Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum. We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com. Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and today's guest is Sasha Purpura, the CEO of Food for Free, a nonprofit located in Somerville, Massachusetts. So, Sasha, so great to have you. How are you today?

Sasha: I'm great, Erica. I'm really excited to be here.

Erica: Awesome. So tell us a little bit about Food for Free, kind of what they do, how they serve the community, because you and I were talking about this before, and it is just such an awesome organization. It is. It is. So Food for Free has been around forty

Sasha: forty one years now. I've been there ten, so it's not my organization. So I can say it's pretty amazing. It started as a food rescue organization. So we have trucks, and we drive around to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Amazon Fresh, farmers markets, and we collect food that would otherwise be going to waste. And I didn't know about this till I got the food free. It blew up my brain to go to Whole Foods when I first started and see the incredible amounts of produce, meats, cheeses, good food, healthy food, food I would take home that that had historically been going to waste. So we pick that stuff up. We bring it to food pantries, meal programs. We bring it to after school programs. Any organization serving low income populations, that was where we were born out of. We've grown a lot. Since then, we have programs serving students and their families from schools in Somerville and Cambridge. We, we serve about 21 communities throughout Eastern Massachusetts. And I will tell you that pre pandemic, we were rescuing just under 2,000,000 pounds. We were distributing just over 2,000,000 pounds, so the bulk of what we did was food rescue. This year, we will rescue about 1,600,000 pounds, and we will distribute about 8,000,000 pounds. So the pandemic changed a lot. We are now a hunger relief organization securing a lot of food from the Boston, Greater Boston Food Bank, securing food by buying it, by purchasing it, Rescuing it, whatever it takes, and getting it out there because the need with inflation, with the pandemic is just unprecedented.

Erica: Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, just the I mean, I'm trying to even imagine in my brain what 8,000,000 pounds of food looks like, and I don't even think that I can

Sasha: How many times to the moon and back? How many hours? Right. It's a lot of food. It's a lot of food. I mean, we have a big warehouse in Somerville, and it amazes me to see it all come through. But I do gotta say one more thing. It's not what we do is not just, like, getting nutrition into people's stomachs. Food is such an integral part of life and community and care and love, and I came out of the corporate world. Being in this environment and doing what we do is about it's about community, and it's about caring about people in your community, and it's about bringing community together, volunteers, our staff. It's about showing others in the community that they're not alone and that people care about them, and it and it's really it's really beautiful.

Erica: Yeah. No. I absolutely love that. I mean, my family absolutely comes together over meals. We come together with our girlfriends and our colleagues over meals. I mean, that's where connection happens. And, like, food is that thing that we all center around. And, also, I mean, one thing I love about it, defining cultures and introducing people to new cultures. Like, there's so many aspects about food that I think, like you said, are so beautiful and more than just putting food in the stomach.

Sasha: Yeah. We used to my husband's a farmer, and we used to go to these farmers markets, one in Plymouth, one in Harvard Square. And all the people coming up would talk to one another about what they're gonna do with this or that item. And I did that for years, and then I started working at Food for Free. And the building we were in, there was a food pantry downstairs where people would come to get food that couldn't afford it. And I would go down there, same thing. Everybody would start talking to each other about what they're gonna do with these collard greens or it's just Yeah. It's beautiful. It's really beautiful.

Erica: Everyone can talk about food. Right?

Sasha: That's right.

Erica: We can

Sasha: just why don't we change this podcast? Let's just talk about What's your favorite food?

Erica: Well, tell me about your journey because you have a rather unique one. Right? So you went from software engineer at Lotus

Sasha: Mhmm. Mhmm.

Erica: To CEO of this amazing nonprofit that really serves your community. So how did that how did that happen?

Sasha: Yeah. That so I when I first went off to college, I was going to a school called Antioch out in Ohio. I was gonna do sociology or psychology. Do so I wanted to do something meaningful. A lot of things changed, and I part of it was wanting to be closer to home. Part of it was my perception of of organizations that did good, maybe weren't so efficient. For whatever for a variety of reasons, my parents have both been software engineers. I came back to be nearest to my family, went to BU, got a degree in computer science, and went to Lotus, which was this fantastic software company back in the day. And I really loved it when I started. And my plan had been someday, like, save up money and then give back. I I wasn't sure, but I was young, and I fell in love with my job. The culture at Lotus was pretty incredible. They had a diversity committee back in 1994.

Erica: Before it was cool, before I ever Right.

Sasha: Yeah. Before it was the thing to do. But And it was just a really laid back chill place. And so I probably was software engineer for a couple years, and then I moved into software product management and started traveling and meeting people and traveling internationally and just learning and growing and meeting people and excitement. And I loved it For I for certainly throughout my time at Lotus, it may have actually started to shift after that. But I went on to Nokia, which was also fascinating, really diverse place. Like, less than half of the company I was at were Americans. It was all people from different places in the world. And then I landed at Iron Mountain, which is a very, very different culture. It was much more nine to five, much more structured. I also, at some point along that way, really maybe stopped learning, but also kinda, I understand it better in retrospect. I was really slamming up against the culture, and I just wasn't happy and I I couldn't fit. I mean, I was doing well at my job, but I wasn't going anywhere. And I I felt pretty stuck, and I didn't know what to do. And I had met my husband while at Nokia. And in 2005, he quit to start an organic farm. And that was amazing. And I'd come home on the weekends, and I would see I would see a world where work and community and life are integrated and they're not separate silos. And I wanted that, but I really didn't know how to get it. And it was another four years, and finally, I just was like, I quit. I just I'm gonna quit and figure it out, so I quit. I went back to school, actually, Antioch University New England because they had a weekend program in New Hampshire to get a green MBA, an MBA in sustainability, just to figure out what else is out there. Yeah. And over the next two years, I worked on the farm and went to school and fell in love with food and community and life and the integration of all of it. And, when I was done, this opportunity came up at Food for Free, and it was a really small organization back then. I mean, it was very different than it is now, but I I they gave me the job, and it has been an incredible journey. And and I live right now, I live in Cambridge. Our one of our offices are in Cambridge. The other in Somerville. We call it Camberville. These are two connected cities. I it is food for free is integrated here. My life work and and community really feel integrated just like I saw with the farm, and I think a lot of that has to do with food. Yeah. Absolutely.

Erica: One thing you said about being at Iron Mountain and getting to this point of feeling stuck and now being able to identify that as the culture being an issue. What I think is so interesting about that is, and you can tell me here, what when was that? Like, what year?

Sasha: 2009 is when I quit. Yeah.

Erica: So I don't even think that, like, 2000 those early two thousand years, culture still wasn't that big of a Yeah.

Sasha: Of everybody. You weren't talking about it.

Erica: Other, you've been people. Culture. Yeah. Yeah.

Sasha: People officer. Right. It's it's now in your title. It's now you're right. And it's funny in retrospect, Lotus got it somehow. And I didn't know that. I didn't know any of this in this culture. But had I been at Lotus, I may have stayed in tech for the rest of my life. But Iron Mountain yeah. I remember it was 2009. It was like the crash. And and yeah. You're right. It was it wasn't and I and I it's a great company. Don't get me wrong. Right. Didn't work for me.

Erica: Yeah. Well, that's why I tell people it takes all kinds of kinds. I mean, there there are people out there who thrive in that very structured Exactly. Live world. Right? And that is great. But it it's a very different scenario, yeah, when you're living that life and it's not gelling with you and it's kinda got you stuck, but gosh, I mean

Sasha: Well, and that's what I mean yeah. You I was thinking about this prior to talking with you because you're like sticky floor. What is it? And I think very much for me, it was I didn't understand until now looking back. I didn't fit didn't work for me and my personality. I'm very informal. I really don't like any kind of rules or structure. That those are great things. And it's interesting as Food for Free grows, we have to start to put those things in place. I mean, I hired somebody to do that

Erica: because I'm not I'm not gonna I don't even wanna do it. I know we have to do it. Strength.

Sasha: But that, I didn't feel like I could be more successful. And I certainly wasn't gonna if I was trying to move up the corporate ladder, I wasn't going to because I don't fit. And that's okay. Right? Realizing that or realizing it after the fact and and finding an organization where I can actually set the culture and it lets me I mean, I've done so much here. I I flowered. Right? Because I found a place where I did fit that what I'm like works or at least it worked. I hope it continues to work. It allowed me to bring so much more to the world.

Erica: Yeah. Well, and what's interesting too, I mean, it really feels like the universe kinda came together for you with all of those pieces because you never could have envisioned that in laying that future out for you.

Sasha: I I I yeah. I always I do say that when I tell the stories. Like, I if I had said when I quit, one of my husband is like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know. I never could have imagined finding what I did find, but I I did another podcast that sort of talked about this. And one of the things it helped me sort of draw out was when I quit and not knowing what I was gonna do, it was just sorta turning not making a plan, but, like, continually turning in a direction of something that interests me and just keep moving towards stuff that made me comfortable and feel good. And and it's, I guess, trust in the universe in air quotes. Right? Like, I it Right. By just stopping trying to control the things and just sort of moving in the directions that I was attracted towards

Erica: Mhmm.

Sasha: It makes sense. Right? You then you that that that helped me land in a place that's gonna work for me because I wasn't trying to conform form to something or make something conform to me. I just was finding the things that felt good and going with it.

Erica: Well and I think what's so hard for so many and this is people. Right? Not just women, but people to do is when you've been somewhere or in an industry or a line of work for so long, right, like, you can see the path path. The path is laid. People have walked it. And so when you decide and you feel those stirrings of, like, this isn't working, I'm I don't fit here. Something's not right. But you don't see the path. The path is not there. It's covered in bushes and weeds and trucks, but you have to and a lot of people don't love the whole, like, woo woo feeling of, like, trust the universe and Right. Tell. And I get that, but I think the hard part is being able to have enough confidence in yourself and your abilities, right, to say, I may not know what the endgame is gonna be here. And let's be real. None of us know what the endgame is.

Sasha: That's right.

Erica: I don't know what the endgame is gonna be here, but I'm gonna go ahead and move in this direction because something about it feels right.

Sasha: Yeah. I I I agree with everything you say. It is it is a it took like I said, I probably certainly, by the time my husband started the farm, but I think before that, wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't wanna do what I was doing. It was at least another five years till I did anything because that's not yes. There is no path. You're exactly right. And that's that's a leap. And some of it, I credit my husband for, honestly. I mean, he quit his job in June. In a June, he he had happened to have planted 78 tomato plants in our backyard, but he quit in June to start a thank god he did because I don't know what we would have done with all those tomatoes if he didn't start going to a farmer's market. And it was inspiring to see that. I think it I hit I hit a breaking point. It was in retrospect, it seems courageous and cool, but I was so unhappy. And and there wasn't a path, and so I just had to break out of what what wasn't working for me and hope that I could find something that would and honestly, I don't wanna say anybody can. Of course, there's I've got lots of privilege in this and all of those things, and I have supports if it goes wrong. But for many of us, there is a way to there is a way for you to find something that fills you Yeah. For many of us.

Erica: So tell me a little bit about, like, leading up to the breaking point where you're just like, I gotta get out of here. What, like, how did that feel? How did that affect your work, your home life, all of that?

Sasha: I remember a meeting in my last months there. My back, I was having so much pain. I was now this probably most people wouldn't have done this kinda goes to my lack of conformity and not understanding how I am perceived, but I was in a con in a meeting, in a conference room, lying on the floor, lying on the floor for this meeting. Right? Okay. So I don't know if I did that, but that's kind that was, to me, one pretty clear indicator when things are wrong.

Erica: Yeah.

Sasha: It so it and there was a lot of tears. There was just a lot I was just I was unhappy. I was just heavy. Work? Home was home was beautiful. Home was until the day I quit. My husband's like, what? Are you gonna talk to me about this? But I would go home for my I mean, it was a respite. It was like it was a farm. It was god. It was tangible. I used to say like, people say, what does your husband do? He's a farmer done. Right? What do you do? I'm a product manager for a software that stores emails for SCC regulated organizations in the case that they might get sued.

Erica: Yeah. Right.

Sasha: What the

Erica: hell does that mean?

Sasha: What's a product manager? What? What's the SEC? Like so, yeah, the the she said come home. So this is still the case. I I live in Cambridge. My husband and I are together, but he lives out there and I go out there on weekends. It's just and it's he's still farming and it's just this is tangible here. Food for free is. That's what I love about it. It's tangible. But that's a farm. Like that's even just, this is still in the city and I, I happen to be able to bike and walk, but there's cars and go out there and it's, it's just that it's that simplicity. It's really for me about the simplicity. So yeah, I felt, I felt stressed and and I used to take off. I remember it was after Katrina. I was always like, I wanna do something else. What do I do? And somehow when I take off in a plane on a on a business trip, as that plane took off and maybe as I was removed from things, it would be like, oh, I could go teach down in New Orleans after Katrina. And I'd make up something I was gonna do, and then I'd land and get sucked right back into

Erica: Life.

Sasha: The life and stuff I do. Right?

Erica: Yeah. All the things.

Sasha: Yeah.

Erica: Yeah. I think that actually, I think that's probably something a lot of people do because when you're up on that plane, it literally gives you a different perspective. Right? Literally. And you can think a little different and but then again, you land and you're like, now I'm back on

Sasha: on that side. Grounded back in real yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating.

Erica: I love it. So with food for free, with this farm, have you ever and and you really kinda created that work life integration that you had dreamed of. Right? Mhmm. Have there been any sticky floors in these moments where you kinda felt like it wasn't what you had expected or not that you would even know what to expect because you were going down the

Sasha: Well, I will tell you the eight years leading up to the pandemic, nothing's sticky. It was an I've been grad my gratitude filter and joy and, like, holy shit, I got here after all. I was I I I was 40, I think. Twenty twelve. I was 41 when I started here. And I was and I was beginning my life, and it was it was amazing. Then the pandemic hit, and that was so hard. For we, food for free did not close. I did not come work for Paul. We we grew from distributing 2,000,000 pounds to 8,000,000 pounds. We grew so quickly, so fast. There was so much stress and we were doing a really beautiful things. Like, we had the city had given us a big space to work out of. And while our trucks were serving all of, like, Eastern Mass and just bringing as much food as we could everywhere, we had 50 to 80 volunteers coming in every day of the week to work with us to pack up bags of food and volunteer drivers to distribute food to 2,000 Cambridge households every week. Wow. And there was a lot of beauty in that. A lot it was amazing to have all of us come together like that. But the growth over those two years, the the speed of it, the the toll that it took on my staff. In July, we moved into this 12,000 square foot warehouse in Somerville. We'd never had a warehouse. We had a couple offices. Right. And I remember at that time, everybody was so stressed. Right? It was a pandemic. The whole world was stressed. But as a leader of an organization that I believe so strongly in, you don't be stressed at work. Work is should not be like that. Everybody was stressed, and I could intellectually tell myself that's not because of me and my leadership. It's because we're in a pandemic, but that's not how it feels. It it feels like, how could I possibly be running an organization where most people are stressed out and working too hard because we grew too fast? Now we've caught up. We're in beautiful shape again. People are happy again, which is amazing. Now this completely different organization that I'm running. And it's like it used to be, and then it's happy. But I'm I'm still adjusting. It's like this. I joined this organization. It was me and my part time development director and our six part time drivers, and I would get on the trucks. And I loved getting on the trucks. And now it's 33 of us, and I have a CFO and a chief development officer and a CEO. And we're not hierarchical. It's still it's still chill, but it's it's definitely more corporate. It has to be. And I had hired a CFO, and she's putting all this system and process into place, which is what she needs to do. And I and I I don't wanna go back, but this is it's it's I think it's I think some of it's just internally challenging me. This thing I sort of developed around my identity of of leftist culture that didn't work, and now we have rules. And am I not gonna fit again? But I I think it's actually just a new chapter and challenge to say, how can I lead an organization and maintain even with the systems you need to put in place as things get bigger? It's an opportunity to to have that bigger place and still have it feel great and let people bring them home selves and have integration and balance. But I'm tired. I'm tired. It was really hard two years. It was a really I'm actually gonna

Erica: take What I was gonna say is not only did the organization grow in scale, but at an unprecedented pace.

Sasha: Yeah. Oh, I I didn't see

Erica: that there were no other choices for that. Right? I mean, you have to get food to these people.

Sasha: It's funny. I one of the things me I was working alongside my friend Steph who was still she just got 40 under 40. I'm so proud of her. She's such an incredible woman for the work that she did over this pandemic. And so she and I were really wartime bonding is what it felt like. And and then this guy, Ryan, who's since left. He was our ops guy, and Steph runs our programs. And we we struggled a lot. We get a lot of praise from people, and we it was really hard to take it for some reason. I think because you saw how how hard everybody was working. And so if people praised me, I'd feel like Steph's doing all the work and her team. And if people praise Steph, she'd feel like her team's doing all and we we we really were struggling with that. And and Ryan, our ops guy, came to visit me the other day, and I showed him the new space. He hadn't seen it. He left it December 2020. And he was talking about how what we did, whatever, what else would we have done. And and in responding to him, I was like, Ryan, that's not true. Most places closed. We could've closed. We didn't close. We did this. We chose to do that. Yes. The the demand was out of control, and if we were gonna meet it, we had to grow. But we didn't have to meet it, and we chose to meet it. And and I had to sort of reassure him that what you did this. It wasn't just Brandon. Same with Steph. Like, if it was a different team, we might have gone home. A lot of places went home. It'd go home.

Erica: Yeah. So let me ask you this. Right? I mean, you're the role here is to get food to people, healthy food so that they can be fed. They're not going to schools. They're not having the normal avenues. Tons of places closed. Did you ever feel like you weren't even though you were doing all of this and scaling, did you ever feel like you weren't doing enough? Hey there, listeners. If you have ever felt like you're stuck in a place, held back by self doubt, perfectionism, or that pesky inner critic, you're not alone. We all face those sticky floors that keep us from reaching the heights we dream of. But guess what? It's time to shatter those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors to uncover infinite possibilities. My book, Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors, is your ultimate guide to smashing through barriers, overcoming limiting beliefs, and stepping into your full potential. This book has been endorsed by none other than the great Mel Robbins, best selling author and motivational powerhouse. It's also been featured in Success Magazine, so you know it's packed with insights that work. Inside, you'll find real life sticky floor stories, practical strategies to help you navigate your own sticky floor moments, and a whole lot of inspiration to keep you climbing. This isn't just a book. It's your road map to success, confidence, and freedom. Grab your copy of Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors today at www.ericaandersonrooney.com. Whether you're in the boardroom, the classroom, or just starting out, this book is for you because no one, and I mean no one, deserves to stay stuck, no one deserves to feel small, and you have glass ceilings to shatter. Let's do this.

Sasha: Always. I our built so the offices that we've had in Cambridge were we we shared a building with another nonprofit, the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee, and they had a food pantry downstairs, and they would do free taxes. They did a lot of low income services. So when the pandemic happened, they closed, but Steph and I would be up at that office occasionally because the space we were working at was nearby. And we come out, and there'd be people just there, standing there because this is where they came for help. And and one day I came out, and there was all these signs up in different languages on the doors, especially who to call to get food. And one day I come out, and there's a woman an older woman standing looking at the food pantry door. And I'm like, excuse me. Excuse me. She's not answering me. I tap her on the shoulder. She turns towards me. She's deaf and older. And there's a sign telling her to call a number. And this was great. I mean, she could beep my lips, and then I wrote down, and we got her on the food delivery program. But we'd see people out there every day, like, we I wouldn't wanna leave the office because I couldn't help them. We can get them food. That's all we could do. They needed so much more, and it was always. So every day, we felt amazed by what we were doing and also, like, watching because you're just we were tuned to people who were hit the hardest the hardest. People that and they were alone, and they were didn't know what to do. It and it was horrible. I mean, it was just devastating to see that. And and at the same time, let me tell you a really good happy story. One of my staff members in Cambridge moved to a new neighborhood past fall, and she was out walking around in her food for free sweatshirt and runs into one of her neighbors she hadn't met, an elderly woman. And the woman's like, oh, you work for food for free? And Sarah's like, yeah. I do. Do you think the woman might be a donor? And the woman said, yes. She said I was a benefactor. She's like, I I have a lot of health issues. And at the beginning of the pandemic, I was trapped at home. And she said, if it weren't for food for free, not only she said, I wouldn't not only would I have star starved or gone hungry, she's like, the delivery driver that would wave through my door once a week was my only contact with humanity, and it kept me sane. And I am so grateful. And that's, like, that's what I'm talking about at the beginning.

Erica: I get I mean, that story just gave me chills. It really I know.

Sasha: I've been told it a thousand times, and I still have goosebumps all over. Yeah. But it's just the like, that's the thing. Food isn't just feeding people. It's caring about them. And it's during the pandemic, it was letting people know they weren't alone in this terrifying time. It was just so yes. It feels like you can't do enough, but Yeah. Try to focus on those things, the things that we're doing.

Erica: I was gonna say as, like, a woman who is a problem solver and you are solving problems, but it's a problem that will probably never ever be really truly fully solved when there are hungry people out there. Right. I just imagine that that is one of those things that

Sasha: Well, a shout out to the people that, like, we primarily give food to organizations that give food to people.

Erica: Right.

Sasha: And it allows me to not see. I worked when I was at first at college at Antioch, I I did a co op actually back here at a, sort of a hospital lock up for kids who could have behavioral problems due to abuse. And I loved working with those kids, but it was so hard. Right? Because in my face every day, it was like I can't take these kids home. Yeah. And at Food for Free, I get to mostly drown in the gratitude of volunteers and our staff and ourself, but and I and know we're helping people. The people that are on the ground Yeah. That when I walked out of the offices during COVID and saw folks and couldn't help solve all of their problems, but they're still on the ground doing everything they can with those people. Like, I my my my gratitude goes out to them because Oh, absolutely. I get to feel really good doing what I'm doing now.

Erica: Yeah.

Sasha: People are always like, oh, it's so great what you do. And I'm like, I am the lucky one. I mean, seriously, I have this job. Like, I run the orgs. I don't have a boss. I get to do I get to build a culture that I love, and we're doing this good thing, and I'm surrounded by people that are unreal. Right? One of the great things about we're having these hiring problems and all these things Yeah. And what do people want at work? They want meaning. And how it we have this I get attracting amazing talent is not hard. People want to be a part of this.

Erica: Yeah. I was gonna say you kept talking about how your husband's farm is tangible, but I kept thinking in my head, well, what you're doing is pretty

Sasha: It is it is so tangible. It the work is the city isn't I like like I like I like grass, but, yes, you're right. When you you if you ever come up here, you have to come see it. There's this warehouse, and we have these volunteer groups come in. Sometimes it's corporate groups. Sometimes it's just 15 random people, but we have lots of regulars. God, it's a joyful experience. They're all packing. We we make these boxes we call Just Eats boxes, which are made of all this produce and some rice and beans, and those get distributed. So we have this sort of, conveyor belt table that these boxes go down and people somebody's putting the pineapple in, somebody's putting the eggplant in. Well, we're all talking and picking up food and putting it in a box that's gonna go to a human

Erica: Yep.

Sasha: Usually that day, maybe the next day. And it's really amazing.

Erica: Yep. And I just think it's such a cool story to go from this woman in tech, right, that's butting her head against a wall because she's not connecting with the culture that culture wasn't even a thing back then. Right? Like, it was this intangible. Nobody could put their hand on it now to creating this work life community integration that you had wanted all along but couldn't really put it into words.

Sasha: Thank you for saying that back. Like, first of all, the culture pointing that out is just another for me. And so every time I talk about this, I learn more by whomever I'm talking to and and how how how you perceive it. So, yeah, that that's so interesting to me, a, that that that really was the thing, and that wasn't named. Now it's named, and it's talked about all the time. But also, it just reminds me when I've been tired and a little burnt out, like, this was a dream. And it really it really was an amazing path, and I am so grateful for it and lucky and just grateful. Grateful and lucky.

Erica: Yeah.

Sasha: And, yes, it gets hard sometimes. So it's so helpful to kinda hear it reflected back because

Erica: because because you because we have hard days sometimes. Right. Because we have hard That

Sasha: happens, especially over the last two and a half years.

Erica: Yeah. Well, one question I'd love to ask everybody is what would you tell the Sasha who is in tech years ago, bashing her head against this imaginary culture. Well, not imaginary. Real culture, but can't name it. What advice would you give her knowing what now?

Sasha: It would be about if you don't fit. If this isn't, forget about naming culture. If you don't fit, if you don't feel like you can be you here and bring your best self, you need to find something else no matter what it takes. It's it's okay. There is a place where you fit. There are lots of places where you fit. And if this isn't it, go. Figure out the way you need to do that. If you wanna write a plan, find out. It's not my way. But, yeah, it really you can fit somewhere. You can fit somewhere. And and it's really easy to feel like you are the problem. And it's not like or not was the problem. They're not. Like I said, that's a pretty amazing organization. But you can start to feel like something's wrong with you if you're in a place you don't fit. And we watch this as we hire people into food for free. Not it blows my mind. Some people don't fit there. Doesn't mean food for free is a bad place, and it doesn't mean they're bad people. And some people have left because it's not where they wanna be, and that's okay. And I admire that, and and I encourage it. You want if if nothing else, no matter what work you're doing, if this is gonna be such a huge component of your life, make sure you feel good. Yeah.

Erica: Because you're living. Well, I loved it. I loved that that's the piece of advice because I think as women and as people, but especially as women, we so it's just this inherent wanting to be liked. Right? Yeah. Wanting to fit in. People want to belong. But as I said earlier, it does take all kinds of kinds for this world to go and operate, and not everybody can be like me. Not everybody can be like you, and that's okay. Right? It is.

Sasha: You can belong somewhere. It you can belong and there needs all the places so all the people can belong somewhere. Yeah. And I mean, I I recognize, like, some people can prioritize there are other priorities besides feeling good. Yeah. Like, some people may wanna sacrifice and make a lot of money for later, and that's there's that's all good. But I I wasn't that. And my husband, again, helped me really see that life didn't have to be expensive because he knew how to cook and grow my food and I don't know how to. But also that that it could feel good that it could feel good. So that's my priority.

Erica: I love that. And not everybody is your cup of tea, and that's okay.

Sasha: Yes. I had a remind myself of

Erica: that a lot.

Sasha: Sure. I know. That's like

Erica: the internal conversation I have a lot, and I'm like, okay. It's alright

Sasha: here, though. Right. It's okay. You're still you're right. You're somebody's cup of tea if not everybody's.

Erica: Exactly. So, I mean, this I think it's an awesome organization. If somebody wanted to get involved, to help, to donate, where can they go to learn more about food for free or help donate all the things?

Sasha: Absolutely. So foodforfree.org is our website and foodforfree.org/volunteer if you're in the Cambridge Somerville area, or foodforfree.org/donate. And I will tell you, I will make a just unapologetic

Erica: Plug.

Sasha: Plug. For those what I will say, one of the things I learned working here when I started, I'd never been in nonprofit and asked for money. And I think in the beginning, I was like I felt like I was asking for charity. And now I've realized, because I've had such incredible funders and partners and volunteers, it it's a partnership. Like, if if somebody's not interested in in addressing hunger, that is fine. There's a million things to think about. I'm down. If somebody is, then we're doing them a favor by giving them an incredible organization An epic game. Academically. So if you wanna do something about hunger, we are the place. If you care about this area and hunger, food for free, I promise you, is an incredible place to volunteer and an incredibly efficient, effective organization to spend our funds.

Erica: Oh, yes. Well, Sasha, thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for talking to us about food for free. I absolutely believe in the mission, and I think it is so cool that you had this vision, I guess, that came to life. And you made it happen with trusting the process and all of that good jazz, but doing the hard work too.

Sasha: Well, Erica, I really appreciate you having me on, and it's so great to hear your perspective on this. It just helps me take whatever next steps I'm gonna take. So I really appreciate this. Thank

Erica: you. Alright, Sasha. Have a good one.

Sasha: You too.