 Welcome to this episode of Fort Worth Forward. We're here at the Market at Ridgely and we've got a great panel together today to talk to you and tell you about what's happening here in Fort Worth. We've got Amanda Ware, who is the owner of the Market at Ridgely, Erica Ramos and Katrina Johnson with Steer Fort Worth and Reggie Robinson with Funky Town Food Project. Let's get this started. Hey everyone, I am thrilled to be here at the Market at Ridgely with Amanda Ware, the owner. Amanda, welcome. Thank you. Thanks for having us here today. This is a crazy amazing place. Oh, well, thank you. And my ADD loves coming in here because there's so many things, so many vendors. It's true. Tell everybody what this is and how you got this idea to bring this together. Absolutely. So the Market at Ridgely is a cooperative retail space. We have approximately 70 different local vendors inside the store and they can rent spaces ranging from a couple of shelves to large, almost boutique size spaces. So give us some ideas of some of the things that are here. We really have a mixture of everything. I tried to make it a one-stop shop when I was selecting vendors. So we have women's clothing, men's clothing, children's, plants. We even have grab-and-go foods and really a mixture of just everything you could possibly want in one space. And now I'm here with Erica Ramos and Katrina Johnson with Steer Fort Worth. Welcome, guys. Thanks for having us. How are you? Good, how are you? Good, I'm good. I'm very proud of all the work that y'all are doing and I've got obviously a special place in my heart for Steer Fort Worth having served in capacities their executive committee and now seeing it continue to thrive under y'all's leadership. You're president now, right? Yes, that's correct. And you're president-elect. Yep, all right, we'll be starting next year. Yep, so for our viewers that don't know about Steer Fort Worth, what is it? What was the purpose, etc., what does it do? Yeah, so Steer Fort Worth is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that seeks to grow our emerging leaders and get them civically engaged in Fort Worth. We actually started back in 2011 under Mayor Price as a result of low voter turnout in that demographic. I think there's like 4% or 5% of voters, 20 to 40 voted in that election. Yes, and so Steer Fort Worth was created and in 2016 we officially became our own non-profit and have continued the work since then. That's so wonderful. You brought up too about being a chef. Now you're an educator, but as chef, I want to give you a little chance to talk about your own sort of entrepreneurial, what you're doing now as a chef, Little Boy Blue. Yeah, so with Little Boy Blue Barbecue, man, we serve love and we love serving. It's just sort of a passion project based on our grandfather, little brother and I run it and we get a chance to do what we love to do, which is to serve food. And again, we are grounded in this work that food sustains us all and so let's make sure that we're adding love to it, you know? Yeah, that's it. Well, I'm honored enough to go to one of your dinners recently, which was wonderful sort of collaboration. Talk about that a little bit. Oh man, so the work that's going on on Magnolia with just the boom of their economics, there's a restaurant there, The Pantry, and they're doing really cool stuff. And they invited me out, they invited Scotty Scott out, who's got the cookbook out and you gotta get that cookbook, it's crazy. What's it called, I forget? Fix Me a Plate. Fix Me a Plate. I think it's based on some of his grandmother's recipes, right? Yeah, and so we just got a chance to get in the kitchen and again, it was this explosion of people who are really good at what they do and then me. And so I was excited to. You're good at what you do too, it was great, it was wonderful. Excited to get to hang out with them and just serve and looking forward to many more collaborations. That's wonderful. Well, where can people find you? Funky Town Food Project and Little Boy Blue Barbecue, you talk about both of those. Yeah, so funkytownfoodproject.org, right? Plenty of information on there and then there are gonna be those who listen to this and wanna get involved. We've got a donate page, we've got volunteer opportunities, lots and lots of ways to get involved. We're looking for board members. As far as our social media presence, you can find us on Facebook, we're on Instagram as well under the same funkytownfoodproject and then with the Little Boy Blue Barbecue, again, Facebook and Instagram, Little Boy Blue L-I-L-B-O-Y-Blue-B-B-Q and come look us up. We cater, we do private dining, private brunches, all kinds of stuff. Well, Reggie, I appreciate what you're doing and putting a focus on areas that we need to continue to do in Fort Worth. We're a big city, we're a growing city. We've got disparities in lots of different ways and I appreciate what you're doing to sort of highlight that and make sure that we're addressing it where we can. So thanks for being here. My distinct pleasure and thank you for the work that you're doing on the council. I love the way that Fort Worth is moving right now. I appreciate it. We're trying. Yes, sir. We've got a great city. We've got to keep it that way and keep it moving forward. So I appreciate you saying that. No doubt. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. Thank you. Love it. Love it. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Fort Worth Forward. As Amanda, the owner of the market at Ridgely mentioned, Dolly Parton on the side of her building, you can't miss it. Come check out the market at Ridgely. Check out our other guests, Steer Fort Worth and the Funky Town Food Project. But for now, I'm working nine to five and I got to go do a business deal with Joe Lean. So we'll see you on the next episode.