The Atlanta Mission podcast
Shedding light on some of the city’s toughest issues
“I Needed to Retool My Toolbox”
By his 60s, Derryl had built a business that employed 25 musicians and carved out a life doing exactly what he loved. Then COVID came and took everything — the gigs, the income, eventually even the roof over his head. For two years, his car in a hospital parking lot was home. But Derryl’s story isn’t about hitting rock bottom. It’s about what happens when someone who spent decades helping other people finally lets others help him — what it costs and what it builds to start over from scratch.
“It all starts with saying yes. Just showing up.”
When you walk through the doors of Atlanta Mission, not because it’s your job, but because you chose to be there, our clients notice. They notice the difference between someone who has to show up and someone who wanted to. In this episode of Unseen Atlanta, we talk about what that choice actually looks like and how Atlanta Mission will find a place for whatever you bring. A Georgia Tech student running a STEM workshop. Someone who loves kids showing up to play. A person with a few free hours on Tuesday learning the names of everyone who walks through the door. Whatever your skills, your schedule, your passions, there’s a role here that fits. And it will matter more than you know.
“The very thing you’re running from is what you need to face.”
For Elliot, that realization didn’t come easily. After a lifetime of feeling like he didn’t matter, and learning to push people away before they could hurt him, he found himself at a point where something had to change. In this episode of Unseen Atlanta, Elliot shares what it looked like to stop running, face the past, and begin doing the hard work of transformation. His story is a powerful reminder that growth often begins in the very places we’ve spent the most time avoiding.
“If you keep carrying the same old bricks, you’re gonna keep building the same old house.”
After the loss of his wife, Eric found himself trying to cope with grief in ways that only made things worse. In this episode of Unseen Atlanta, he shares how unprocessed grief led him deeper into addiction, and what it looked like to finally confront what he was carrying. Eric’s story is about the moment things begin to shift in your life, and the decision to start rebuilding, one step at a time, in the midst of deep pain.
“It’s gonna be like a road trip… that’s stationary.”
That’s how Shanae explained sleeping in a car at Racetrac with her kids, trying to make the best of an impossible situation.
