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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves, life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. You
Music 0:35
Come on, tell
Music 0:42
me what's going on. Great
Wesley Knight 0:49
day Las Vegas. Great day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And you guys know I used to say good day. I say great day. Now that's something I got from a dear friend, a longtime friend, Lionel Charles. He said, man, it's a great day. You're absolutely correct. I have two wonderful young people. One's my daughter, April and Nigel Murray. His dad is a colleague of mine. He worked for the county fire department. Of course, I worked for Las Vegas fire. And these two individuals have some very, very nice nonprofits that I think need some attention. So therefore, I asked them if they would be willing to come on the show. April's been on before, but I think it's a worthy time. You know, this is the time of the year when people are in a more giving mode, if you would. And it should be that way all the time, as far as I'm concerned, be be good to one another's fellow human beings, because God give us one life and a life to live, and we try to live it abundantly. But don't forget about those who don't have I mentioned early on this month, and I don't have any additional ones. I don't know if you guys know some people whose birthdays they are this month. You can share them if you would. If you don't, don't worry about it, because we're going to go to you April and think about that. We're going to go to you April, give a little background to our listening audience. Then Nadia will come to you, and then I'll ask a few questions to get us rolled. Go ahead.
April Washington 2:18
Well, we do have a few family birthdays, Amari, Kenyan, Rashid and
Wesley Knight 2:32
well, you know what you're right? April, you know what Wes? I can't blame I shouldn't blame Wes. It's me. Because actually, this is the first December show. You're right. I will, I will come back for the next show, for sure. But give those again April. You're absolutely
April Washington 2:48
our cousin Rasheed, our niece, Amari, our nephew, Kenyan. And it seems like I'm forgetting someone.
Wesley Knight 2:55
Oh yeah, Alma, my sister and my deceased brother, Clinton, Lee, Washington. Dada Monroe Williams,
April Washington 3:03
Tyson, it's guys,
Wesley Knight 3:06
wow, man, that's how I get confused. Sometimes I'm ripping and running. But yeah, we're talking about our December show. This is the first show in December.
April Washington 3:14
So my name is April, Washington. I'm the founder and president of look back cause. The look back. Cause is an organ organization I started because children are being left in cars, and they are either being seriously injured or they're dying as a result of most of the time an accident of the parents going out of their way, another, you know, another routine of the day, or the opposite parent took them to school or but I just try to try to educate people on, on not leaving their children in the car for any reason at all. Now, when I was growing up, I don't remember, we didn't hear of kids dying in the backseat of cars. But it's more, it's, it's, it's happening too much, and it seemed like the numbers are growing every year. So what I did, I designed products to remind parents to stop leaving their children in the car. I decided to make it a nonprofit because I wanted to do other things to help parents, like with small bill pay sometimes, you know, maybe a gift card for groceries.
Wesley Knight 4:21
That's plenty for now. I want to hear Nigel. Nigel give a little bit of background in yourself. Ava star, going to the full details without me asking her another question. You can tell she's been on the show before. Go ahead. Yeah.
Nigel Murray 4:33
So my name is Nigel B Murray. I am currently 22 years old. I'm born and raised here in Las Vegas, and I have a nonprofit called clothes for kids that provides brand new clothing to children in foster care.
Wesley Knight 4:45
Okay, all right, yeah, your mom and dad were on the show a couple months ago, and he mentioned, I said, Oh, I got to get him on the show. So, April, what was your inspiration? I want you to come back as well, Nigel, and what was your inspiration to doing this?
April Washington 4:58
Well, right at. After the birth of my second child, David, the second I remember hearing on the news about a woman that had left her kid in the car. And at that time, Destiny was running track for for the PS Vegas flyers. And being a lot of the track coaches were firefighters, we were discussing the situation, and that just because David, at that time, was eight weeks old, and I remember being so scared of accidentally leaving him in the car, so I said, I gotta do something to help these parents. I gotta do something to help these parents. So that's what, that's what inspired me to do it.
Nigel Murray 5:36
Okay. Yeah, so back when I was in high school, our family went through the application, they've become foster care parents. And so after going through that process, my foster brother that we brought home, long story short, essentially just came home with a lot of clothes that just didn't fit him, and you could tell he didn't have a lot of confidence in the way that he carried himself. And so after doing a little bit of research, I found out that that's the reality of a lot of other children who are in foster care, that a lot of times are placed into foster homes or put into situations where they're forced to wear clothes that they don't feel confident in, and that can really, you know, be a very negative experience, in a negative, impactful experience on a child as well. So that's kind of what sparked my inspiration for the nonprofit. So where'd you go to high school? So ninth and 10th grade, I went to Somerset Academy, and then 11th and 12th I went to Nevada State High School, which is a dual credit program.
Wesley Knight 6:29
Dual Credit Program. Talk about that, please. Yeah. So it's
Nigel Murray 6:32
actually funny is I actually graduated college before I graduated high school. So I think like Tuesday was my CSN graduation, and I graduated college on a Saturday. But essentially, what it is, it's a program designed to help, you know, high school students gain college credit, and then, depending on like, what your track is, you're actually able to complete a degree as well. So I actually went here to UNLV as well. But instead of having to do four years, I only had to do two, because I had the general
Wesley Knight 7:00
classes how God works, man, there's two young individuals, and I'm trying their their Dave's son, one of my golfing buddies, he passed away earlier this year, and I've been trying to get his grandsons on the show, because they went through a dual program, and they are now seniors at UNLV. Okay? And now I want to get this, this information out to others, out in our community, because I think it's an excellent program. Yeah, you came here as a junior versus coming in as a freshman.
Nigel Murray 7:31
Technically, yeah. I mean, I was a freshman. I mean, typically Junior, right?
Wesley Knight 7:35
That's correct. Yes, that's right. Tell me. Let me know how smart your well, academically. No, that is cool. Man, that is cool. Thank you. That is cool. So April, tell us a little bit more about your program, and what are you doing to continue to inspire, not necessarily inspire, but I do want to say this, the end of the year is coming up, and one thing I do know, and I know we can't solicit Wes has made that perfectly clear. But I will encourage you guys, if it's not for these two particular groups to include 91.5 because I do it a lot with them, with the various membership programs that they run. So talk about what more you're doing with your program.
April Washington 8:19
Well, more so, like I was saying with Bill Pay, I have, you know, when I what I do is I go on social media, or, you know, people contact me and say, you know, I need this. Or I'll go into some of the help groups and look and I mean, I've done as far as paying a small, small bill to like a disabled person, where where their rent is only a couple $100 and pay it, and it's, and it's, I mean, I can take a donation of so many dollars and it could help, I mean, a small donation, it could help four families. You know what I mean, and I and that's, that's very touching, because you just don't know how much you how much that helps. And see, I know that situation you're talking about, Nigel, very, very, very well working in that that arena, and there are so many foster kids that are,
Wesley Knight 9:13
you know. And one thing Wes will attest to that, that I always mention frequently, in fact, we've lost our humanity. You know, everybody talk trash and they see somebody homeless. Could have not before the grace of God go, you fool. So why you gonna? You don't, you don't know what, what caused them to be there, right? So give us a little bit more on your program. Yeah.
Nigel Murray 9:38
So we help, specifically children foster care, including kinship placements as well for the people that don't know what that is. That's essentially when a child isn't necessarily separated completely from the family, just maybe from the parents, so maybe grandma or uncle or cousin is keeping the children. So we serve from newborn all the way up to ages 18, um. And we essentially, basically, our process is when a child is dispatched into a new foster home, the caseworker has our information, either the foster family or the caseworker reaches out, we verify that they are indeed a foster family, and then from there, we start to kind of fulfill them a duffel bag. So it was really, really important for me to give them duffel bags. And the reason for that is a lot of times these foster family or these foster children carry their belongings in a trash bag, right? What is a trash bag used for?
Wesley Knight 10:29
Well, I can take trash, but, right? But, but I can tell you about a duffel bag. As a former soldier, I still got my old duffel bag. That thing is, it's tough, exactly. And to your point, on a trash bag, they be torn up. You got to double, triple them. But that is just absolutely great what you're doing. Man, keep, keep doing what you're doing, young man, because it's going to help someone. And that's that's an important thing for our humanity, absolutely.
Nigel Murray 10:55
But yeah, like I was saying, it's very important for us to give them a double bag versus a trash bag, because the trash bag is designed for trash. That's what it's made for. And so if you're carrying your belongings inside of a trash bag, what does that say about your belongings, right? They're trash. And then, well, as the aspect of, you know, trash bag is flimsy, it doesn't, you know, really hold much weight. So we give them a duffel bag full of roughly three to five days worth of clothes, just for their foster pimp for the foster family to be able to kind of get in that transition period, to kind of settle in and actually be able to get them some clothes. Because our reality was, we got my foster brother, and the next day he had school and he didn't have any clothes, so we were forced to try and figure this thing out in a matter of 10 hours. So that kind of gives him a little wiggle room for there. And then one thing that we started doing a few years back for the older kids, you know, it's 2025 you know, we got a lot of judgmental people in the world. So, you know, you've got these kids who they have nothing Right, right? But at the same time, some of the kids say, Hey, I'm not gonna wear that, right? Because I'm gonna get made fun of at school if I'm wearing these, you know, beat up shoes or this, that, and the third, even if you're genuinely trying to help, right? And we give them all brand new clothes. By the way, everything is tag attached, because these children are used to getting hand me down clothes. Sure, write clothes that you know, even if you're donating with a good heart, saying, Hey, this is a nice t shirt. I'm giving it to you, well, at the end of the day, you're giving it away because you no longer see any value in it, or you no longer want it, right? So each foster child is tearing the tags off their own clothes. No one ever wore these. These are strictly for you.
Wesley Knight 12:24
So let me ask you. So what's your degree in? Take
Nigel Murray 12:26
a guess, what you think, man, you
Wesley Knight 12:29
sound like you can do some psychology or sociology because of the points that you're hitting and communication as well.
Nigel Murray 12:36
No, so I actually majored in marketing.
Wesley Knight 12:39
Marketing, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're going, man, but I think it's very, it's very interesting, because I'm listening to the psychology part of it that I never really thought about, you know, in terms of, I might get teased because I wore hand me downs, you know, but it wasn't so prevalent that that you was really, did anybody really knew what it was? Because ain't George used to get clothes from from a family, a white family in our community, that the clothes were nice, but they just, but, but, but when you talk about now if, if you don't value it anymore, why you want to give it to me, right? Exactly, that's, that's a valid point. Yeah, valid point.
Nigel Murray 13:17
So everything that they receive is brand new, and so, like I said, for the teens, it started getting hard, because even us, right, we're giving them brand new clothes. But we say, you know, we give this kid a Nike or some skinny jeans, and, well, he doesn't like skinny jean. He likes baggy jeans, right? The kids are going to make fun of them in a brand new skinny jeans, no matter what brand they are, right? So we actually started allowing the teens to shop for themselves. So a lot of times we have, we have a small location where they're able to come in and they themselves, can hand select their clothes. It gives them a better experience. And then it also makes sure that they're wearing clothes that they feel confident in. You pick these clothes, right? So it's almost like, kind of like a mini shopping experience, rather than us trying to curate these clothes for the teens. Now for the babies, we're able to do it because obviously, they're babies, they don't know.
Wesley Knight 14:00
So let me ask you a governance question. Yes, board of directors.
Nigel Murray 14:06
You asking who they are?
Wesley Knight 14:08
I'm asking you, do
Nigel Murray 14:08
you have Yes, yes, okay, how big is your board? Uh, it's like four people. Okay, yeah.
Wesley Knight 14:14
What do they do for you? Um, and why do you feel it's important?
Nigel Murray 14:19
Why do I feel that the Board of Directors important. So originally, when we first started, it was a very, very small nonprofit. We had a board of directors just to be able to get our official 501, c3, paperwork. But now, you know, it's, it's mainly helping kind of plan out events and stuff like that we want to do when we're partnering with different people. So we kind of got people in different areas to kind of help with the process. And right now, we are, you know, kind of in a place where we're trying to expand. So, you know, looking for other people who are passionate about the nonprofit space. It's a nonprofit we don't make any money off of doing this. If anything, you know, it's it costs us money to do this, these things. So we're looking for people who are passionate. Our community to really help us take it to the next level, because there's just so much more that we want to do, and there's so many other verticals that come off of this problem, right? So we're helping specifically on the, you know, clothing side of things, right? You're a foster family, or you are a foster child, you have no clothes, right? Right? Okay, we give you clothes. That's not the only issue, right? When you age out of the foster care system, if you're 17, right now, and you turn 18 and you don't have, you know, you haven't been placed with the foster home that wants to adopt you. Well, as soon as you turn 18, they're gonna hand you that trash bag and say, good luck, right? You know, you can't stay here. So that's a whole nother area of like programming and, you know, training them to actually be able to be successful, we can put you in some fly clothes, right? But can you get a job? Right? Do you have life skills? You have social skills. You know how to navigate this life to be the best version of yourself, right?
Wesley Knight 15:51
This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Will you both share your websites? I assume you have a means or email, some kind of some kind of means for people to get a hold of you. And I want to add to what you're saying. In fact, I was just talking to to Frank Hawkins and my boss in one of his businesses that I, that I operate in, we have a we have, I'm the Chairman of the Board of his overall housing I think we got about 1618, properties, affordable living type apartments. And we got a piece of land, and me and Frank was talking one day, and we talked about, I think, that the law had just passed, or we had saw something, both of us see it at the same time in the press, where children were aging out, aging out, and April had had mentioned it to me. What is that agent? That means, like, you say, see what? Right? We don't care no more about a kid than just saying, See you. Yeah, well, we're going and I asked him the other day, I said, Turn me a loose so I can start trying to meet with people so we can, we're going to build a project. Our goal is to build a project from the ground up to be strictly for young people aging out. We don't know what, we don't know what the number of apartments that we may have, but that's a goal of ours, and as long as I'm on this board, are we gonna make it work? And I'm getting ready to leave the president and of a group called the Carl Holmes executive development institute, okay, where I run it for 10 years, we do training for firefighters. Move them up through the ranks. I'm surprised your dad didn't go but he, you know, he was an officer. So cool, making that big money. April, we're coming back to you. What's what's going on in your world, and what can the public do to assist you? And again, if you guys have emails and or websites, please share that.
April Washington 17:38
Yeah, the look back. Cause also assist with when kids age out, I help them. I help find them housing the teenagers and you know parent, you know that are aged out, but if you had to reach me, you could reach me at 702-272-9396, or you could reach me by email, at, T, S, T, I m n, y@aol.com, or the look back, cause at Facebook,
Wesley Knight 18:05
once again, it's a Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. We have Nigel Murray. His dad was a captain with Clark County, and his mother got a singing voice that make the make the birds. Didn't So in April, Washington. So give us some more on your program.
Nigel Murray 18:28
Some more on the program. What would you like to know? What more?
Wesley Knight 18:33
Well, specifically, how do they get a hold of you?
Nigel Murray 18:36
Yeah, so our website is closed for kids, lv.org, and there you can find, you know more information about the website, volunteer opportunities, event opportunities, other areas to get involved. But yeah, that's where you can pretty much find so
Wesley Knight 18:49
you got you guys, what is your major I would, I guess you would call it fundraiser for a year. Or do you do things throughout the year in terms of replenishing the clothing for the young folks.
Nigel Murray 19:01
Yeah, so people normally donate one or two ways. So we got people who donate brand new clothes themselves. So for example, maybe you at Walmart and you see all the baby clothes are for $1 right? So we've got people that might say, Hey, I'm gonna buy 50 of these T shirts and give it to clothes for kids. And then we also have other people who donate monetarily. And then from there, we use those funds to go out and actually be able to buy clothes and replenish Yeah. So those are kind of the main two ways that we
Wesley Knight 19:26
do it. And I think I heard you correctly. You have a physical plant. Where is it?
Nigel Murray 19:31
So we have a physical location, so it's we don't own it, we're just renting it out. So it's an actual home, so it's not a commercial space. It's a home that we operate out of that we run out and we've kind of got each room decked out. So we got a baby room, we got a team room, we've got a younger kids room, and then from there, that's where we do all of the fulfillment. And then also invite the families to be able to go in and shop for themselves.
Wesley Knight 19:54
That's interesting. So you don't really market necessarily the location, or do you No.
Nigel Murray 20:00
Not so much. I mean, we've actually kind of had to kind of cut back a little bit on inviting people in, just because now we're beginning to actually outgrow, well, yeah, outgrow the space. The ultimate goal, though, is for us to actually have our own physical location to where, not only can we do the fulfillment of clothes, but like I was saying earlier, is to be able to run programming, right job training, programming, so have a location where we do the fulfillment, and then we also have, you know, consistent, weekly, monthly, whatever it is, trainings on the educational side of things, where we can have all of our events. A lot of times we do have events, we have to go to community centers to rent those out. And we just don't have, like, a central point. So to be able to have that, that would be really huge for us, to really help us to, you know, kind of maximize our reach, maximize our impact, and really make a staple in the community. So any partnerships specifically with making that happen, are you just saying in general? In general, yeah. So we, we have a lot of partners, Andre Agassi has been a huge help. They supply us with, you know, brand new Nike shoes that we give out to kids, brand new Nike backpacks. And then we've got a couple other like small businesses that have donated their services. Whether you know, that was, we had a company that donated US custom clothes for kids, duffel bags with our logo on it, which was really, really cool that we they constantly replenish that for us. So, yeah, we have partners that definitely help to make, make, make what we do happen, right?
Wesley Knight 21:30
April, partners?
April Washington 21:33
No, I don't have any any partners yet. I kind of, because I still work a full time job, I, you know, and then still, you know, with my tea cakes and my book and all of that, I'm trying to not spread myself too thin. So once I retire, then I will start going out looking for because I'm getting up there, I'm probably gonna need more partners.
Wesley Knight 21:56
But you do have relationship with people, because you mentioned how you help people get spaces, young
April Washington 22:02
people, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I have, I have a lot of resources.
Wesley Knight 22:06
My nickname resources, I guess that's a better term.
April Washington 22:09
People call me the resource queen, but, you know, yeah, I can. I do have a sweatshirt that says I make phone calls so I can. I have a lot of people that have blessed me with, with getting that message out. And I remember my very first time, when I got my first billboard, who the thing was expensive, but you know what it was for the right it was for the right, for the right thing. It's about saving the lives of the babies, and that's from working for DFS to writing a book on fire safety to I just know that's my calling is saving the lives of people, and especially children.
Wesley Knight 22:51
All right, I know we're getting close on time by my watch, and I know Wes will give me a signal soon. But anything else you want to share with our public about what you got going on.
Nigel Murray 23:04
No, man, I'm just super, super grateful to be here. I appreciate the opportunity even, you know, just for the Las Vegas community as a whole, you know, everything that we've been able to do up to this point and all the children that we serve has just solely been off the strength of the community. So very, very grateful.
Wesley Knight 23:21
Well, Wes just gave me six minutes sign. So let me, let me ask you this, because your folks told me you started this and you were how
Nigel Murray 23:30
old I was 1414, correct.
Wesley Knight 23:33
And again, come back to me because I did ask you, what inspired you? Tell me again, at 14 most, 14 years. Ain't got no thought about doing anything close to this. Yeah. Where did it come from?
Nigel Murray 23:46
Yeah, well, I mean, to be honest with you, I didn't necessarily think it was gonna happen either. So kind of like going back to what I said, I'm an only child, so, you know, growing up, it was always just me, myself, and I had to throw the football myself, throw it in there and go run and catch it, right? So I was super excited to have a foster brother, and so I got picked up early from school. And you know, after getting home, I started to show them around. This is your room. This is where the game is. Is where we gonna do this. Then the third and before we went to sleep, start like, okay, let's unpack your stuff. And so when we opened up his bag, the clothes that were inside of that bag were like, triple XL shorts, right? Double XL shirt. It's like, okay, whose clothes are these? These can't be yours. You don't, you can't fit these. Say, Well, these are my clothes. These the clothes they gave me. Some of the clothes were stained, had holes in it. And, you know, ironically, which, you know, we thought he was a very, very shy kid. He didn't really, you know, kind of were you guys the same age? He was a little bit younger than me, okay, um, so he was very, very kind of timid, shy, didn't really say too much. And so once my parents, like I said, had to run out and go get him clothes, then he would wear to school the next day. And he actually had to pick those clothes. Once they got back home, he began to try those clothes on. He immediately, like, turned into a whole new kid, right? He start laughing, smiling, showing. Is true colors. And in my brain, I'm like, Okay, what happened just literally 30 minutes ago, this kid wasn't saying anything and all now, all of a sudden, he's, you know, on 10 and so after thinking, I'm like, Okay, well, maybe it was the clothes, right? Because I know me, personally, I am very, very into clothes. There are certain clothes that, honestly, I'm just not wearing Right?
Wesley Knight 25:16
Like, maybe I'm not listening well. But now it's all coming back to me having a foster brother really kind of pointed out a need for someone that really inspired you to say, hey, you know what? There's a need that exists out there that I'm gonna take care
Nigel Murray 25:31
of Exactly, exactly. So it was really once I seen that transition.
Wesley Knight 25:34
I don't know how I missed it when you first, but I get it now. No, that's, you know, God sent sends us different messages. And that's that was very clear to you, that, hey, you that, hey, it's messing with this dude. And it tells me also he was like, this was messing me too, extra large, I know, double x large, right? Why? You got this in my bag? Right?
Nigel Murray 25:54
Exactly. And I just knew, you know how that would make me feel if I was forced to wear something that I don't want to wear, even to this day, like a clothes are an expression of yourself, right? If we look at ourselves, all of our clothes look differently, right? There are some people that will wear this versus some people who won't wear that, like you ever been out in public, and look at somebody like, dang, what they got on, right? But they feel confident in that, right? And so it's truly an expression of yourself. And imagine your expression of yourself is taken away from you. You're forced to express yourself in a way that doesn't represent you. You wouldn't like that. So that's kind of like the base core of how all of this started. Excellent.
Wesley Knight 26:32
So April, give us some closing remarks on what you're doing and what you want to get done, because we got 2026, coming up God willing, as they see in the creek don't
April Washington 26:42
rise before you get out of the car, before you get out of your van, before you get out of school bus, before you get just leave anything. Kids are are dying in sweltering heat, please. Just and in the wintertime, kids are still and I talk about this all year round, because kids die in the wintertime too, right? People don't understand. People leave the heater on in the car. The heater shuts off. I mean kids Dave hypothermia also. So people don't understand how important it is. You know, you run into the store, you think it's okay to leave a kid in the car just because you run the store. No something could happen. A freak accident can happen. A shooting can happen. The car can roll down on the out in the street. Anything could happen.
Wesley Knight 27:27
Well, once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and Moorhead. Nigel Murray, good young man doing an outstanding work for young people in our community. April, with a look back cause, and also, I want to encourage those friends of Ray Allen Feaster, his services will be on December 13, three to 5pm down at palms on Main Street. His daughters are Regina and Anita. They they've been doing tremendous work in getting everything prepared for the celebration of their dead. So we want, I want to commend them, because it's not easy to put someone away after they've transitioned from this world. But he was a dear, dear friend of mine, so once again, Veterans Affairs, I'm excited to have had two young people on and a very young man who started out his his nonprofit as a 14 year old man inspired by seeing the need of another young man and April, of course, we know how long far you go back with look back program, and we know that God keeps it in your space to continue to do the kind of work that's necessary. Again, we must not continue on this down slide of loss of our humanity. So with that, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Thank you. Wes for keeping us on track. You.
Music 29:20
All the air, feel the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai