How to Deal When the Shit Gets Real Podcast · Rietta Boksha

Pops Danny: Pain and Purpose | Losing a Child, Grief and Turning Tragedy into Community Impact

·51 min·3 clips

Pops Danny compares grief to standing by an ocean until a 30-foot wall of water hits.

1. How to Deal When the Shit Gets Real Podcast centers on Pops Danny, Zachariah's of Hopes, and homelessness in Oklahoma. 2. Rieta interviews Pops Danny, a 65-year-old disabled founder who describes himself as a "grumpy old fart" and says he runs a small nonprofit. 3. The episode asks how a parent deals with the death of a child while still building a nonprofit in that child's memory. 4. Pops Danny says Zachariah's of Hopes was created after his youngest son Zachariah died in late 2021. 5. He says Zachariah brought a blanket to a man living in a shed with no electricity, no heat, and no insulation in southeast Oklahoma. 6. Pops Danny says Zachariah was pronounced dead 18 days later, and the family laid him to rest two days before Christmas 2021 at age 33. 7. He says a later story about a man frozen outside a religious homeless shelter pushed him and his wife to say, "Enough." 8. The nonprofit became a 501(c)(3) on May 4, 2023, and was recognized by the state of Oklahoma on May 5, 2023. 9. Pops Danny says the first-year goal was 100 complete backpacks, and the nonprofit surpassed that number. 10. He says the organization helped people in South Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio, including a homeless couple in a motel, a homeless man who needed food money, and a couple with a broken pickup truck in winter. 11. He says the next challenge was 365 complete backpacks for the year, and he says the organization is now at 276. 12. He says 271 of those backpacks are in Oklahoma and five are in Dayton, Ohio. 13. Pops Danny says major corporations told him their software could not account for a nonprofit that gets 98% or more of its money from TikTok. 14. He says compassion, love, respect, and dignity belong together, and he says society has lost respect for each other. 15. He says he is a follower of Christ and ties his work to scripture about the hedges, highways, byways, widows, orphans, disabled people, sick people, and poor people. 16. He says many churches have lost their "first love" and should feed the widow next door and the homeless man behind the church dumpster. 17. The conversation includes a detailed grief analogy about standing at the ocean until a "30 foot wall of water" hits. 18. The interview moves between direct questions, personal testimony, and long policy arguments, with Rieta prompting Pops Danny to expand on specific stories and figures. 19. People who follow nonprofit work, homelessness policy, or faith-based service will get the most from this episode. 20. People looking for a light conversation or a short, non-emotional listen may skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from How to Deal When the Shit Gets Real Podcast