pat k

Nonprofit Consultant • Leadership Coach • Speaker • Workshop Facilitator • Educator • Macro Social Worker • Aspiring Writer • Baby Boomer

[Howard Mortman @HowardMortman]

Barack Obama "is really messed up. I'm giving him some time because this beautiful skirt that my stylist Meredith Koop picked out that is my favorite portrait of my mom. He didn't know it existed until just a few minutes ago. I've had a few weeks to settle down"
- Michelle Obama

[pat k @innerworksgroup]

@Acyn This segment feels like something that needs to be bookmarked for future reference purposes.
#FaceTheNation

[pat k @innerworksgroup]

May he find everlasting peace. #AldonSmith

[Adam Ryan 🤝 @AdamRy_n]

Aldon Smith passed away this weekend. Most people are talking about his incredible ability, potential, and performance as a football player.

Even though that is all true. He was so much more than that. He was a great friend and his kindness changed my life forever.

I met Aldon our freshman year at Mizzou. He was redshirted and relatively unknown as an athlete. His giveaway was the biggest hands you'll ever see and his ability to dunk at 250lbs, but his size in many ways didn't match his personality. He was relatively quiet and in most scenarios would try to shrink into the room vs stand out in it.

Over the course of the next year, we became close. We were very different people, from different places, but we both connected on the feeling of being a bit lost in the beginnings of adulthood. That year, I never really thought about him as a football player. He was just this gentle giant who loved to play video games and talk about life.

His sophmore year he broke the single season sack record at Mizzou, became an All American, and his life changed forever.

He became a celebrity on campus. He became a household name in Missouri. He became a top NFL draft prospect.

I remember how crazy his life became, and how quickly. ESPN doing interviews. Fancy cars being "loaned" to him. And people everywhere inserting themselves into his life.

Despite the craziness, my friend was always a text away.

My junior of college, I decided to take my first stab at entrepreneurship. I wanted to launch a chapter of Camp Kesem.

Kesem is a summer camp for children whose parents have been affected by cancer. The camp would be totally free and be a chance for a kid to experience the magic of being a kid again. As a son of a breast cancer survivor the idea of being able to create this camp in Missouri meant the world to me.

The Livestrong Foundation was hosting a nation wide contest to win $10,000 as seed capital to get started. To win, you had to have the most votes.

I tried really freaking hard to win that competition. I was going up against some really influential people at huge schools. As a somewhat awkward kid in Columbia, MO I had no chance.

So I asked my friend Aldon for a favor. I asked him if he would help me out and promote the link to vote.

He did more than just posting about Kesem on Facebook, skyrocketing us into the top place in the country. He kept supporting me the next 3 years while I was working on building Kesem.

He showed up to have fun with the kids. He helped me fundraise. He helped me get Kesem to become an official organization sponsored by the NFLPA so he could publicly endorse us as as a player.

Since then Torry Holt, Larry Fitzegerald, and many others have supported Kesem. But Aldon was the first.

Kesem led me to move to Austin to work for the Livestrong Foundation. Kesem is how I met my wife. Kesem gave me the confidence to start Workweek and continue the path of building something from scratch.

But in reality, Aldon enabled all those things.

Throughout the years we had many amazing memories together. Having my wife and I vacation to his house in San Jose. Going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl and seeing his entire family make the trip. Meeting his son and watching him be a dad. The hilarious night we met Derek Jeter. Having the most intellectual conversations about life while playing Call of Duty.

I also saw him struggle. There's no doubt he was a complicated person. Truthfully, I don't know if he ever really figured out who he wanted to be. I know just because your'e 6'4, 250lbs, and get 5.5 sacks in a single NFL game doesn't necessarily mean you want to be a football player. No matter the reasons, he made many bad decisions in his life. Some of those mistakes made it hard for me to stay as close as we'd once been.

One day, not too long ago, I just decided to text him. It had been years since we really chatted. I just wanted to say thank you for all that he had done for me and that I was sorry I wasn't there for him more through his struggles. We FaceTimed after that, and it was like the old days all over again.

Aldon was more than the headlines, the mistakes. He was a generous, gentle soul, a kid at heart, someone who was endlessly curious about life... all in the body of a world class NFL player, bearing the weight of professional pressure and personal circumstances that most of us can't even imagine.

People are complex. People who make bad decisions can also do great things. A person can be hated by almost everyone and, yet, there are people in that person's life who still love them deeply.

I learned many of these lesson due to Aldon, and I'll carry them with me forever.

Rest in peace, Aldon. You won't be forgotten.

[Timeless Sports @timelesssports_]

2016 NCAA Champions.

2026 NBA Champions.

[tim russ @timruss2]

Yeah. Gotta make sure those minorities aren’t recognized for their contributions to the country.

[pat k @innerworksgroup]

@konando_ @MatthewDR @FIFAcom Believe me, just like adults their memories fade as they get older.

[Oh No He Didn't @ohnohedidnt24]

If you hate KAT, I suggest you reconsider...

"I feel like other than losing a child there's nothing worse you could go through and it builds you up and it strengthens you beyond measure. That's why I got Philippians 4:13 and the date tattooed on my neck. I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me but I was strengthened on April 13 when I lost my mother. That's been my favorite Bible verse my whole entire life since I was little. I didn't know the significance it would have in my life when I became an adult. But what I do know is that I truly can do anything when I walk in faith, when I walk with the angels beside me. I feel anything's possible, I feel nothing's impossible...

I'm just grateful to be in this position because I know a lot of friends in mind that are not here to see this moment. I know a lot of people I love tremendously that aren't here to give me that hug or to give me that text message. I'm doing this for them. I do this for them, I do it for my mother's country, I do it for everybody in Dominican Republic, I do it for everyone in the city that welcomed my mother when she immigrated over. I do it for all my family in New Jersey that allowed me to be raised and allowed me to love this game of basketball and allowed me to be a kid with my mother and enjoy those times. It takes a tribe to get here and it takes a village and I'm so blessed that I've had the village I've had in my life to get to this point"

[𝐎𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐑𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 @opolot_ronnie]

Nike put viral 3-year-old Jalen Brunson superfan Rya on a billboard outside MSG🥹

[TNT Sports @tntsports]

Mirra Andreeva celebrates winning Roland Garros with her dog 🐶❤️

[𝐎𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐑𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 @opolot_ronnie]

A'ja Wilson's grandmother grew up near the University of South Carolina campus but wasn't even allowed to walk on it. Instead, she had to take longer routes to avoid the campus.
Today, her granddaughter, A'ja, has both a statue and a retired jersey at that very same school.

[Renee @PettyLupone]

Some of y’all might be too young to remember but this song had all the soap operas in a straight up chokehold in the 80s.

Can’t believe Roberta and Peabo are gone.

RIP 🕊️

[The Art Of Dialogue @ArtOfDialogue_]

Actor Ralph Carter, who played Michael Evans on the TV show Good Times, was recently spotted celebrating his 65th birthday with his former co-star Bern Nadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans on Good Times.

(🎥 ThelmaofGoodTimes/IG)

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

Today, I signed an Executive Order temporarily repealing bedtimes in the City of New York so that kids of all ages can watch our team in the NBA Finals.

As Mayor, you’re forced to make many difficult decisions. This was not one of them.

Go Knicks.

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 DAMN.

Ruby Bridges said the moment she finally understood what was happening during school integration was when a little white boy told her:

“My mom said I can’t play with you because you’re a nigger.”

She was SIX.

And she said hearing that felt like “a huge weight lifted,” because suddenly everything made sense.

Why the classrooms were empty.
Why adults were screaming.
Why U.S. Marshals had to escort her to school.
Not because of anything she did.

Just because of the color of her skin.

A six-year-old child realizing an entire country was angry at her for existing.

[Aallyah Wright @aallyahpatrice]

The USDA terminated a multi-million dollar grant meant to help farmers of color secure land. The Biden-era program was designed to addressed historic discrimination.

24 organizations joined a lawsuit suing the agency, demanding to reinstate the funds.

https://t.co/FkeHHKDUbU

[MLFootball @MLFootball]

THE GREATEST JAMEIS WINSTON CLIP OF ALL-TIME.

“That 9-year-old girl sprayed with hoses, attacked by dogs, and jailed for marching is still alive today. History isn’t behind us — we’re living in it now. Uncomfortable moments can divide us or help us grow”

[Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham @GovMLG]

To every medical resident and physician looking for a place to plant roots: New Mexico is calling. Free child care. Tuition-free college for your kids. And now up to $300,000 in student loan repayment for physicians. We’re working to make New Mexico The best place in America to practice medicine and build a life.

Applications for student loan forgiveness open June 1. Link in the first comment.

#NewMexico #Physicians #LoanForgiveness #NMHealth

[pat k @innerworksgroup]

This is just wrong. No matter the side you’re on...
More people are going hungry now than at the height of the pandemic - NPR
#FoodInsecurity
#HungerInAmerica
https://t.co/FjYu1zp0kQ

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

South Carolina Republicans: “Quick, let’s eliminate the one Black district before anyone catches on.”

Black South Carolina voters: “Hold my beer.”

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

Clarence B. Jones, lawyer and speechwriter who drafted part of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's “I Have a Dream” speech, has died

https://t.co/pvUBOfxQHS