 Thank you again for tuning in to Will Mega TV. Please subscribe, click like, drop your thoughts in the comments area, and if you really want to see us continue to push out great content, support us. Cash App Will Mega. That's Dollar Sign Will Mega. Dollar Sign Will Mega. Thank you. Sorrell Parker, welcome to the Will Mega TV show. Thank you so much, Will Mega, for having me here today. It feels good. I'm excited to be here and excited to connect with your listening audience. Unlike others, you've decided to come into studio because you don't have time to sit in front of a computer. Where are you coming from this morning? Well, we did two stops this morning. First at Blue Brook, which I am proud to say is my West Philadelphia home base. Blue Brook Restaurant, 56th and Lancaster Avenue. We left there a meeting with the United World Leaders of Color. Then we left to go to the 52nd Ward meeting represented by Steve. And let me tell you something. I had a great time just sharing my thoughts and vision for the future of our city. So you're in West Philly today. You were down in the, I guess that's the fourth ward you were in, or 44th ward. And then you shifted up to the 52nd Ward in Winfield. Greatest neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia. I love it too. Listen, full disclosure. I told you when I was driving through, I was like, you know, this feels a whole lot like home. It feels like the 50th, you know, 22nd. So I felt good. And now, now you will make a TV studios in the 34th Ward, the home of the chair of the Democratic Party. 98% African American Ward. Okay. So now what you did is just give me a geographical lesson this morning. I didn't realize the political subdivisions, the wards I was in as I even traveled this morning. So that's good to know. Well, listen, 52nd Ward, 34th Ward. Again, it felt like home. 10th, 50th, 22nd, all of those wards contiguous. So I felt good and very comfortable here. Yeah. Many of the same issues. Most of the people in all three wards grew up and went to Overbrook High School. Wow. And so, and many of those second, third, fourth generations of people who still live in these neighborhoods will pass their homes down to their children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren. All right. So, Cheryl Parker, who are you? You know, Will, I'm happy you started there because, and Will, I'm a fight hard to not put my hands on the table today. I'm going to do my best today. But I am glad that you started there, Will, because I have met a lot of people over the years, and particularly since I've been elected to public office 10 years in the Pennsylvania House. I was sworn into counsel in January of 2016. And people sort of know you as an elected official, which is such a formality, right? Very rarely do people say, who is, who are you, Cheryl Parker? I am a product of a single teenage mother. My mother was 15 when she got pregnant with me in 1972. While I knew who my father was, I could count on one hand the number of times that I actually saw him or that he was active in my life. I was raised by my grandmother and my grandfather. So, for your listening audience, whenever you hear me publicly talking about mommy and daddy, I'm referring to my grandmother and my grandfather. That is also Will. And if you ever hear this about me, I want to give it to you. Straight Will mega listeners and viewers, if you ever hear somebody tell you that I am old fashioned, I have to take the case because I was raised by my grandparents. So I bring a lot of old fashioned values and ways and things that I think, the way I think things should go. And that's how I was reared. A product of the public school system, Rowan Elementary, Wagner for 48 hours. But my grandmother had me bust into the northeast to Austin Mehan Middle School. I left there and went to the Parkway Center City at 1118 Market Street. First generation college graduate at the Lincoln University. I have to say this for the record. It is the first historically black degree granting institution of higher learning in the nation. And I'm also the first generation Ivy League graduate in my family. I have a master's degree in public administration from the Fells Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. Listen, I'll be paying back that student loan debt until I'm dead. But it was important for me to do it to serve as an example for my son that this is standard operating procedure for you. We're trying to make a generational shift in my family and for me, a lot of that burden is on my shoulders. When I got into politics, well, you know, and because you've been around Philadelphia is a very incestuous city. When I learned about politics and even understanding that it was in existence, I met a lady named Augusta Clark who met me when I was a senior in high school. She introduced me to Marion Tasko after I won a Black History Month or a Torco Contest. And at that time, they demonstrated to me that I could use government as a tool to improve the lives of the community. So you take someone like me whose father's not present, whose mother's a single teenage mother, who died when she was 26 years old, I was 11. Again, dad not dead, raised by grandparents who are on public assistance. Well, when I grew up, it wasn't a plastic access card, like a credit card. It was cash in books, but we called it colored money. It was food stamps. It was surplus food that we got at the church. For me, St. Peter's Church, 74th and Briar Road in West Oakland, where I would walk to get the cheese, five pounds and a pound of butter. Listen, we needed that. Why am I in this race? The human infrastructure in our community, the village in the community helped to raise me, even with my grandmother and grandfather doing the best they could with what they had. There were neighbors. There were the brothers in the neighborhood. As a black woman, I have to say this, because when you meet black women, particularly those who are running for an executive office in cities across the U.S., you'll hear a lot of people say, well, you know, she's going to have a black man problem. We heard that in recent elections and other elections with black women. Let me tell you something. Cheryl Parker is never going to have a black man problem, because black men have been holding me up my whole life, my uncles, cousins in my family. Black men in my neighborhood who gave me access to the best that they had to offer, even when they were engaged in some activity that they knew wasn't appropriate. They worked hard to keep me away from it and basically say hands off of that one. She's got something to do for our community. I think about WDAS where I interned, Kearney Anderson, E. Stephen Coller. Those men lifted me up. Reggie Walker, who was my counselor when I went to Lincoln University, even with the absence of my own father. Those men in the community lifted me up. So aside from, of course, the dynamic black women who said, black girl, you're going to be somebody. We see something in you. You're too young to see it in yourself. But we know what you have the ability to do. Those men lifted me up and told me that I had value. And when you're a teenage black woman growing up when crack cocaine was ravaging the lives of people in neighborhoods, I needed that affirmation. And I'm grateful to the men and women. Listen, not just the black community. Teachers, white, Hispanic, Asian, my village was so diverse. Baptist, Muslim, Jewish, I mean, everything that you could think of invested into the life of Charelle Parker. So some people will, and this is like a little bit of therapy for me today talking to you, will some people make fun of how I communicate. I've been in like these different forums lately. And you know, people have their folks in the audience or you might overhear somebody talking. And they say, oh, she sounds like a minister. Or you know what? Her voice is so loud. It's so high-pitched. She just stopped screaming. If they knew my story well and where my energy comes from and why my drive to improve life in Philadelphia, for all Philadelphians, no matter where they start, if they knew where that came from, they would understand my passion and my very strong conviction. And so the more and more I'm out on this campaign trail, my authentic nature of communicating. I talk with my hands. My voice is up and it's down. And you're going to guess Charelle will, no matter what. That's me.