(upbeat percussion music) - Here's what's next on "You Oughta Know."

Hot off the heels of the Oscars, WHYY's Patrick Stoner shares how his career shifted to film, plus a Wilmington school creates a community center that offers goods in exchange for good behavior.

And this organization is helping to make a house a home for those overcoming obstacles.

Welcome to the show!

I'm Shirley Min.

It feels so good to be back on set.

So let's get right into the show.

When you look around your house, it should feel like a home, and that's the feeling the Philadelphia Furniture Bank hopes families gain from their program.

(truck beeps) - [Worker] A dining table.

- [Shopper] Yeah, so he has a very small dining room space.

Thinking like one TV stand, one night stand.

- [Worker] Sure.

(inspiring orchestral music) - [Tom] Furniture is one of the least recycled items in our economy, so we're there to catch it so that we can give it to people who need it.

My name is Tom Maroon, and I'm the director of the Philadelphia Furniture Bank.

Philadelphia Furniture Bank is a solution to a problem where the city and agencies that work with homeless folks made a big push to get people into housing, but they were spending a lot of their resources on new furniture.

So Pathways to Housing, PA decided to start a furniture bank for the whole city so they can have a furniture resource without a huge cost.

Pathways to Housing has been around for over a decade, and their solution to homelessness was unique at the time, where folks are given unconditionally subsidized housing right off the street or right out of shelter.

They would buy the furniture new or they wouldn't have the resources and put people in empty units, and then you'd have folks with professional therapeutic and clinical skills running around the city trying to find a bed and a nightstand and a sofa and, you know, a table.

And they would, you know, be hitting up their cousins and neighbors and family members just to try and find their clients' basic furniture.

Could take them a year to find the furniture for folks.

We have a member agency model.

We have over 60 agencies that are members of the furniture bank, and they send us their formerly homeless clients, and now we furnish over 1500 households a year.

Institutions also donate.

College and universities, hotels, we take some office furniture, not all of it, but you can go to our website to find out what we take and do not take.

We understand that, you know, we're a furniture resource for agencies all over the city that deal with folks who are struggling from homelessness, mental illnesses, addictions, and so we understand that that's where the real strength of the relationship of the healing process happens, and that furniture's just a part of that process.

So we try everything we can to support the case managers, and when they bring folks to the warehouse and that the case managers helps people start thinking about not just getting off the street, building a home and building a life.

A house is more than just four walls.

A home is a place where you can have a place to sit, you can invite people over.

We've found that folks are able to deal with those issues in the comfort of their own home rather than in a shelter or on the street.

And furniture's a big part of that.

You know, our greatest compliment is when a client hugs their case manager and says, "thank you for all this stuff."

The case manager just brought 'em here, but the case manager also brought 'em off the street, right?

And helped them get their housing.

- A few weeks back, we took you inside a southwest Philadelphia company called Tuft the World.

In case you missed it, here's a refresher.

- I am Mother Tufter.

- And I'm King Tuft.

- (together) We are the owners of Tuft the World.

- [Narrator] Welcome to a place where anything is possible if you're willing to tuft it out.

The process of tufting, best known for making pretty rugs, has been around for hundreds of years, but in 2018, Tim Eads and his wife, Tiernan Alexander, stumbled on something that would change the game.

- So I was teaching a class at Tyler School of Art, doing fiber and textiles, and I had a TA, she was a carpet designer in Michigan, so she told me about tufting and I bought a machine, thought it was interesting, I was making bags.

I was like, "oh, I can add this tufting to this bag to make carpet bags."

That never worked, but I posted videos of tufting and it just completely exploded.

Hi everyone, I'm Tim with Tuft to the World.

Today I'm gonna be showing you- - [Narrator] Eads got thousands of likes on Instagram and the most asked question, where can I get that tufting gun?

- Tufting, prior to that, it's been an industrial process for a long time and it's been around, but there was no way for an individual or an artist to just buy this machine.

So as soon as Tim kind of found a place that would sell them to him, we started reselling them.

- [Narrator] Reselling led Eads and his wife to writing the first tufting gun manual, teaching classes across the country, and eventually selling complete tufting kits so people could watch their videos online and tuft along.

And when COVID shut everything down in 2020, Tuft the World blew up, growing 500%, and making it a multi-million dollar business.

- King Tuft is here with me now .

Tim Eads, thank you so much for joining me.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

I'm super excited to be here.

- We have, or you have a very exciting announcement for the tufting community and I like saying TuftCon!

- Yeah, TuftCon.

- Tell me about this.

- Basically it's a conference for tufting specifically, the craft of tufting.

So it's a full weekend, March 24th, 25th, and 26th here in Philadelphia, and we're excited to have it.

- Talk about the programming that you're gonna have at the three day convention.

- Yeah, so we've invited experts all over the US to come to Philadelphia to talk about, you know, to do different demos, lectures, so this is like conference, convention style.

So there will be panel discussions about how to run a rug business, there will be, you know, demos on how to do carving or specific expert tufting techniques.

You don't need to know how to tuft to come to TuftCon.

So you, we actually have beginner workshops as well, so.

- That's good to know.

So all levels are welcome.

- All levels.

Absolutely.

- Okay, 'cause I would be in trouble.

I don't know how to tuft.

(laughs) The mission of the conference.

Like what do you want your attendees to take away from having attended TuftCon?

- I think it's really the same as like any conference.

So this is like bringing together all these people who have been desperate across the United States, who've never met people in person, only meeting them through Instagram or TikTok, this is a place where everybody can just meet, get to know each other, you know, meet some stars in the tufting field, and you know, kind of just have a good time.

- Yeah, why do you think it's taken off so much?

- It's really our fault.

We told people about tufting.

It's been around for about a hundred years, but more like in carpet industry.

The rug that we're on here is tufted, so it's been around for a while, but no one in the craft art world really knew about it too much.

So that's why.

And then it took off during the pandemic.

TikTok and Instagram, it really just to Talley exploded.

Yeah.

- And you sort of bridge that gap between the industrial side of tufting and the consumer.

- Yeah, like I said, the tools have been around for 70, 80 years, the electronic machines have been around that long, but mostly in China and India doing hand tufted, you know, rugs on scale.

- Very cool.

Okay, so how can people register and is there a deadline to register?

- There's not a deadline to register, so we'll even take, you know, registrations that day.

But you go to tufttheworld.com, there's an entire section on our website just for TuftCon, has the full schedule for the weekend, who's doing the lectures and all what the demos are about.

- And there's a cost.

- There is a cost, so it's $350 for the full weekend, which includes, we have a new education space at Bach, so there's going to be an exhibition there for tufted pieces, so it includes that.

We also have day passes as well.

- And I like, 'cause you have some options now for those who can't make TuftCon, what are you going to do for those?

- So, right, we're gonna be recording most of the things that are happening, all the lectures and panel discussions, and those will be available to purchase for a, you know, a smaller fee after the fact.

- Okay, and your space in the Bach building, even beyond TuftCon, this is gonna be an education space for Tuft the World.

- Yeah, so we've, from the very beginning, what I noticed was that teaching people how to tuft was a key part of building this community.

So we've taught tufting classes since the beginning.

I think in 2019 I taught over 500 people how to tuft in like 32 workshops.

So now for the first time, we have a dedicated education space at the Bach building.

We're already running classes there twice a month for tufting, and then after TuftCon, we're gonna open it up to all textile fiber.

- I love it.

I just love everything you guys are doing over at Tuft the World.

And much luck with TuftCon.

Tim, thank you so much for being here.

- Of course, thank you so much.

(upbeat guitar music) - Educators at a Wilmington Middle School are not only serving their students academically, they also believe it's their job to help them in life.

And that's exactly what they're doing through the school's new community center.

(soft guitar music) Inside Talley Middle School is a community center.

It's a resource available to the school's 850 students.

- We offer as many services here, haircuts for our young men, we have a straightened up station for our young ladies with their hair, manicures, and then we have a ton of hygiene products.

- [Shirley] The Talley Community Center opened in October, an idea years in the making.

- So one of our goals is to implement a community center.

We serve a population of students who, some are low socioeconomic status and have basic needs.

And so implementing this community center was really to serve those students and better serve them in school.

This students have access to the center by need and we also have kids who earn their way into here through positive behavior.

They get to come in here and purchase one of the items that you see behind me.

And I say purchase, not real money, but points they earn based off behavior.

We have several kids who will come in here with five or six passes that they purchase, 'cause they have so many points from good behavior and they're walking out with handfuls of supplies.

And I even said to a young lady, that's a lot of stuff for you.

She goes, "oh no, it's not for me, it's for my family."

We do have kids in here who are purchasing items for their homes, which is good to see.

It's kind of the purpose of it.

- Everything you see on the shelves, donated.

Barbers donate their time and talents.

Even the room itself was refurbished by Home Depot free of charge.

- The outpouring of support's been huge.

I put out a link on Facebook.

It was just an Amazon wishlist, and at the time, I thought we might get a few things here and there.

It exploded.

Thousands of dollars worth of donations came in.

- The community center was open to students once a week, but it's become so popular that it's now open two days a week.

For kids who are in need however, it's open anytime.

- The kids love coming in here.

They know that it doesn't have to be embarrassing to come and ask us for something, you know.

We will support them.

Our administrative team, our counseling team, our teachers are great at forming relationships with kids, and this is just another layer of that.

So not only will you have a relationship here, we got you, we'll also help you out if you need something, you know, for you or your family.

(brass music) - Principal Jeff Lawson says Talley Middle is working to create a clothes closet for its students down the line.

In the meantime though, you can check out the school's Facebook page to see an updated list of what the community center might need.

Well, community mixed with the arts is also supporting young people over in New Jersey at Community Rocks.

(live music playing) - Some people ask, "what exactly do you do?"

You celebrate and educate through community and families through any positive means and outlets possible.

If you picture Community Rocks being a tree, right?

Music is really the veins through which everything would flow.

If we do fitness and exercise, I mean, we know the moves because of the song.

One of our biggest things is a kids band.

It's original music written by kids with kids for kids.

And it's really gonna inspire literacy and get them reading and writing.

I mean, their journals and knowing that they come in and they have to write, even if they're three years old.

Writing is just having that pen or pencil in your hand, you know?

And from all of that, all these songs that evolved, three albums worth of songs of music that was all inspired by kids.

♪ Being weird is cool!

♪ Our Gimme 5 program is literally almost like a reward system, where every day we challenge all of us to do something creative, something active, something kind, to read, write, rock.

We want them to learn something and to try something new every single day.

- I work in tandem with Sarah O'Brien as the director, and we focus a lot on the music, arts, and wellness, because that's the foundation of Community Rocks.

My background is in teaching and mental health, which I think go well together, especially when you're trying to serve the whole child.

♪ I ate a lot turkey ♪ ♪ I'm not a vegetarian ♪ - You know, and it's not always this perfect happy place here.

I mean, come angry.

We're gonna give you an outlet in order to let that anger go.

Come happy and tell us how you got there, and let's spread it and share it.

Every time we end any session, we always say peace and love.

Peace and love.

Respect, compassion, and kindness.

♪ Peace and love ♪ ♪ Everyone to work together ♪ ♪ Everyone to get along ♪ (kids laughing) (exciting orchestral music) - Are you in your secret lair?

- I am in.

I'm in.

Can't you tell?

This is a PBS little private area.

You know how long it took to read all of those books, Tom?

- We can talk about all philosophies too, but I believe when you look up, you're thinking differently as opposed to looking down emotionally.

Anyway, we digress.

- That's fascinating.

That's absolutely fascinating.

You may notice the name.

So your character in that is Stoner Soap.

I would like to welcome you to the family.

- (laughs) Thank you.

I'm PBS, I'm a nerd, we all are at PBS.

- It's the secret to happiness.

- It is, isn't it?

- Are you a nerd?

- Absolutely.

- I'm a nerd.

Are you a nerd?

- I'm a nerd.

I think we're all nerds here.

- It's over, Mr. Stoner.

- I thank you very much.

Appreciate you giving me your time.

- Thank you.

It goes by in two seconds with you.

- It always does.

Tom, thank you so much, as always, for giving me your time.

It's just pure pleasure.

- Patrick Stoner, there's not a lot of people on the list who are a pleasure to talk to about movies, but you are definitely on it.

- Patrick Stoner's connections to Hollywood didn't happen overnight.

From a young age, he knew films would be a part of his story.

- I'm Patrick Stoner.

(dramatic orchestral music) I am the film critic for WHYY since 1985.

I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where my heart will always be.

I went to school at the College of William and Mary and then Masters at the University of Virginia, and then doctoral studies at the Graduate Center of City University of New York, all of course, in drama.

Because my mother died when I was three and my dad had to work during the week, I would stay with my Aunt Beck just across the street from this little community theater.

In those days, you'd see a film that would stay there for three or four days and then they'd change films.

So during that period of time, I saw every film that was made three or four times.

And that, believe it or not, has helped me all these years in understanding the little things that you don't notice the first time you see a film.

When I was at the College of William and Mary, my wife, she was the young ingenue, musical comedy star, and I got to know her then, began to date her, and we got married in Williamsburg.

And of course it's been a special place to us all of these years.

I have two daughters and they now of course have their own sons, and so we are kind of a happy little family.

I got very, very lucky very early, because I was with the University of Delaware teaching, I had a little credibility as somebody whose opinion you might wanna listen to.

And WHYY decided to do that.

There's something you gotta understand about being a critic.

You will decide that you're a critic and then you'll go to try to find someplace that cares what you think about things.

But how I managed to get what would end up being "Flicks," the syndicated PBS program, which by the way is now seen in 103 stations, is I went with my wife, who was invited to be the guest artist with the Getty Museum for a summer.

So I started going to the studios and asked to be allowed to go onto the lot.

And then I go all over the lot.

I'd know where Clark Gable used to meet with such and such, where Spencer Tracy met Catherine Hepburn and all those things.

But at the end of it, I thought, I need to take something back to WHYY.

So I asked him, I said, "is there any place I could get like an interview with somebody from the films?"

They said, "well," she mentioned a hotel.

"They're having interviews for films."

So I went to this hotel, I went up to the floor where they were doing interviews for" National Lampoon's European Vacation."

That was the film.

I walked in the door up to the desk of the people and I said, "hi, I'm with a Philadelphia TV station and I know you're doing interviews here with Chevy Chase and others, I'd like to do one if you don't mind."

The whole room went silent.

And she said, "sir, we tend to invite people that we want to do interviews."

So I apologized and started to walk out.

I got to the door and I felt a hand on my shoulder and a young assistant said, "look, if you're willing to wait till the end of the day, I'll ask Chevy Chase if he's willing to let you in."

I sat there three hours, and by George, he let me do it.

I bring the interview back to WHYY, we air it, and I use that to slowly over the next year and a half, get more and more interviews.

And then we became syndicated.

And of course, once we started doing interviews, I'd be flying to California, to LA, or around the world.

And all of that would never have happened except for that one moment.

Film is something that people don't even realize how much it affects them.

I saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch when it was in the theaters, when I was, I guess a teenager.

And I said to myself, "that's the kind of man I want to be when I grow up."

Think about that.

What I saw there made me want to be a better person.

That's power.

And that's why I love film.

- In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Nate Hicks from McGillan's Old Ale House is here to show and tell us what they have on tap over at McGillan's.

Nate, this is your first time here.

Welcome to the show.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- And I have to say, Chris, we miss you.

Nate, we are still so happy to have you.

You know, we always know that McGillan's brings it when it comes to decorations and the creativity with the drinks.

So is the bar fully decorated for St. Patrick's Day?

- Has been for two weeks already.

Yes.

We are ready to go.

The minute Mardi Gras was over, all the shamrocks and green lights showed up.

So we are prepared, we are locked and loaded, and we are excited.

- All right, and so we have drinks that we're gonna talk about.

- Also the menu has some specialties.

- Yes, some nice seasonal specialties, some Irish classics, like the corned beef and cabbage, or Shepherd's Pie, which is very popular, we have a really nice fish and chips going, but there's a secret menu item that comes around this time of year.

Not a lot of people know about it.

It is called the Emerald Isle, it's a corn beef cheese steak essentially.

Long roll, nice corned beef, whizz, some Russian dressing.

- Yum!

- It is unreal.

I have never seen anything like it in my life.

- It's a must try.

- It's worth the visit, that sandwich alone.

- All right, so St. Patty's day, are you gonna be open all day?

What time?

- All day!

10:00 AM to 2:00 AM, yeah.

- Awesome.

Awesome.

Okay, so let's talk about a couple of the drinks here.

- Yes!

- And there's one, we have green in color, of course.

- Right here.

Yes, this is our pot of gold, which is kind of like a mule.

It definitely has a kick to it much like a mule.

But we have a Stateside vodka.

We love, love, love using Stateside vodka.

McGillan's is, as you know, a independent Philadelphia company.

So we go out of our way, we love supporting other independent Philadelphia companies.

And Stateside is just a fantastic vodka.

- Their vodka is also just legitimately tasty.

- It's so good, yeah.

So cheers to that.

- So cheers to that, yeah.

And what makes it green?

- Oh, that would be the melon liquor.

So that's what separates it from a traditional mule.

So it's our stateside vodka, it's our ginger beer, and then a splash of the melon liquor as well as a splash of lime juice there.

- This is easy to drink, so.

- Yeah, so a couple of 'em at the end of this pot of gold, you might find a rainbow.

Yeah, so.

- So do the crowds get kind of rowdy on St. Patty's or what?

- I think enthusiastic is a better word than rowdy.

Everyone's excited, everyone's happy, this is our 163rd St. Patrick's Day, so we know exactly what to expect.

We are ready for it.

We stay ready.

We kind of train all year for this day.

This is, you know?

- Been there, done that.

You're good.

- Yeah, yeah.

We are ready to go here, so yes.

- Now you're gonna make us a martini that I know I've never heard of it before.

- It is something, you know, we love paying homage to Philadelphia's great history and the things that make this city so unique.

And one of those things are these weird little desserts that only show up, they start popping up at Wawas and Acmes this time of year are the Irish potatoes.

- Yum!

- Not actual potatoes, but if you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about.

- I love them.

- Yeah, they're fantastic.

What's not to love?

So it's like a coconut cream filling wrapped in a cinnamon sugar kind of breading thing.

So we've tried to turn that flavor into a drink.

So we start by rimming our glass with the cinnamon sugar.

And it's always better, I found, to rim an empty glass than a full glass.

- You had to learn that the hard way.

- Some things you just learned the hard way, yeah.

It's a mistake you don't make twice.

- So once you got that good going there, let me go into the ice.

Oh boy.

- [Shirley] I know.

It's a little tight on space.

- That dang old shamrock there.

- I'm getting excited.

- There's a lot to be excited about.

There's some good things coming our way.

So again, we're going to our old friends, Stateside.

It's gonna be an ounce and a half of that, but I'm making two of them, so it's gonna look like a more serious pour than it actually is.

So the one, two, three, four and a one, two, three, four.

- Now, have you made this other years?

- Oh yes!

- Okay.

- Absolutely, yeah.

And it's one of those things I don't think you're gonna find on another cocktail menu in this planet.

So we're very proud of the creativity of this.

So we have Rumchata, that's where you're gonna kind of get your cream filling taste from it.

So again, a one, two, three, four, a one, two, three, four, and then we add just a little couple dashes of some coconut milk to really drive that coconut flavor home.

- So this is healthy, you're telling me!

- It is!

I mean, it's basically coconut water.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely!

- A lot of electrolytes.

- A lot of electrolytes!

And we shake.

We get everything nice and neighborly.

Let all these new flavors get to know each other a little bit.

Say, hey pal, how you doing?

- And do you like this drink?

- I love this drink, yeah.

- Do you like the candy?

- I do like the candy too.

- I really like it too.

And there's no potatoes in the can.

I think you said that.

- Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's a good way to tell the difference as somebody who's from here and who's not.

If they see an Irish potato martini on the menu and they're kind of grossed out by it, you're like, "oh, you're not from Philadelphia, are you?"

So there we go.

- Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

- And then just the last little touch.

- These coconut flakes?

- Just to bring it all home.

Yeah, we have dusted these coconut flakes also in the cinnamon sugar.

- [Shirley] Yum!

- To really kind of give it that texture, that flavor that you come to expect.

- I'm gonna give it a try.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my Gosh, Nate.

This is delicious.

- It's problematic kind of, yeah.

- Yeah, we got a problem.

Nate, thank you so much.

I appreciate the drinks!

- Thank you for having me!

Have a safe, happy St. Patrick's day, friends.

- Thank you all for watching at home.

We'll see you next week.

Goodnight everyone.

I love it.

Cheers!

(upbeat music) You know what?

And it's not that sweet, which I appreciate.

- [Nate] Yeah.

- [Shirley] Mm.