Champion the Cause

Thanks for checking in on our progress, Mayor Young, and for your kind and encouraging words in your weekly newsletter! Thanks also to Penelope Huston, Mairi Albertson, and others from the mayor's team for arranging the walk-through! Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time is underway in earnest at Mud Island because Memphis has responded! Thanks to all of you who have reached out to support the Baron's work with your financial investment, donated supplies, and your volunteer time! The Baron may be lost in the mulitverse, but his world is starting to take shape! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/enVDTb-V #baronvonopperbean #bvo #mudisland #memphistechnology #memphisart #immersive #immersiveexperience #xr #immersivetechnology #adaptivereuse #downtown

New episode! When our Champions of the Lost Causes podcast summer trip stopped in Newbury, MA, I talked to Rochelle Jospeh of Support the Pink House, a group working to preserve the historic landmark, which has drawn countless photographers to capture its unique beauty. The Pink House has, in many ways, come to symbolize the Boston area. The 10-year fight to save it has had many twists and turns and it's not over yet. The Pink House is once again under demolition threat! Our ioby crowdfuding campaign to help cover our costs ends on Saturday, so if you've been planning to kick in, now's the time! Thanks in advance for any help, and special thanks to everyone who has contributed so far! #preservation #preservationmatters #causes #podcast #podcasting #roadtrip #roadtripusa #roadtrip2024 #cotlc #backtothelight

"In the meantime, Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time, the exciting immersive experience planned for Mud Island in the space that once housed a rarely visited museum, deserves strong support. It’s Memphis' big opportunity to join the $100 billion immersive experience industry that’s a magnet for tourists and a key to activating Mud Island." Thanks for your vote of confidence in our work, Tom Jones and Smart CityMemphis! Invest in the Baron and help us make it happen! wefunder.com/bvo

NEW EPISODE!! And now available on Amazon Music and Audible! When our Champions of the Lost Causes podcast road trip stopped in NYC, I talked with ioby CEO Nupur Chaudhury, MPH, MUP, EMBA at the Sheraton Hotel lounge in Brooklyn. We discussed how ioby has grown and changed over the years to help fund neighborhood-level change all over the country, which include Marvin's own causes - saving and reopening the Mid-South Coliseum, and the podcast summer road trips of the last two years! Marvin and Nupur also talk about ioby's improved site functionality, and what the future may hold for peer-to-peer learning among ioby project leaders. It was especially gratifying to talk to Nupur on the same day we had talked to an ioby project leader in East Harlem (Kim Yim, see episode 63). To see the power of ioby's platform at work that morning and then talk to the person leading the charge to make the platform and community even stronger the same night was a real treat! The road trip crew is back in Memphis now (and the kids are back in school this week), but there are still 11 days left in our ioby campaign! All donations to help cover costs of travel and podcast post-production are greatly appreciated! #bethechange #causes #podcast #podcasting #roadtrip #roadtripusa #roadtrip2024 #cotlc #backtothelight #crowdfunding #crowdfundingcampaign

Thanks to my friend and Baron Von Opperbean lead investor Mark Jones for his guest column in the Daily Memphian today! Because of Mark and the more than 100 people who have made an investment in the Baron's plans for Mud Island, we are at work on the island and making progress, but as Mark says well... "I chose to invest in BVO through its Wefunder crowd-investing campaign because I believe in Chris’ vision, and because I think it will be great for Mud Island and our city. But to do something on this scale, Chris needs funding from more of us so he can hire the team of creatives necessary to bring his vision to life and to give Memphis the immersive experience it deserves. I have made an investment in our creative community because I believe in it, because I am a part of it, and I hope you will consider investing in the project, too." Want to invest in the Baron and help bring Mud Island back to life? wefunder.com/bvo

The Champions of the Lost Causes podcast road trip crew is home! We have enjoyed sleeping in our own beds and petting our own cats! As we readjust to the Memphis humidity, I'm proud to publish the conversations I had with people championing causes all along the east coast! Kim Yim had grown fresh fruits and vegetables at Pleasant Village Community Gardens in East Harlem for years before becoming the organization's board president. It was seeing the value it added to her own life that made her step into that leadership role when the call came during the pandemic. Under her leadership, the garden has grown, become more sustainable, and has increased the capacity to compost food waste from the neighborhood. Kim has grown and helped maintain the garden as a place for neighbors from different backgrounds to have community with each other, and eat frequent meals with each other with produce from their shared effort. We explore the garden's 1970s origin as a result of neighbors seed-bombing vacant lots to beautify their neighborhood, to the garden's current-day role as treasured civic asset and gathering spot for many. Like we did last year, we partnered with our friends at ioby, a community-focused crowdfunding platform. Not only has ioby been our fundraising platform and fiscal agent, but they suggested ioby leaders who champion causes all along our travel route. To see Kim's work adding to the health and vibrancy of East Harlem was a joy and great encouragement! Thanks to everyone who has contributed to our ioby crowdfunding campaign to help us cover our costs. There's still time! See link below. #communitygardens #causes #composting #foodwasteprevention #podcast #podcasting #roadtrip #roadtripusa #roadtrip2024 #cotlc #backtothelight

The Champions of the Lost Causes podcast summer road trip is on the home stretch, and an interview we did at the outset just published! Thanks to The Commercial Appeal's Neil M Strebig for writing about our two years of spending a good bit of our summer talking to people who champion causes to make the world a better place! The headline just singles out my son, and indeed Cormac has been the constant, running the board last year and this year, but our daughter V was clutch helping drive last year, and Mel has been a huge help this year (and for the last bit of last year). My wife Sarah was with us the first two weeks this year before having to get back to work, and she has leveraged the hotel reward points from Memphis HQ and gotten all the best deals to save money! Last year, I was juggling a lot of PR client work from the road, too, and this year, I had a bit of PR client work, but also plenty of Baron Von Opperbean work -- PR work *and* reconnaissance (we visited Otherworld in Philadelphia and, soon, we'll stop at the City Museum in St. Louis). Like last year, the overarching effect of the trip has been encouragement. We have talked to so many people who are giving of themselves to help others. We can all get overwhelmed by what we see in the news. It is a lot to take in... too much. For me, the podcast road trip road provides perspective. I just read the guest column I wrote for The Daily Memphian last year, and I feel the same way. Memphis is my "blue marble gazed from space," and I cannot wait to be back home amongst the people I love and be in the city I love.

Thanks to Choose901 for helping us spread the word about the Baron's plans to transform the Mud Island river museum into an interactive, choose-your-own-adventure, immersive playground! #immersiveexperiences #immersiveplay #immersiveart #adaptivereuse #mudisland

So excited to be part of the team working to bring Baron Von Opperbean to Mud Island! Want to help make it happen!? Good! Cause we're gonna need all of you! BVO is made by Memphians for Memphians (ok, tourists, too!) and we're offering all of you a chance to *invest* in BVO's success through a Wefunder crowd-investing campaign (wefunder.com/bvo). It's an investment that will pay you a return if we succeed! It's also an investment in making Memphis a more vibrant city! It's a vote of confidence in our incredible creative community, who we know will show up, show out, and put Memphis on the experiential map! The immersive experience economy is exploding! Memphis can be part of this industry and can, in fact, one-up the industry! Together, we'll bring the best of Meow Wolf-level artistry and combine it with playground aspects like St. Louis' City Museum, and top it off with deep deep story narratives and character development like no other immersive experience in the world has! There isn't another immersive experience on this scale anywhere in the South! Let's make it happen! If you want to work on BVO, intern, volunteer, donate reclaimed materials, head to bvoexp.com and get in touch with us! Many thanks, all y'all! Thanks also to our friends in the media who have reported on our work so far and who are working on coverage yet to publish! 📸: Benjamin Naylor for The Daily Memphian