Gabe Madison

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more, discussing important topics in higher education, research, and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we are visiting Dallas for an organization serving their community in a number of exciting ways. We're visiting with Gabe Madison. Gabe serves as president of Bonton Farms in Dallas, and she's the 2024 recipient of Baylor's Pro Texana Medal of Service. A 2000 Baylor graduate, Madison spent 22 years in the corporate sector where she appeared on numerous most powerful business leaders lists.

In 2022, however, she felt the call to lead a nonprofit, Bonton Farms, an urban farm in Dallas. Bonton Farms seeks to address food insecurity and beyond addressing myriad community needs and health, wellness, housing and more. A lot of exciting things. We kind of be able to get both the story of Bonton Farms and your own story, Gabe. And, Gabe, thanks so much for joining us and congratulations on earning the Pro Texana Medal of Service from Baylor. Excited to see how all these things come together.

Gabe Madison:
Well, thank you Derek, and thank you so much to Baylor University. I have a huge debt of gratitude to the university that I always felt was the one for me.

Derek Smith:
Well, I'm excited to find out how you knew that and how it shaped you for the path you've taken because it's one that I imagine if we'd have talked to you your senior year of college, you wouldn't necessarily predicted, I should say, that this is what you had...

Gabe Madison:
Not at all. This was definitely not on my plan. But as we all probably know, God laughs at our plans and I know he's been really laughing at mine because this is definitely his plan, not mine. And I'm thankful that I submitted to his plan.

Derek Smith:
Well, that's wonderful. And paint a picture for us, if you would. For those of us who haven't been to Bonton Farms, give us a mental tour. What would we see, taste, experience, all the above.

Gabe Madison:
Yeah. So I love that because you're going to do all the things. You're going to have a... I call it a heightened sensory awareness time when you come to Bonton Farms. We are located in South Dallas in the community of Bonton. I'd say a community that's really, really rich in love and connection and that's how I grew up. So for me, this is a little bit of home being in Bonton. At Bonton Farms, we are in the cul-de-sac of this community.
We have a restaurant, we have a farmer's market, we have a coffee shop, we have a preservatory, which no one's heard of that. That's actually where we make all of our jams, jellies and pickled items. And then we have the farm. When you come, you're going to see so many things, but the one thing that you'll most likely see consistently, lots of people connecting together and laughing, talking, having just a great time and getting to know each other.
People come as strangers and they leave as friends at Bonton Farms. We have all different types of plants that we're growing based upon the seasons. We even have livestock. We have goats, chickens, and a pig at our main location. We also are just really blessed to have some great people on our team that are going to welcome you, going to make you feel like you are a part of us.
And really, like I said, before you leave, you're going to feel like you're family with us. So what we really know is that God designed us to be in connection with others. So people oftentimes ask us, "Man, there's something different about here. I feel something." Well, for people who don't really know how the Holy Spirit works, we often tell them, "This is that love atmosphere you're in."
But for those that really understand how the Holy Spirit works, that's what you're feeling. That's what you're understanding and being able to connect with because God has entered before we did and we're so thankful for it. But this all started, this organization started because the community is in a food desert. And for those that are not familiar with food deserts, those are locations most of the times deemed in urban or cities that have less than one or maybe not even one type of grocery access within two to three miles.
For this community, there's not a grocery store within two miles of it. And so the community has been relegated to food pantries, to convenience stores that are really liquor stores with 10% of the options in there being healthy, if any. And then you also are relegated to the fast food items that may be in perimeter of the community. Many of you are probably thinking, "Well, you can just drive in your car and go to the nearest grocery store. I mean, that's what a lot of people do."
But in a community that's been impoverished and been really cut off of access, some of those access points are transportation. And so for people to get to the grocery store through public transportation, it can take an hour and 15 minutes, maybe even close to an hour and 30 minutes depending on the time of day. And when you think about that, think about how they're going to get back when they come back. You can only bring what you're carrying. So how many times a day or a week am I going to make that type of trip to get the produce that we all know our bodies need, fresh produce in order to live a healthier life.
So when you think about what a food desert does, it exacerbates or challenges other aspects of life. That's your health and wellness. So if I'm not healthy, then how can I work? And so then you have the economic challenges that come along with being in a food desert. So food deserts really are showcasing more than just a food access issue. It's now showcasing you have a healthcare issue and you have now an economic issue.

Derek Smith:
Well, Gabe, you've got the farm, you've got the cafe and the produce, but as you mentioned, there's all these things that are downstream of being in a food desert domino effect, if you will. So I'm sure we could probably take the whole half hour on this question. Tell us about what that looks like serving and addressing these needs and how a farm has grown to be able to provide resources that can serve people in so many different ways.

Gabe Madison:
Totally, totally. So the ability for us to create the farm was really a simple concept that we never thought it was going to turn into what it is today. But after the community gravitated to the produce, our founder actually walked down the street, felt like God was calling him to turn what was the community dump grounds into an actual large farm. That's what exactly happened with the help of some churches and church members coming together to clear it out.
And then the economic ability started to happen. So you're actually getting community members to come in and start to grow and, "Okay, we need to sell this. We put our hard work into this, we need to sell this." And so the economics of it started to play into it. What also became a discovery point through all of this were the other lacks of access.
So what we're now focused on from a Bonton Farms perspective is looking at how the human, needs all of these different human essentials, the seven and how that plays out in their lives. So we are helping people look at the housing. A lot of people think, "Hey, if you just had a house or someplace to live, you'd be okay." Well, in Dallas there are a lot of affordable homes, but are they safe?
So we address safe and affordable homes. Bonton Farms now has seven homes that we own in the community. We have three tiny homes and three pallet shelters for those that are coming out of homelessness. And these structures are designed to be able to provide that safe and affordable housing option for community members and our apprentices that are on our team growing their lives.
And this year, prayerfully, and I'm really asking for prayer on this, we are really hoping we will be able to break ground on a 36-unit apartment building, which will provide more safe and affordable housing for the residents and for those that are being gentrified out of their neighborhoods. We have talked about the economic pieces of it, but our apprenticeship model really speaks to that. We are employing people within our organization that are really getting a well-rounded experience that allows them to be taught different skills, but also allows them to learn more about themselves, get help on various aspects of their lives, including mental health, and be able to be skilled in a way that fits one of our industry partners needs so that at graduation, they're able to have a more livable wage and a more of ability to have career success because we have now worked on some foundational challenges and been able to really heal a lot of the pain and the trauma, and allow people to now grow and develop in a way for not just themselves but their families.
So they start out most of the time on our farms and then work their ways into the other social enterprises. That's the reason why they were creative. The restaurant was created to have a social enterprise aspect for people to be able to work where they wouldn't have gotten hired in other areas or other companies. Our farmer's market coffee shop, preservatory, the same thing. So they're gaining skills and then our industry partners are able to see... Bonton Farms was able to speak into their lives, be able to develop them, and then we trust now that this is going to be a successful partnership.
The other piece that is very, very key is something I mentioned already, the health and wellness aspect. So in this community, access to any type of primary care, healthcare is very challenging. The operational model that's been in place for decades in this community is to call 911 when things have gotten really bad. But why would you wait? Well, they wait because it needs to be such an exacerbated issue for 911 to come.
We just had an incident a week ago where we called 911, our team did for an emergency and had no response for four hours. These are things that are not okay. People's health are at risk in these situations. So what we are doing, we are in the process now of building a wellness center. It'll be finished January of 2025 where we will have primary care being addressed. It can be no cost to the community member if they do not have insurance. No one will be refused.
It'll be provided by one of the large healthcare systems here in Dallas. And then we'll actually have programming. So the programming will be nutrition classes, exercise classes, all different types of aspects of your whole wellbeing will be addressed through education and programming. And that will be provided by Baylor Scott & White. I'm very proud of that partnership. And then we'll also have a dental chair and this wellness center because we recognize that dental needs that are exacerbated can cause real chronic issues within people.
So we want to help be in a preventative mode for our community members. And then we have been very blessed to bring nine banks together to create a real accessible financial wellbeing for the community. And these non-banks are really concentrated on how they're able to provide options that are not non-predatory in the community of Bonton, you have all type of predatory lending occurring. And I know, Derek, this will shock the listeners, but it can be anywhere from 380% interest to 700% interest.

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Gabe Madison:
That's criminal. It should be criminal. It's not in the state of Texas. This is not against the law, but what it does to families, it should be criminal because it's robbing and stealing every day, not just the financial aspect, but the hope that the community has when they don't have another resource. And the non-banks have come together to solutionize towards that. So thankful for that. And then we're also addressing mental health. Mental health is huge. This community has suffered a lot of trauma over decades, and we know addressing the mental health, the trauma that has occurred is essential for the job retainment to happen, for the housing to be retained by the people in this community.
So that's a critical aspect and something we're really keen on. And then I'll say the last couple of pieces are really education. We believe in providing educational options. Everyone won't have the experience of going to an amazing university like Baylor University, but there are still other options. So what we work towards are trades or certificates to help people to be able to gain more education to build on top of their future. And then transportation.
Like I talked to you all about before, it's like if you don't have access to it, merely due to transportation, it can cut you off from so many opportunities. And so everything from bus passes all the way to cars are what we look at. We look at the individual's plan and their design and where they are, and then we center focus on what they need at that time, and then we build and grow their opportunity to have the transportation that they need.

Derek Smith:
More than a farm for sure. Visiting with Gabe Madison, president of Bonton Farms in Dallas, and the 2024 recipient of Baylor's Pro Texana Medal of Service. And Gabe, I want to pivot to a little bit of your story and some of the time we have together because your path was unique, the corporate world after graduating from Baylor University. I'm curious when you were thinking as a child, "Well, what I want to be when I grow up is..." fill in the blank. Did anything related to what you've just described cross your mind?

Gabe Madison:
Nothing whatsoever. I wanted to be a businesswoman and I didn't really know what that looked like. I just watched a lot of shows that had women in their high heels with their attache bags walking into big, nice tall buildings. And I remember my grandfather, I thought I wanted to be a doctor until we watched a 2020 special one night and I said, "Papa, I don't want to be a doctor anymore. The blood scares me." He said, "So you got to figure out something else."
I later reported back to him a couple weeks later that I wanted to be a business woman and I saw him. He had his own business and saw the wheelings and dealings he was doing, and it intrigued me. And it continued to intrigue me and it still does. I mean, in some sense I am still running a business with these five social enterprises, but it's for the greater good of an amazing community.

Derek Smith:
When you came to Baylor and pursued your business degree, when did you first think about Baylor for college? What's the story there?

Gabe Madison:
I was in the sixth grade and it was very interesting because I was really on that fight for the programs of don't do drugs. And so Baylor hosted back then it was called DARE, and they hosted the Texas convention there, and I could not stop visiting all the places on campus. I just truly fell in love with it. I came home, both of my parents graduated from SFA as well as almost 40% of my family and told my parents, I said, "I'm not going to be going to SFA. I'm going to Baylor University." And my parents kind of laughed like, "Okay." But it never left me so much that I only applied for Baylor.

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Gabe Madison:
The only school that I applied to was Baylor University. I know that was a huge risk. I would not advise my only kids to do this, but I had been visiting since freshman year of high school, Baylor, every year. Whatever they had, whatever they sent to my home, I was going to go there. I was going to figure it out and we were going to get there.

Derek Smith:
Well, and you did and did well as we visit with Gabe Madison of Bonton Farms. So Gabe from Baylor, you studied business and you entered the corporate world. What did that path look like for you? And were there aspects of it that as you look back on this side of it, you're like, "Okay, I see where I was being prepared for this," even though it didn't seem like it?

Gabe Madison:
Oh, you are 100% correct, Derek. I was very fortunate. Some of you all may remember the professor over professional selling in the business school, Dr. Jeff Tanner. I'm still in touch with him, 20 something years later and went through that program, loved it, went into sales and telecommunications right after graduating from Baylor. And just, I love the engagement with people. I just wasn't all about the money. And that's kind of what I go back to.
In my mind, I wanted the money to serve a purpose. Outside of just making somebody rich like I wasn't driven by the money. I was driven by, how does this help somebody? How did the telecommunications platform that I sold help a business or help an individual? I was really more driven in that way. And I recognized this may not be the field for me. Pivoted into HR career first in recruiting and then overall general HR.
Did that for about 12 years, loved it. And in my last 11-year stint with my former company, really got introduced to community relations, and decided after a great mentor from that company kind of advised me to take a risk. You needed to take a risk. And I took a risk and pivoted out of HR into community relations, and it just kept evolving. And so for me, it was really the combination of a sales background and an HR background that allowed me to do community relations very well and then pivoted to this amazing opportunity to run, to me the greatest nonprofit that I've seen.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Gabe Madison here on Baylor Connections. Gabe, so when did you first get connected with Bonton Farms and find out like, "Hey, this is something I could be a part of?" What was that whole process like for you? Because you had a pretty good setup, it sounds like [inaudible 00:22:11] came along.

Gabe Madison:
Yeah, I had a really good setup. If anybody looks at my LinkedIn profile, prior to, I started Bonton Farms, I was using hashtag dream job on pretty much every post because I really felt like I was in my dream job. I got to actually write my own job description. Who does that? And I didn't think it could get better, but in 2017, I got a chance to meet our founder through another great nonprofit here in Dallas. And it was that meeting that I knew something was different about this nonprofit.
I was charged to gain relationships with about 10 to 12 nonprofits in the area. But this one was very different. It was really to do with the community-based perspective. So I was actually volunteering and getting to know people from the community and working on the farm with the nonprofit, but it was also the founders showcasing to me the vision that God had gave him about how to transform and bring equity to the community.
I thought either this man's really crazy or God really did speak to him. And this was before there was a restaurant, a coffee shop, a farmer's market, a preservatory. None of that existed except the farm. And watching it grow and transform kind of on the sideline, but also engaged from bringing volunteers and helping to spread the word, I started to really get more involved. And then this chance came for me to be a board member. And that really was a pivotal moment for me because really I had been crushing on Bonton Farms. How can I get more involved?
I still need you to keep my job, but I wanted to get so much more involved. And the founder had been really telling me since 2018, "You're supposed to be on this team." And I was like, "No, it looks a little scary over there." I'm used to, quote, unquote, security in the corporate world. I don't think God is calling me to do that type of work. I think I can really help them all on the side over here." And he literally every year would tell me that. And the chance came for me to be on the board. That turned into me being a board chair. And then here I am sitting in the seat that he had told me many years that I was supposed to be sitting in.

Derek Smith:
Well, Gabe, as we head into the final few minutes of the program here, I want to ask you, you've taken on this role. You've said it's the best decision you've made, being obedient. So I'm curious tying it into that idea of service. I mentioned you're the recipient of this year's Pro Texana Medal of Service, what has service come to mean to you in that role and why has a service role like this been so rewarding to you in the two years that you've been adjusting to this new role?

Gabe Madison:
Number one, I truly believe that we are called to help others. We are told through society that you need to go out and get what's yours and acquire this and claim that. And after I got out of that mindset is when I really began to see God and his true splendor. When I stopped worrying about how I was going to be served and when I started focusing on how I would serve others, that's when everything began to shift and move. My life is the richest now that I've ever been. And I have never not had as much money in the bank as I have now. But it is the most rewarding.
God is showcasing himself in ways that I'm in awe. I literally am in awe of what he does, how he moves, how he transforms. And I needed to myself witness this. I needed my family to be able to witness this. But when people tell you, "Hey, to volunteer or to serve others is going to really benefit you more," I'm 100% a witness to that. I was actually serving a homeless man, just really talking to him and witnessing to him. And he explained to me, he said, "Do you know what I just went past? I went past four other people that were doing the same thing that you're doing." He said, "But God told me to come to you and he told me to come to you so I could share my story with you because you needed it."
He goes, "I don't need it. You think that you're here to serve me? I don't need it. But you needed to hear my story." And I was in tears because I needed to hear how God had saved his life and how he was providing in a way that we couldn't see. But man, was this man so much more equipped and able than some of the ones that were out there trying to connect with him, including myself. I needed to hear that it's that serving others is that being in relationship with others that can tear down your biases. It can make you confront and foundational challenges. It'll help heal you in a way that nothing else can, but it's because you're in an ability to hear, learn more than you would be in other scenarios, other realms.
I'm just thankful that I have this experience. I truly wish so many more could have it because we would be operating differently if we had a chance to be with one another, no matter where your status is, no matter your position to be able to help and to serve others together. It is what we're supposed to do, and it is because it allows us to be in community and connection with others that your whole mindset changes.

Derek Smith:
Well, Gabe, the picture that you paint and the vision of things that are growing at the farm, in healthcare, in housing, and more lots on the plate right now. I'm curious if people want to get involved, I know we have a lot of alumni in the DFW area. If people want to get involved, take part, serve, whatever, what's the best way for them to learn more about Bonton Farms or get involved?

Gabe Madison:
Well, I would just encourage you to first come and visit. God will definitely show you where you're needed because we need so many people walking hand in hand with us. We can't do this on our own. We have almost 3,000 volunteers a year. We need volunteers. We need those that are really committed to the transformational work. We're not just doing this work for the community of Bonton alone. We are building a framework that can be replicated across the country. And we're doing that so that it is the change that can be replicated, but also connecting others in ways that we haven't been connected before.
So this ability to volunteer on farms is great. I know a lot of people love the gardening aspect and the farm to table aspect, but it's really to connect you with how to serve and how to really have your abilities be poured into others for transformational work to occur.

Derek Smith:
Well, that's wonderful. Hope people will get involved and looked it online. It's bontonfarms.org, bontonfarms.org. People can take a look and see, find it on the map and come visit.

Gabe Madison:
For anybody on social media, I mean, you can follow us on social media. We're happy to connect you all based upon you tagging us or doing anything to reach out. We have an amazing team that is wonderful and ready to welcome you into the poll.

Derek Smith:
Well, Gabe, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on the award. We're excited to see what's ahead for the work that Bonton Farms is doing.

Gabe Madison:
Thank you so much, Derek, and thank you so much my Baylor family. Sic 'em.

Derek Smith:
Sic 'em, Bears. Gabe Madison, president of Bonton Farms in the 2024 recipient of Baylor's Pro Texana Medal of Service, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder, you can hear this and other programs online at baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.