I had no idea.

I just, you know, I was like, "Oh, I need to be talking to her.

I can't do all the, 'Oh, you're so cute.

Oh, da, da.'"

I had to actually have conversations.

I was like, "Okay.

So this is good to know."

Every single thing we do at Small Magic is built on this deep belief that kids in our community deserve the very best from the very beginning of their lives.

And what we want for every single child in our community is a life full of choice and opportunity.

I think that is the ultimate privilege and freedom is the ability to choose.

[Sasha] As she's sounding it out and now she's actually reading, and she said, "Oh my God, I just read that."

Like, "Yes, you did."

[Michael] Funding for this program comes from the Daniel Foundation of Alabama.

Strengthening communities and improving the quality of life for all regions of Alabama.

The Joseph S. Bruno Charitable Foundation, supporting organizations and providing leadership that responds to challenges and creates positive change.

And Maynard Nexsen Law Firm, deploying innovation and efficiency and legal services across the country and around the world.

They're not the rich and famous.

Their profit comes not from the thing they sell, but the good they do.

Our nation has more than 1.5 million nonprofits that employ one out of 10 Americans providing services that otherwise go unfulfilled.

Keeping our community connected when all else fails.

But nonprofits often lack the tools to properly promote themselves, to inspire more donors and volunteers and clients to their cause.

That's where I come in.

I've been in the nonprofit world for nearly 20 years.

I connect nonprofits with marketing professionals who donate their time and expertise so that, at the end of the day, these life-giving organizations can do more, do better by creating more, that's right, "Buzz."

At birth, a baby's brain is about a quarter of the size of an adult's, doubles in her first year of life, and by age five, her brain is nearly full grown.

Most of us don't appreciate the remarkable growth that occurs in all these neurons and synapses, especially when it comes to language.

But with the prevalence of screens in our everyday lives, many children are not receiving the necessary interactions that help to develop early language learning skills.

Beyond that, for those coming from low income areas with parents working multiple jobs and longer hours, this skill is even harder to develop.

Thankfully, in Birmingham, Alabama, there's a nonprofit helping parents and teachers be more intentional with the interactions they have with their kids to nurture early childhood literacy.

It's a nonprofit rooted in science along with a little magic.

My biggest goal with her starting this program was to make sure that my baby is not gonna be behind when she start kindergarten and have the foundation to put everything together, 'cause English is very tricky and one of the hardest languages.

So it's really connecting the dots for her.

Every single thing we do at Small Magic is built on this deep belief that kids in our community deserve the very best from the very beginning of their lives.

And what we want for every single child in our community is a life full of choice and opportunity.

I think that is the ultimate privilege and freedom is the ability to choose.

As she's sounding it out, now she's actually reading, and she said, "Oh my God, I just read that."

I'm like, "Yes, you did."

(bright music) So Small Magic started in 2019 in partnership with a group of committed community members, a national philanthropic organization, and the city of Birmingham.

That first year that we launched, we served almost 100 kids, and this year, almost five years later, we're on track to serve almost 1,500 children.

We are at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville tonight for our family groups.

Our family groups happen once a week for eight weeks, and so this is our summer cohort and we are in our third week of this cohort.

Phonics Power is happening tonight.

Birmingham Talks for our English speakers and our Spanish speakers is happening tonight.

So we work with families all over Jefferson County with a particular emphasis in Birmingham.

Same for childcare centers all over Jefferson County with a particular emphasis here in Birmingham.

The vast majority of the people that we serve live in lower income zip codes or send their children to childcare in lower income zip codes.

That's really intentional on our part.

We have one signature program that we call Birmingham Talks.

That's what we would call our flagship program.

Our organization was actually originally named Birmingham Talks and shifted to Small Magic a little under a year ago.

And Birmingham Talks is focused on increasing interactive talk between children and the adults in their lives.

So we first got involved with Small Magic with LENA Talks.

So when Skylar was three, she did the LENA Talk and it was a program that is the foundation to the Small Magic.

So with us doing that program, she talks a lot.

They even said that her talking was off the charts with the way we interacted, but it really made us be very intentional with our interaction with her.

[Michael] But what is LENA?

Founded in 2004, the LENA nonprofit, LENA stands for Language Environment Analysis, came out of a desire to assist kids in low income households improve their language development and close the school achievement gap.

LENA is rooted in research that shows that the amount of time a parent talks to their child between the ages of zero and three stimulates language development and helps predict future success in school.

The LENA device automates the task of objectively measuring adult child conversations.

To get a better understanding of this device's technology, I was given a demonstration by Small Magic's own Raven Johnson on how the device works.

This is the LENA device, and LENA stands for Language Environment Analysis.

I know that's not how acronyms work, but that's what it stands for.

-Okay.

-And this device counts three metrics.

It counts adult words spoken to children, it counts conversational turns.

So that's back and forth, what we've been doing this entire time.

-Okay.

-And it also counts electronic sound.

And so that's any noise from an electronic device.

-Interesting.

-A music speaker, a radio.

-TV.

-iPad, TV.

-Okay.

-Cell phone, you name it.

-Got it.

-This vest, which is from our fall 2024 collection.

-So we are ahead of the game.

-Okay.

-Is used for the device.

-Yeah.

And so you'll slide the device in this pocket on the front and the pocket has snaps on it so that kids, you know, they can be busy, they like to get into things.

It snaps closed and then a child wears this for a full language day.

-Okay.

-And a full language day is defined as at least 12 hours.

[Michael] And so these devices, what can you tell me about those?

Well, they're exciting.

The kids love them.

They look forward to 'em.

They don't bother them.

They are actually excited when it's, you know, this day.

So get good cooperation, they look forward to 'em.

They record automatically once we put it on and it just records all conversation and they just automatically just put 'em on and let 'em rip, just go about our day as normal.

Then they're turning these devices into a trained coach on our team.

-Okay.

-So any participant has a trained coach that they work with and so that coach collects these devices and then uploads these devices to a software in which it generates a report that looks like these.

I see.

Okay.

So tell me what is happening with this report?

Like what is this data?

[Raven] So this report, and there are two different reports that we see here on the table.

One is for families and then the other is what teachers see when they receive reports.

But both of these reports are going to inform teachers and parents about their language environment.

So how many adult words children are hearing around them, how many conversational back and forth interactions they're able to have with the kids that they're caring for.

And then also that electronic sound in their language environment.

[Michael] And what does that then mean to you as a- It, especially when they compare it from week to week, it allows us to know, at this particular time, we had more interaction or we can get this particular child to talk more or we heard more conversation during a particular activity.

Okay, so talk about the importance of each of those things that are being captured.

Yeah, so starting with adult words, children should hear roughly 21,000 words a day.

21,000?

-21,000 words a day.

-Wow.

Okay.

For optimal brain development.

-Okay.

-And so, we're not going into centers or into providers homes saying, "Okay, it's not 21,000.

We need you to do it over."

What we're doing is we're working toward just increasing the interactive talk in the adult word exposure in the language environment.

What's a typical number of words that a child is hearing at the start of your program?

Yeah, so about 92% of the children who participate in our program are starting in environments where they hear less than half of that number.

-Okay.

-And so, that's why this work is extremely important and extremely critical.

One of the things that I think is really interesting is that 90% of the baby's brain develops before they turn five.

And we know that even little tiny babies are able to form millions of neural connections every second.

So those first five years of a child's life are really just this absolutely explosive time whenever it comes to brain development.

Conversational turns, which are six times more impactful for children's brain development than just adult words alone, those are the interactive talk focus that we're trying to have with our teachers and our families.

So when we're talking to teachers and families, we wanna make sure that they're talking with children and not just too children.

I had no idea.

I just, you know, I was like, "Oh, I need to be talking to her.

I can't do all the, 'Oh, you're so cute.

Oh, da, da.'"

I have to actually have conversations.

I was like, "Okay, so this is good to know that we really need to be talking," and getting my mom, 'cause Skylar was her first grandbaby, to have those conversations and not talk to her like she was a baby.

So it was a lot of foundational things that helped.

All right, so explain, what would be a conversational turn -for us here?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if I said something and you said something back and then I said something again and then you said something back to me.

That's that ping pong of language happening -between human beings.

-Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, so like for instance, a child this age, mom or dad might ask, "Hey, what would you like for dinner?"

And the child answers or maybe that's that- -Or babbles, coos.

Mm-mm.

-Babbles.

Right, right, okay.

And I imagine just the awareness of a parent who suddenly realizes, "Oh, all these words matter and I'm not speaking enough to my child" or "We're not having enough conversations."

-Yeah.

-Just the awareness of that inspires the parents -to do more.

-Absolutely.

Inspires them to action.

These reports change the game for our parents and also for our teachers.

Them being able to see the adult word counts, the conversational turns, really helps them to conceptualize what this work means for their kids and it also feels really attainable.

They're like, "Oh, I could say two extra words next time they say something to me."

And that two extra words turns into 12, turns into 20, and now they're on their way.

[Michael] You saw a change in her?

Absolutely.

It was night and day.

So she went from whining and not necessarily speaking and wanting to point at things instead of talking about it, to talk about everything.

And even in her daycare, they're like, "What?

Something's different."

And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah.

She's talking."

[Michael] You care about these kids, obviously.

-I do.

-Yeah, and you wanna see what's best for them.

-Oh yeah.

-Yeah.

So whatever it takes.

Anything that'll help them.

If it helps improve anything, even just one of them.

Yeah.

I'm all for it.

♪ And there's Wednesday ♪ ♪ There's Thursday and there's Friday ♪ ♪ And then there's ♪ That's our largest program to date.

And we have a couple of complementary initiatives that run alongside that program, including one called Phonics Power that's focused on giving three and four year olds the building blocks for reading.

So we were actually part of the LENA Start program, which was their initial program.

And we just found out about that through Facebook and some of our friends who had participated in the program.

And we really loved the progress that we made with that program and her language development.

So when Ms. Raven told us about a phonics program, we were like, "Excellent.

We really wanna participate."

You just wanna start with U I have some .

.

.

So my first job out of college was as a public school teacher.

I did Teach For America right out of college and taught public elementary school, Title One schools, for almost five years.

I loved that job.

I loved the kids that I got to work with every single day.

They, I think, will always be the fire inside my bones for anything that I do for the rest of my life.

After teaching public school for a while, I went to go work at Teach for America, where I coached and developed public school teachers.

And one of the really neat things about that job was that I got to work with Teach for America teachers who were teaching children that I had formerly taught in the classroom.

And in a lot of ways it was really devastating because I saw kids who struggled to read in fourth grade when I was their teacher still struggle to read in 10th grade.

And when a child is struggling to read in 10th grade, that closes so many doors of opportunities.

(bright upbeat music) Harper is about to start pre-K in August.

So we're kind of using this to reinforce some of the skills that she's already learned in her daycare program.

So ideally, we just wanna make sure that she's reading by the time that she hits kindergarten so that we can really get a leg up, since reading is the foundation of most educational opportunities and the things that she'll learn, math problems, things like that.

So we just want to ensure that she's successful in that regard.

(mellow upbeat music) [Michael] Recently, Small Magic has been increasing its efforts to reach more of Alabama's growing Hispanic community.

I was able to visit one of the families they've helped with Small Magic's Family Engagement Manager, Nora Samayoa, mom, Olivia Gutierrez, and son, Esteban.

What can you tell me about, just as far as your, are you from Alabama or did you move here?

-Immigrate here?

-(Olivia speaks in Spanish) [Nora] She's from Mexico and her husband's from El Salvador.

They met here.

And she was also just saying how important this program has been for them and she wished she would've known about it with her other son as well 'cause she's been seeing a difference with Esteban.

[Michael] How has he grown from being part of Small Magic?

[Nora] Well I've learned that he's more confident about himself.

He loves asking questions, and if he doesn't know something, he'll ask the why about it.

So our family program, we offer our family program both to families who speak English at home and to families who speak Spanish at home.

And the program that we offer to families who speak Spanish at home is offered, obviously, completely in Spanish.

We provide families with bilingual books, so they have access to Spanish and English books at home.

So did you start with the LENA device or was it something else?

-Yeah.

-LENA.

Uh huh, with the LENA device.

[Michael] What did you learn from the LENA device?

[Nora] I learned a lot.

I learned how to conversate with my child and seeing how much I was conversating with him, the importance of dialogue and telling him we're gonna go do this instead of just taking him and not saying anything.

[Michael] What hopes and dreams do you have for your son?

[Nora] She just said that she wants them to have a career, to finish college, and also that she hopes that they can volunteer in their community to also help out people and have resources that they didn't have to give out.

[Michael] What would your life be like without Small Magic?

-Hmm.

-(Olivia and Nora laugh) (Olivia speaks in Spanish) [Nora] She says, I don't know, because now I go to the library more.

I engage with other groups, like community groups, and then also just always taking a book everywhere.

And it helps to my husband too, because he participate with the group.

-Mm-hmm.

-Usually was just moms, but then he at the group.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We love it when both parents are in the group.

-Sure.

-'Cause it takes two.

-(Nora laughs) -Si.

(Olivia speaks in Spanish) [Nora] Uh huh, she was just saying that she loved that her husband also joined because he was also able to see all of the things that they learned in class and they were able to be on the same page.

-Literally.

-Literally.

(laughs) [Michael] Do you have anything like, imagine like she represents Small Magic, you know, what do you have to say to her?

(Olivia speaks in Spanish) She just gave me the thanks for, you know, doing this work for the Hispanic Latino community here in Alabama and knowing that it is possible for us to grow too, especially in a state where we're often forgotten.

-Gracias.

-Si.

(Olivia and Nora laugh) Muchas gracias.

Thank you.

[Michael] What's something that Small Magic needs to do more and do better marketing wise?

Like, to get more buzz?

So, you know, we get a lot of referrals through word of mouth, which we love.

And so any sort of assets that families who have participated in our program can use to share on social media or via text messages to let friends know, "Hey, this is a program I participated in.

This is what it looked like.

You should participate too."

And we certainly want to ramp up our marketing assets that are in Spanish.

So one of the things on our list this next year is to get a video done.

Right now we have a video that's in English with Spanish captions at the bottom.

But we wanna make sure that we also have video assets that are done organically in Spanish so that we can circulate those with families who speak Spanish at home and might wanna participate in our programs [Michael] To help Small Magic with their continued growth and outreach, we invited another nonprofit we featured in 2023 on "Buzz," Hispanic and Immigrant Center of Alabama, or HICA, to brainstorm ways they could collaborate to achieve more buzz.

Carlos and Silvia, we were so excited last year to feature HICA on a "Buzz" episode and now you're back helping another nonprofit with Small Magic, how it can better reach some of your families, Hispanic families, in the Birmingham area.

And so I just wanna thank y'all for doing this.

Yeah, I think that the work that Nora is doing and the way that she's approaching, I think it's great.

And it's necessary to show the support for those parents that have those children because they need the support from organizations, like Small Magic, for them to help them grow, to help them achieve.

Our families really care about their educational opportunities for their children.

This is why they come to this country.

This is why they risk quite a bit to give themselves and their kids more opportunities.

And so it's really instrumental that Small Magic is being intentional about reaching this particular population because we know that English acquisition is critical when you arrive, but also the opportunity to do this in your native tongue, to be able to do this in Spanish, is really special because then folks can be bilingual.

That means that they are gonna have more opportunities.

They can connect to their families, but they can also connect to their broader communities.

And so we are excited about the potential to reach even more Hispanic families here in Birmingham.

Well, you know, I think that I would love to, just to kind of rekindle the ideas, right, in terms of what we were discussing, but if you could talk about the barriers or the challenges that you've experienced, right, in reaching this particular community and how to work with them.

I'll speak to this as part of recruitment.

We only serve families in Jefferson County, so I know there's a lot of families that like live in Pelham or Shelby and all that.

And then also just knowing who we are.

They don't know who Small Magic is.

They don't know who Nora Samayoa is.

But they know HICA, you know.

So I think it's that trust in a way 'cause we're still kind of new.

So they need to know who we are.

And I will say like, y'all and La Jefa have really helped bring the name out there because people trust y'all and La Jefa.

They know who y'all are.

And then maybe time.

Our program is at 5:30 and we have families that work late or their schedules vary.

So hearing the barrier, like, you're right.

I know that people know HICA.

But thinking even within the programs that have just started probably five years or three years ago, it's all about consistency.

Being out in the community.

And just to start getting that name out, about Small Magic, what you guys are doing, and also associating the Small Magic with the families to you, Nora.

The fact of the matter is, is that our community is very much driven by word of mouth, right?

And also that face-to-face, one-on-one contact.

I think that's hard sometimes for our community members to engage if you only rely on social media, that there has to be that kind of tactical engagement with our folks.

And then once they see it in action and they can really see the benefits of why they should engage, then it's easier for them then to spread, "Hey, I'm doing this thing, I'm seeing real results.

My children are speaking more."

I think that also making sure that you're offering your programs in hours where folks are not working.

Because if someone's working 12 to 15 hours a day, it makes it difficult sometimes to engage.

So we've had to rely quite a bit on providing services on the weekends or having these workshops on weekends so that we can meet families where they are.

You know, I think that even the challenge that Silvia talks about is that we've been here a while and still there's folks who don't even know, much less all that we do, but that we even exist.

Because the fact of the matter is, is that there's always new people coming into the community that really could make use of a fantastic program, like Small Magic.

And so making sure that we're always intentionally getting the word out and we wanna definitely partner with you on however we can support that.

Yeah, I'm really, really grateful for feedback, input, and excited for these opportunities for partnership.

No, and thank you so much.

Anything that we can help you guys, you know, we partner up so, 'cause this is not for the organization, this is for the community and that benefits it all.

-So thank you.

-That's right.

[Michael] HICA isn't the only nonprofit that we have featured before that supports Small Magic.

There's also Bundles of Hope Diaper Bank.

Though as I learn from my good friend and executive director, Lindsay Gray, the help being given comes in a different bundle altogether.

It was so cool being in Small Magic and seeing these little bundles of books that were provided by Bundles of Hope.

-Yeah.

-So you guys are doing more than just diapers.

Yes.

I mean, diapers is how we initially started.

We have some incredible national partnerships that allow us to have access to different donations.

So that is books and period products and basics, I mean, we are a basic essential bank and so that's kind of where we wanna focus.

And we got the books and it was like, "Let's find an expert in the community."

There is no better expert in early childhood literacy than Small Magic.

And so it was a match made in heaven.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

So we provide these book bundles to their graduates of their program and then also provide information on where they can find diapers in the community close to them.

-Nice.

-So if their family is in need of that, then we can support them that way as well.

That is so wonderful.

And these, I mean, again, these cost money and a lot of the families that Small Magic serves couldn't afford these.

-Right.

-And so here you are, filling another need.

Yeah, and early childhood literacy, we talk a lot about the preschool age, but that diapering stage, that zero to three pre preschool, their little brains are expanding and learning and growing and absorbing.

And so why not hand parents books right from the get go where they can read to them and show them the beautiful illustrations and it's so good for them as they grow.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Well Lindsay, thank y'all so much for all that you're doing.

Not just for families that need diapers, period products, but also books.

I mean, these kids are gonna be benefiting from this for their entire lives.

Yeah, yeah.

I truly believe in the power of collaboration.

And so we love supporting our 70 partners, including Small Magic.

[Michael] And finally, we're capturing on video some testimonials of their clients who are happy to provide the nonprofit with some old fashioned word of mouth marketing buzz.

With this really giving our kids the foundation that they need to be successful in life, it start early.

Their brain is already developed by the age of five, really.

So we have to make sure that we're giving them the foundation that they need, so I can give them everything that they can have to be successful on the other side of this.

We really credit her language development to the program and not just the skills that they taught, but the books that they made available and the data that they provided me with, really helped curtail how I interact with my child.

So I really credit the program with that.

The Magic program is great.

Like I said, they give you learning.

They also give dinners, snacks, and books, and games and just give you all the materials you need as a parent and you don't feel like you have to actually, you know, come out of pocket or find funds or a tutor to help.

This is giving you all these needs.

It's absolutely free.

Thank you for watching our "Buzz" on Small Magic, made possible by the Daniel Foundation of Alabama and Joseph S. Bruno Charitable Foundation.

Coming next on "Buzz," we meet the disadvantaged but high achieving students whose dreams get fulfilled through the non-profit, College Choice Foundation.

-Guess what, guess what.

-Okay, just throw it away.

-(indistinct chatter) -(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) [Michael] "Buzz" has been highlighting and helping nonprofit organizations since 2020.

Stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, even TikTok, at Buzz 4 Good.