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Gift Wrapping Host
Oh, hey, welcome to gift wrapping.
Show Host (Bert)
Whoa.
Gift Wrapping Host
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T-Mobile Representative
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Show Host (Bert)
Wow.
Gift Wrapping Host
IPhone 17s. You splurged.
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Gift Wrapping Host
I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
T-Mobile Representative
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Gift Wrapping Host
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T-Mobile Representative
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Gift Wrapping Host
Incredible.
T-Mobile Representative
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Forget that.
T-Mobile Representative
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
Gift Wrapping Host
Sounds like my family drama.
T-Mobile Representative
Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?
Gift Wrapping Host
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Show Host (Bert)
The Bird show how are you today, Christy?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
Show Host (Bert)
Thanks for coming in. Look at that smile. That's like the Oprah smile right there. It's like if you walk out of the Oprah studios and you don't have that smile, they make you come back in for a second show.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
No, you guys made me smile. You are so Sweet and kind to have me on here. This is just amazing.
Show Host (Bert)
Thank you. This is gonna. This could be one of those days in one of those projects. I think we've proven over the last couple of years that when the Burchill community comes together, it is a powerful rolling force.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
It is like a goosebumps.
Show Host (Bert)
She shows up to Oprah the other day, and you sort of kind of like, you sniffed out something was going on, but you didn't know exactly what she was going to ask you guys to do. Right.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
We had no idea. No clue at all. I had written a story into Oprah. It said, Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles. What would you do if you could give an act of kindness? Do you know someone in need? How would you perform this? And I have always wanted to own my own children's shelter where kids could come and have a warm bed, hot meals, you know, love, and everything they need. I wrote the story in. They called me within three hours and said, would you like to come on the show and you, you know, just to be part of the audience and take Oprah's challenge? And I said, well, what's the challenge? I said, you don't need to know that you come. I was like, sure. Can I? You know, you can bring one person. So I chose my sister Casey. And there we went. Our husbands were just awesome about getting us tickets and getting all the information for us, and there we went.
Show Host (Bert)
So you fly into Chicago. You kind of know sort of where you're heading with all this. You show up to the studios. How long did you have to wait in line before you got into the studio?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
30 minutes. Yeah, 30 minutes cold. They try to get everybody in really quickly.
Show Host (Bert)
Okay.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
I mean, because the wind's blowing, and once we got in there, we're still in a holding pattern. They put us in the little studio. We can watch older episodes of Oprah, and then they bring us into the studio. We had Cory Booker on there. We like, I'm part of it. But they had Cory Booker. And they had a couple that overcame change and, you know, and in their lives, saying, you can make change. You can have hope. And then she announced her challenges that Are you guys up for it? And the challenge is pay it forward.
Show Host (Bert)
Yeah. Let's play that clip from Oprah yesterday. This is exactly what Christie's talking about. She flies into Chicago and has no idea what the challenge is until Oprah, in the very last couple of minutes of the show, tells her exactly what she's going to be doing.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Everyone here today is getting the chance to do something really extraordinary for others. You will each go home with $1,000. Just $1,000.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Okay.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
And that money, here's the challenge for that money. This is what you're going to do. You're going to open your hearts, you're going to be really creative, and you're going to spend it all at once on one stranger or spend a dollar on every person. It doesn't matter to me. There is so much you can do with this challenge.
Show Host (Bert)
So that was Oprah's challenge slash gift yesterday. And it was such a quintessential Oprah show yesterday in that she was really kind of teaching that you can make change, anybody can make change. You just gotta take the first step and do it. And for her, that first step was giving everybody in the audience $1,000, which you think is gonna go a really long way. And maybe in some cases it can it, in other cases it can't. So what did you decide to do with your thousand dollars?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Casey and I decided we would adopt my sister's house. And my sister's house is a shelter here in the Atlanta area. But it's not just a shelter. It is a place where women can learn how to address the issues behind and put homelessness behind them, take care of their children, they develop emotionally, spiritually, and it's just an amazing place. There are 264 women and children in the shelter and the long term recovery plan. So we can touch a lot of their needs, but we can't touch. You know, it's going to take a lot of money. It's going to take a lot of donations. It's going to take the public really getting behind this and paying it forward.
Show Host (Bert)
Now, there are 5,000 different organizations in Atlanta that you could have tried to help out. Why my sister's house children?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Yeah, because I've always wanted the children's shelter. So we said, okay, you know, these ladies and these children need our help. And they were so excited when we called my sister's house. They were like, oh, my gosh, you're.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Going to help us.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
I mean, they were just so enthusiastic, and they have been so helpful.
Sarah Gibson Tuttle / Advertisement Voice
What do you need?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
What do you need? How can we help you? What can we do? And we're like, you know, this is where we're supposed to be.
Show Host (Bert)
I want to bring David in here from my sister's house because I think that when you look at a place like my sister's house, and I think we've all heard the name before, you just imagine that there are. There's so many. So many donation dollars and that there are warehouses and warehouses of materials that you guys can use throughout the year. And I think Christy was probably a little bit surprised by how much you guys could use the help.
David (My Sister's House Representative)
Oh, probably so. I mean, people think that, oh, you know, it's Thanksgiving time, people are given food, they're given the money because it's Thanksgiving time. It's, you know, almost Christmas time. Not quite. I know, but, you know, people forget about the fact that, you know, the women and the children, they're out there on the streets or they need the help year round 24 7. And it's not just the money to pay for the programs. It's things like diapers and toilet paper. When you put 260 women in a building, think about how much toilet paper you're using. I mean, so things like that, it just. It's always going through. And so we always need the help. And the. My sister's house just. We get everything from our donors. We rely on our donors to keep us going.
Show Host (Bert)
Now, are you in that building with 260 women?
David (My Sister's House Representative)
No, I work over at one of. My sister's house is part of a larger organization called Atlanta Union Mission, and we have six centers throughout the city that help men, women and children, you know, in all the different stages of homelessness.
Show Host (Bert)
Give me more of a scene on what my sister's house is like. It's not just a place to go and crash for seven years. You guys are literally, like, rehabilitating and trying to get everybody back on their feet.
David (My Sister's House Representative)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We've got a shelter, you know, because sometimes the ladies, they just need that place. I need a bed, I need a hot meal. I need some clean clothes, something to take a step back and say, okay, what's the next step in my life? But for a lot of them, there's other things that are going on. Addiction, abuse, lack of education that keeps them out of independent living. And so we've got a program, it's like six months that they can go in and they can take these classes on the search for significance. They can learn how to raise their kids in the right way, and they can take some spiritual enrichment courses and all these things that help them address, why can I not live on my own? And so instead of just saying, here's a little band aid, it's saying, we're teaching you how to do it yourself.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
When was it founded? When did my sister's house start?
David (My Sister's House Representative)
My sister's house started back in the 60s. So we're one of the oldest women and children's shelters in the city and the largest one still running today, so.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
And is it a hidden place? Because I know a lot of women's shelters. You're not allowed to give out the address of where it is.
David (My Sister's House Representative)
It is. We keep it secured because there are a lot of women kind of fleeing from abuse. But we can tell you it's in kind of the west Midtown area.
Show Host (Bert)
Okay, so, Christy, I'm curious. When you called up to my sister's house and you said, look, I want to give you $1,000, were you pleasantly surprised by how far that thousand dollars was going to go, or were you like, oh, boy, they're going to need more than just my thousand?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
I was really surprised. No, I mean, I knew that they gave me a list, and it's not. You know, the list is huge. There's two pages of a list of their needs. And so I knew that we were going to have to, you know, really get some help from other people. And so far, Color Chrome Atlanta has given us $1,000. Pottery Barn Kids has given us $7,000 worth of merchandise.
Show Host (Bert)
Wow, that's great.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
So we're really, you know, touching people and hoping that they will help us pay it forward and really help these children and women.
Show Host (Bert)
I'm taking a look at this list here. I mean, and we're talking about, like you said, almost two pages of needs. From Kleenex to backpacks to sheet protectors to crayons, floppy disk scissors, index cards, sippy cups, feeding bowls, spoons, hand soap, diaper bags. The list just goes on and on and on and on. So, I mean, it's a lot of items, and it starts to add up very, very quickly. And if you just look at a thousand dollars here, I mean, you can't cover what's on the list.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
No, you can't.
Show Host (Bert)
You absolutely can't. So we got your email yesterday, and we all kind of sat down and tried to figure out exactly how we could help and what we could do. And this is a major, major, major project. We have exactly three days to put together a whole bunch of items and a whole bunch of contributions. For what reason, Christy? Why do we have to get this done by Friday?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
We are having a huge, huge party for these kids on Friday night at the shelter at my sister's house. We are going to go down there and present them with all these things and hopefully see a big smile on all their faces as well. So we're under a huge crunch time limit.
Show Host (Bert)
All right? So, I mean, we're just a few days away. Normally when we do stuff like that, we can tell you guys about it for days and weeks and talk about it every 20 minutes or so. And I could schedule that out to where I know everybody listening is going to hear it at one point or another. We don't have that kind of time this time.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
This was part of Epra's challenge. The time limit, you have one week to get it done. So that's part of. Not only do you have a thousand dollars, but you got a week.
Show Host (Bert)
Well, she's crafty, isn't she?
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
She is crafty.
Show Host (Bert)
She's a little wily one.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
She's trying to prove to you that you can make change. Absolutely. In such a short time, if you put your heart and your mind to it, you can do anything. So that's why she's given us this huge challenge.
Show Host (Bert)
So that's why we turned to Kroger. I mean, you can't go 100 yards in Atlanta without seeing another Kroger. We had to get somebody involved with your challenge that could represent and cover a lot of area very, very quickly. And that's where I turn it on over to Ted at Kroger.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Well, thanks, Bert and Christy, congratulations. Being part of that show and what you're doing, it's admirable, and we want to help. And what we've got at Kroger is, as Bert mentioned, is a lot of stores, a lot of great associates. Our people are great at Kroger, and we've got a lot of customers. And what we're going to do for the next two and a half days, starting tomorrow morning on Wednesday, November 1st, we're going to allow our customers to round up for your cause. When they pay for their products at the cash register or make an absolute donation, they'll be able to engage with each and every cash register cashier in the metro area and make a donation on behalf of your cause. We'll round this money up all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and most of the day Friday to allow you to have the total that we'll be able to bring forth. So we're going to be able to magnify the power of approximately 1 million shoppers over those three days to engage them in your cause.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Thank you so much.
Show Host (Bert)
This is awesome.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
This is really, really amazing. You guys are so sweet. Thank you.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
You're welcome.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Got tears in my eyes now just talking about it. This is great. So, Ted is if I'm going to shop at Kroger today and checking out with all of my groceries. Do I just say to the cashier, I'd like to make a donation to my sister's house?
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Well, Tracy, what we'll do is we'll actually start this tomorrow morning on Wednesday. We'll be spending most of the day today notifying all 15,000 cashiers throughout the metro area of how this works. So we've got, as Bert mentioned, we're pulling this rather quickly, so we got a lot of communication due. But we'll start it tomorrow, Wednesday, November 1st. And we'll do it all day Wednesday and Thursday. And yes, you just will engage with your cashier. They'll have the instructions of how to accept your donation amount, and then we'll have those funds available for the presentation on this Friday.
Show Host (Bert)
And I want to be absolutely clear on this. This isn't some kind of Kroger promotion that you have to go in and buy something.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Absolutely.
Show Host (Bert)
And in order to give your donation, you round up if you're going to Kroger. And I think the statistic that you ran by me yesterday, 134 stores, 1 million customers.
David (My Sister's House Representative)
So 25% of the city of Atlanta.
Show Host (Bert)
Will be in a Kroger in the.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Next two and a half days.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
Absolutely.
Show Host (Bert)
So you go to Kroger, you're probably going to go anyway over the next couple of days. You round up on your purchase, or you just go in and you ask one of the cash, cashiers, where can I donate for my sister's house? And we will collect over the next 48 hours. Don't go today. Don't go today. It starts tomorrow morning, right?
Ted (Kroger Representative)
That's correct.
Show Host (Bert)
It'll start tomorrow morning. And then who knows? It's so hard to say or predict how much money can be raised over the next couple of days. But I think this is Oprah's point also. It's just that you just don't know the kind of change you can make in a very, very, very short amount of time. At this point, we don't know. But if the Birch show community kind of all goes to Kroger over the next two days, then we can make sure that my sister's house is taken care of for a very, very, very long time.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
You said it best. It's a grassroots effort. We got to get the community talking.
Show Host (Bert)
Now. Let me ask you this also, because I know there are going to be people that are going to want to donate clothing and stuff like that. Will you have boxes there for those kind of donations? Are we strictly talking monetary donations?
Ted (Kroger Representative)
We're strictly talking monetary donation. Because of logistics in on the short time to be able to convert those donations into delivery to the center.
Show Host (Bert)
Okay, good.
Ted (Kroger Representative)
So we are taking monetary donations for these next two and a half days.
Show Host (Bert)
All right, so again, when you go to Kroger, not today, starting tomorrow, every time you round up on your purchase or you just go in and you donate, it is going to, I would say probably 50 or 60 different items that my sister's house really needs. And all of these items are going to be up on our website at all the hits q100.com and as we said before, also the one problem that we kind of force kind of kind of looked at and said we might have a problem in that people only listen like 20, 30 minutes at a time. So if we don't continuously get the word out over the next 24 or 48 hours, we may miss a lot of Birch show listeners. What we're going to do is we're going to tenfold that thousand dollars that Oprah gave you and we are going to turn around, we are going to have you cut a 60 second commercial and we are going to give you that money in advertising to run a commercial on Q100 all day long. Today talking about Kroger and Thursday, all three days talking about the fundraiser and all the money going to my sister's house.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
That is awesome.
Show Host (Bert)
Okay, so that's at least $10,000 of advertising. Here's what we're going to do. We are going to link on over to my sister's house also. And if you have donations like this, you could bring that stuff directly on down. Correct. But we are strictly working with monetary donations over the next couple of days at Kroger. Right. And now in my sister's house, website will expand. Explain how to donate those items. Okay, so yeah, just go to the website. If you want to do anything other than money, get it.
Gift Wrapping Host
The Bird Show.
Show Host (Bert)
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Sarah Gibson Tuttle / Advertisement Voice
Oh, hey.
Gift Wrapping Host
Welcome to gift wrapping.
Show Host (Bert)
Whoa.
Gift Wrapping Host
So is Saldana.
T-Mobile Representative
Hey, can you wrap these please?
Show Host (Bert)
Wow.
Gift Wrapping Host
IPhone 17s.
T-Mobile Representative
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Gift Wrapping Host
I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
T-Mobile Representative
Well, it's better than socks.
Gift Wrapping Host
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
T-Mobile Representative
No AT T Mobile there's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
Gift Wrapping Host
Incredible.
T-Mobile Representative
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my Aunt Rosa.
Christy (Guest, My Sister's House Advocate)
Forget that.
T-Mobile Representative
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
Gift Wrapping Host
Sounds like my family drama.
T-Mobile Representative
Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with hey, where are you going?
Gift Wrapping Host
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Date: November 24, 2025
Podcast Host: The Bert Show Cast (Bert, Kristin, Abby, Cassie, Tommy & more)
Main Guests: Christy, David (from My Sister’s House), Ted (from Kroger)
This episode centers around Oprah’s “Pay It Forward” challenge and how it sparks a major local effort led by The Bert Show community to support My Sister’s House, a women's and children’s shelter in Atlanta. Bert and the team interview Christy, a local participant in the challenge, and showcase how collective action, corporate partnerships, and tight deadlines can mobilize tangible help for those in need.
| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:50 | Interview with Christy begins, discussing her selection for Oprah's challenge | | 03:50 | Oprah clip on-air, $1,000 "pay it forward" details revealed | | 05:08 | Christy explains choosing My Sister’s House | | 06:08 | David details the year-round needs at My Sister’s House | | 09:00 | List of shelter needs and early corporate contributions | | 10:15 | Discussing the three-day time limit and upcoming party for shelter children | | 11:04 | Ted from Kroger outlines the metro-wide donation campaign | | 13:46 | Bert and Ted: logistic details for donating at Kroger, commercial support announced |
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This summary captures the energy, urgency, and heart behind The Bert Show’s “Pay It Forward” Challenge episode. Whether or not you caught the live broadcast, the step-by-step evolution from Oprah’s challenge to local Atlanta impact is clear: small seeds—when watered by a whole community—grow into big change.