. And their monthly income doesn't meet their expenses. So at the end of the day, they don't have enough money to provide for them and their family. And I'll never forget, there was a guy back in March when all this stuff started and everything shut down. And we're at one of our sites giving out boxes, and he came up to me and he said, he said, "Look, I just want to thank you." And this guy was about me, he's probably in his 30s, or 40s, a healthy guy. And he goes, "I just want to thank you so much for being here." He goes, "I have never in my life had to stand in one of these lines. And I don't like that I have to stand in this line. But I'm grateful that this line is here." And he went on to tell me that he's a skilled carpenter. And because of all the things like shutting down, that people wouldn't let them in their home to work. And as a result of not being able to work, he had four kids, he had a feed at home. So he was going to come and stand in line to provide for his family. But this man was capable. He has a lot of skills and had never been in that situation before. Right. And I think that a lot of people across the United States are facing that same reality that they've never had to tap into these services before. And food insecurity is on the rise. I mean, it's ridiculous to see all the people that still come out every week. I mean, we've been doing this since March, and we're in November.


Steve Martorano 

And all this work is being done against the backdrop of a pandemic, we're gonna get into those details. Vito Baldini is our guest Vito is a and native Philadelphian and an ordained minister in the Reformed Church of America. He's telling us about how change happens. And it begins with small things. That's the name of his nonprofit, SmallThingsPhilly.org. We're hanging on the Behavioral Corner.


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Steve Martorano 

So Vito, let me talk about that fellow who is in line and crushed by the notion that he's a hard-working guy, and he's never stood in the food line. Before in his life, he's crushed by that idea. That's really the face of this problem. It's not so much that people go to bed hungry in America, although many do, I'm sure. It's that there's this whole group and you say it's growing of people who are making tough choices? Do I pay the electric bill this month? Or do I have a little extra money for food? Is that where we're at?


Vito Baldini 

I mean, there's a lot of people that are in that situation. Absolutely. Um, they're making decisions daily and people are out there trying to supply food. And not only the supplying the food, if you're not familiar with the social service system, and wherever you are, in some counties, and Philadelphia, obviously has a lot of resources, because it's a major city. But if you some of the outlying counties, there may not be as many resources, and it's trying to find where is access to that stuff. When you're not used to navigating a social service system, it's complex, and it takes time to figure out where stop is. And it also can be extremely frustrating. Because you can't believe that you're in the situation that you're in. Um, so I have a lot of compassion for all the people that are out there are struggling to survive to care and provide for their families out there looking for work out there just trying to get through and get by on it on a daily or weekly basis.


Steve Martorano 

You began this I know as a faith-based initiative, but Small Things now expands beyond that. What are the kinds of organizations you would deal with?


Vito Baldini 

So we talked about community partners, and when I thought about food distribution, there's a couple of ways you can do it, you can kind of go out and try to create your own distribution system. Or you can tap into the resources that already exist in a community and support those places. So for us, it's a lot of churches, nonprofits, community centers, these places that are already known in the neighborhoods, they're already like identified as a place that someone would go to get help. So our goal is to make their job easier, by getting them the resources, the food, and the distribution methods that they need to be able to serve their community. I am not an expert in every neighborhood, and we have people that are experts in their neighborhood. So we come alongside the people that are already there doing the hard work, and we enable and empower them to be able to serve their community, that really is a big part of what we do. Because they already know the needs of their community. They just need help.


Steve Martorano 

Yeah. You know, it's, it's certainly, you know, a great benefit to help somebody who has food insecurities. But there's another dimension beyond that. And you mentioned that one fellow, and that is that giving somebody food that they need, how important is it for you to do that in a way that they maintain their dignity? They don't feel like yeah, oh, my God, I'm in a soup line. Well, you know, that's a big part of what you're trying to do, right?


Vito Baldini 

I told you about that woman that looked at me and took my humanity from me, I vowed to never look at another human being that way, ever in my life, because I knew what it felt like. So when people come to us, and we serve, and we work with our partners, we want to do it in the most dignifying you mean way, understanding that anyone of us could be in a similar situation. So to me, I treat people in a way, and I encourage our team and our staff and our partners with dignity. We're there and if you want to think about it this way, there's a couple of ways you could do things here, I got a bag of food, take it, it is what it is. Here you go, I'm giving you something for free. That's one, that's one approach. The other approach is what I call the philosophy of like service. The way that we think about someone that we're helping is actually that they're a guest in our home, or there's someone that's come into our restaurant that wants service, we're there to serve them, we're not there just to throw food at them. We're there to help them through the interaction of giving them food. So you treat them with dignity and respect. And you listen to them. And you're there to serve them. It's a different approach. And to me, that gives huge dignity because it's like you're welcoming someone into your home and your community, into your family. By giving them a box, instead of throwing food assuring you need this, here you go. 


Steve Martorano 

And creating that environment. And people are people who see it. It then helps relieve their anxiety, and make them more available for help until they can get back on their feet. If it looks like a handout, it's going to feel like a handout. And maybe you won't come and benefit from the work. The pandemic has made nothing in our lives easier. How has it impacted Small Things?


Vito Baldini 

So we went from a one time a year distribution to a six-day a week distributor. We were distributing food for an annual project for Easter to connect people and serve them with food to having to do it every week. And I mean, I feel like we're kind of stabilized now. But at the beginning of this. Every week, we had to figure out where are we getting food, the supermarket shelves were purged. Where could we get this? We had to figure out where are we distributing. CDC guidelines? What's safe? What's not safe? Every week was you had to exert a ton of brain energy just to figure out how to get the food out. But you know what happened? We created a special bond with a lot of our partners through that because it's kind of like when you go into battle with someone, you come out looking at them differently. And I feel like that was what the pandemic did. It drew us closer together to the people we worked with because we felt like we had fought something together. And so as challenging as it was there was a great benefit in the value of the partnerships we created during it.


Steve Martorano 

Vito, the lifeblood of this organization, SmallThingsPhilly.org is the volunteer because obviously, you're not paying anybody a lot of money to do all this stuff. Is it been difficult or people lining up to help you in the volunteer sense?


Vito Baldini 

So during COVID, we filled over 5000 volunteer opportunities with about 17 or 1800 unique individuals serving we saw Philadelphia and the Philadelphia region show up in a big way to come and deliver meals, pack food and give food out. We definitely hit a barrier when things started to reopen that we started to see volunteer numbers decrease. And we also have this thing that's called volunteers like fatigue. I mean, people were packing boxes and doing stuff week in and week out. So we've seen some of that kind of like past now I think we're getting back into a rhythm of like what regular service can look like. But we can always use help. I think on our website, we have 18 different opportunities every week that we need help with packing or delivering meals. I've been really encouraged by how stuff has gone. But we can always use more people. And it's actually part of like what we believe because the more people we include in helping the better off we think that will all are going to be 


Steve Martorano 

How do you alleviate any problems they may have with their safety, they want to volunteer, but they're afraid because of the pandemic.


Vito Baldini 

We have different levels of volunteer opportunity from packing food boxes in a warehouse to packing food at a church to handing food out to people that are in line to serving people that are experiencing homelessness to like meal delivery. I mean, obviously, we were mass, we follow CDC guidelines, some opportunities, like meal delivery, you literally put food in your trunk and drop it on someone step. You really never interact with the person. Some of our sites with the volunteers put the boxes in your trunk, and you just drive and deliver. So it's contactless delivery. When we're packing boxes and warehouses. I mean, we try to keep our distance we wear masks, we follow all the protocol. I mean, the reality is this. And this is something that happened early in COVID, I had to make a choice. And I think our organization had to make a choice, were we just going to lock down and not do anything, or were we going to go out there, try to solve a problem. Understanding there is some risk that we take when we go out and distribute food. And the way that I came to a conclusion was, we want the people that are vulnerable, the elderly, the people with medical conditions to stay home. And we want the people that are healthy to come out. So the people that are medically fragile and elderly can stay home. So what that looks like is you have people that are healthy, bringing food to people that are vulnerable, so that the people that are vulnerable can stay home. So I look at it that way. Um, and but there is a risk that you take.


Steve Martorano 

Yeah, there it is. That's how change happens. SmallThingsPhilly.org if you're in this area, in the Delaware Valley, you can SmallThingsPhilly.org and we're gonna put everything up on our website. So people will know how to contact Vito's organization. Vito is there a phone number they can call if they want more information?


Vito Baldini 

So I mean, really right now, it's just our website calm and there's a way just to contact us directly on the website. So just SmallThingsPhilly.org.


Steve Martorano 

Well, you know, Vito, your story began in the, with the grim details of the serious substance abuse problem. And it ends with you doing what you're doing with this organization as their director. So I know you're probably aware of this: tough as that road was, it looks like it led you exactly where you're supposed to be.


Vito Baldini 

Yeah, I feel like my story and my experience put me in this unique position to be able to do this.


Steve Martorano 

Come back again, hang with us on the Corner. You're a great guy, and you're doing great work. Thanks so much for joining us. 


Vito Baldini 

Thank you.


The Behavioral Corner 

That's it for now. And make us a habit of hanging out at the Behavioral Corner. And when we're not hanging, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter On the Behavioral Corner. 


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