Raising Kind Kids: Inspiring Families to Give Back with Natalie Silverstein
In this episode of Mom to MORE®, host Sharon Macey chats with Natalie Silverstein, a powerhouse in the world of service, philanthropy, and family engagement.
Natalie is an author, speaker, nonprofit founder, and advocate for youth and family service. She wrote Simple Acts: The Busy Family's Guide to Giving Back and The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making a Difference, both of which provide practical ways for families to incorporate service into their lives. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast Simple Acts, Big Impact, where she celebrates young changemakers.
Natalie shares her journey from public health to full-time motherhood, discovering her passion for youth-focused philanthropy along the way. She opens up about the challenges of stepping away from her career, the impact of raising compassionate children through volunteering, and how small steps in service and reinvention can lead to life-changing outcomes. She also discusses her family’s experience with her husband's early-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis and how they transformed it into a mission for advocacy and scientific advancement.
Tune in for an inspiring conversation on following your passions, raising service-minded children, and taking that first leap toward your “more.”
[00:00] Introduction
[01:40] Natalie’s background and transition to full-time motherhood
[05:09] Feeling lost after stepping away from a career
[07:40] The power of volunteering and modeling service for children
[10:44] Creating a community resource for family-friendly service opportunities
[13:53] Essential mom skills that translate to leadership and nonprofit work
[19:03] The science behind the “helper’s high” and why giving back feels good
[22:38] Taking risks and why you miss 100% of the chances you don’t take
[30:17] Turning a family challenge into a mission
[34:33] The power of kindness and giving yourself and others grace
Meet My Guest Natalie Silverstein:
Website: SimpleActsGuide.com
Instagram + Facebook: @SimpleActsGuide
Natalie’s books:
Simple Acts, The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back: https://go.sylikes.com/eYqgiveIvSnb
Simple Acts, The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making A Difference: https://go.sylikes.com/eYqgiFRZsNHy
Looking for More? Follow @momtomore on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
@Sharon Macey on LinkedIn.
Keep an eye out for episode #34 of the Mom to MORE® podcast where Sharon is joined by Jennifer Rawlings, comedian, award-winning writer, filmmaker and mom of 5. Coming soon - you won’t want to miss it ♥
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Sharon (00:40)
Welcome back to Mom to More. I am really fascinated by people who find their wheelhouse early on and then go on to create seismic gains and massive positive impact into whatever arena they decide to step into. My next guest is just that person.
Natalie Silverstein is a multi-hyphenated mom. She is an author, speaker, nonprofit founder, philanthropist, and passionate advocate for family and youth services. Her first book in 2019, Simple Acts, The Busy Family's Guide to Giving Back, was named one of the top books for parents who wanted to raise kind kids by the Huff Post. And I love that. Her second book in 2022, The Busy Teen's Guide to Making a Difference, was chosen as a National Parenting Product Award winner.
She is the host of the award-winning weekly podcast, Simple Acts, Big Impact, celebrating teen changemakers, which is a fabulous listen. Natalie is a sought after speaker on the topics of family and youth service and has been featured on numerous media, including a full segment on the third hour of today on NBC, among many others. Her personal writing has been published literally all over the place. Katie Couric Media, the Kelly Corrigan Wonders podcast, Zibi Media, Today Parents, and much more.
Natalie holds a master's degree in public health from Yale University. And no surprise here, ladies, she was also a stay at home mom. So welcome to the show, Natalie. I am so thrilled you're with me today.
Natalie Silverstein (02:08)
Thank so much, Sharon. That is very kind. I don't know, when I hear those things, I'm like, really? Did I really do all of that?
It feels like a lot more than I've actually accomplished in the last...
Sharon (02:17)
I
think you are really that accomplished. So yeah, it's like, I want to know that person, right? Yeah. So I like to start all of my interviews with what I call my essential mom question. And that is, how many kids you have and where did you raise them?
Natalie Silverstein (02:20)
Thanks.
So I have three children. My oldest, Emmy, is 24. She'll be 24, actually, on my 25th wedding anniversary. She came along and was born on our exact first wedding anniversary, stealing it forever for her son. And our son Archie is 21. And we have a 17-year-old daughter who's a junior in high school. And we raised them right here in New York City, right in Manhattan.
Sharon (02:39)
Nice gift.
Hahaha!
really nice.
want to really dig a little more into your story. You're leaning into family life. Was it pre-planned? Did you simply drop into it like some moms do? What did that look like for you?
Natalie Silverstein (03:07)
So I have a master's in public health, as you mentioned, and I worked in healthcare for many years. And that looked like different types of jobs. have a, the degree is really in kind of policy and administration. So I worked for hospitals, I worked for managed care companies, I worked for a startup in the asthma space. So when I got married, I actually very much intended to start a family and to continue to go back to work full-time in the office. That didn't exactly work out.
My husband traveled a lot when my kids were small. And so I did go back to work after my first and second children who were born very close together. But that work was primarily consulting, sort of working for myself. So I would take on a client to, for example,
Everyone knows about HIPAA regulations, right? Very sexy. One of my clients was a hospital system in Bridgeport, Connecticut. So I would leave my two young children and I would go to Bridgeport and I would help them to implement the HIPAA regulations. Those terrible forms that you have to sign every time you go to the doctor or to the hospital. I had to help people figure out how to implement these rules. So I was working pretty consistently for several years while those two children were very young.
After the third one came along a couple of years later, it felt like sort of digging in quicksand, right? The amount that my husband was working and traveling, he even had to go into the office, weirdly, his firm, he was a partner in a firm, he had to go in on Sunday nights. And so we would take, I know that was for many years. And so it was like dinnertime on a Sunday and I was left with three young children, like seven, four and a newborn.
Sharon (04:40)
odd.
Natalie Silverstein (04:49)
And so it just wasn't practical for me to really work so much outside of the home and childcare being what it is. I mean, we're not gonna get into all of that, but to hire someone to be with my kids so that I could go back full time just felt sort of counterintuitive. So I stayed home with them and I worked, of course, I did what all moms do. I joined the board of our school and I was PA president and on and on and on. And that's sort of how over the course of years I fell into this work.
advocating for and helping families to find ways to do meaningful service with their young children because
Sharon (05:23)
so roughly how many years were you doing the mom thing? And it just not all the other things we do while we are doing the mom thing.
Natalie Silverstein (05:30)
Yeah, I mean, I'd say a solid eight to 10 years of really not working full time outside of the home. It's funny, I had one of those watershed moments when the kids were still pretty young and I just remember feeling pretty depressed, feeling like I had gotten all this education, put myself through graduate school. I had lot of skills and a lot of talents and I just felt like I wasn't using them. And I remember saying to my husband,
What am I doing with my life? I I love these kids. I would do anything for them, but they're all in school now. And what should I do? I feel so at loose ends. And he was like, do whatever you want. Go and do it. We were lucky enough, which I know that many, many people don't have, that my husband could make a salary that would put food on our table and a roof over our heads. So he's like, what do you want to do? Do you want to write? Do you want to go back to work? Do what you want. And he really encouraged me.
to pursue my passions. And so that's where the writing came in and the books and the podcasts and all of the things. And so I sort of fell into this calling, if you will. I feel like it's public health adjacent, honestly. I don't think that my education was for nothing. think all education is good to learn how to think and to understand the world better. But it was not the path that I certainly envisioned for myself as I was.
Sharon (06:36)
Right.
Natalie Silverstein (06:50)
toiling away in graduate school.
Sharon (06:52)
You know, it's interesting, so many moms that I have interviewed end up doing things that if you had said to them five or 10 years in the past, you know, in the future, you're going to be doing X, they'd all say no way. And so what is so interesting is
Natalie Silverstein (07:01)
of course.
Sharon (07:03)
the fact that he said, Hey, what do you want to do? You know, and that, yes, you had the opportunity and the optionality to do that. from
listening to your podcasts, which I love,
it comes across loud and clear that you have a beautiful and an expansive heart. so, and it sort of makes me think of when we first met, you were hosting an event for someone that you actually,
had just met that day.
So what was it about the volunteering and the philanthropy that
that really spoke to you?
Natalie Silverstein (07:35)
Well, I think there are two things. The first is, and this is really where the books came in and all of that work that I do, in raising young children here in New York City, which is a city of tremendous wealth and tremendous need. So we are eight million people across the absolute spectrum from one end to the other of folks who can do a lot of helping and maybe they do or they don't, and a lot of people who need our help, including many people and families and children who live
unfortunately, who are experiencing homelessness. So I looked around our city and I'm raising these young kids and let's say they were, you know, eight, five and two. And I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't find organizations, nonprofits that would accept us as volunteers. And I think everyone listening can relate to this. If you have young children, most food pantries, soup kitchens,
homeless outreach, they're not going to accept you as a volunteer because your children are under the age of 14, 16 or what have you. I kind of refused to accept that because I think I understood or I sort of knew instinctively, as I think all moms will agree, that the way to raise grateful, grounded, empathetic, compassionate, good human beings is to engage them in service and to teach them that they're
is someone else outside of themselves, that there is a whole world of people who have different lived experiences, who have different needs. I also firmly believe that we are not coming in here saving anybody as swooping in, you know, as some sort of superhero. We are helping today because someday we're gonna need help ourselves. And so that's how I try and teach my kids. This is, I firmly believe this is living our values on a day-to-day basis.
And so we prioritize so many other things as parents, right? We prioritize the all-day hockey tournament and the soccer tournament and the gymnastics and the ballet and let me go on and on and on and on. And yet we can't seem to find an hour out of that very busy weekend to go to the soup kitchen or to the food pantry. And so as I'm raising my kids, I'm super frustrated that I want to take them out in the community. I want them to work. I want them to see the needs of others and to feel compassion for that. And I couldn't find organizations that were willing to accept us.
So that was sort of the threshold for, I'm going to figure this out. I started curating a listing of family-friendly volunteer opportunities here in New York City for an organization called Doing Good Together. And then that just opened this door for me where people would come to me. I became that lady in the community. Like, we have all these coats to donate. Where should we donate them? my kid has a bar mitzvah coming up. Where should he volunteer? I became the service person.
Sharon (10:16)
So
you became the community organizer that everybody was hoping to find, but didn't exist. So you really created that niche that didn't exist before.
Natalie Silverstein (10:26)
Absolutely. In fact, I was going to start my own website or, you know, listserv or something because it just didn't exist for families, family friendly. There's plenty of stuff for adults to volunteer, right? Like any adult listening knows that they Google right now, they can find 10 places that will take them. But there are very few or there were certainly 20 years ago, very few listings of family friendly volunteer opportunities. So I started doing that work. I became that person. I also want to point out
Sharon (10:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Natalie Silverstein (10:52)
I didn't invent anything here, right? I was just sort of going out and curating this stuff that already existed. Or I was very importantly pushing back on nonprofits who would say, no, no, we can't possibly have a 10-year-old to volunteer. It's too dangerous. And then I would say, well, what if I accompany her and I sign a release form? And they're like, OK, if you're going to come, sure. And then I think to myself, of course I'm going to come. I'm not dropping my 10-year-old off at your
profit. that became my passion and my purpose was to help families to find these opportunities.
Sharon (11:27)
we have a local one that our family has been involved with since our kids have been very young. But we always went with them because I think it's really important. It's not about us dropping them off. It's about us modeling for our kids. Here's what we do as a family. Here's what we do to try to make our little space of the world just slightly better and more equal and helping the people who need the assistance. And I think in that there's a huge and a beautiful lesson.
Natalie Silverstein (11:34)
We'll see.
Sharon (11:54)
in sort of all holding hands together and doing that together.
Natalie Silverstein (11:57)
Absolutely, creating family traditions around service, right? Doing this around milestones, birthdays, again, bar and bat mitzvah, quinceanera, whatever it is. Like there are so many opportunities that I think people kind of just, again, it's so obvious, but then they don't actually think about it. So when I make presentations to parents, associations or whatever, they're always like, yeah, I never thought of that.
Sharon (12:18)
The issue
is
There's so much opportunity out there. People just have to find it.
Okay, mom skills. Share with my listeners your top two or three and how they were instrumental in what you're doing right now.
Natalie Silverstein (13:35)
Okay, well, the first is really not a mom skill, but it is a skill set that I honed while I was staying at home with my kids, which was fundraising. Actually asking people for money. And it's funny, I was the annual fund chair for my kids' school, and I'm the development chair of another board that I'm on, and I just figured out, weirdly, while I was staying at home with my kids, that I'm actually pretty good at asking people for money. And the reason is that I'm not asking for myself.
And everyone's like, my gosh, I'm so scared to ask people for money. It's so uncomfortable. What if they say no? Okay, they'll say no. Water off a duck's back, you say thank you so much for listening and you move on to the next person, right? But what's also really critical about asking for money or fundraising is I'm not asking for myself. And I'm here to tell you why I am supporting this cause. I am donating to my children's school because I want to make it a better school for my kid.
Sharon (14:08)
They say no.
Natalie Silverstein (14:29)
and your kid and all of the kids. I want us all to work together as a community to strengthen this community so that everyone thrives, everyone benefits, right? That is the skillset of a really good fundraiser is to convince, to have a great compelling story, personal story about why you believe in this work and why you support it yourself. And you ask someone else to join you in supporting this work.
So I started doing this for the kids' school and for the Parents Association. Again, everyone who's listening is nodding like, uh-huh, the bake sale and the book fair and all of it, right? But you are learning these kind of critical skills, budgeting, fundraising, all of this good stuff.
Sharon (15:12)
persuasive speaking, right? We do that with our kids. That's what you use to try to get someone to understand,
why they should be donating to fill in the blank nonprofit or cause. And those are all incredible skills that you are honing.
why you're with your kids because we do that with our kids every single day. And I'll also point out that everyone listening to this,
probably every single one of us has done nonprofit work, volunteered in one way, or form. So this is really just a beautiful continuation of those skills that we've done, having an open heart and going out there and just doing it.
Natalie Silverstein (15:45)
Absolutely. And listen, when I was president of the Parents Association, right, what is that? That's managing people. That's committee work. That's getting, I mean, it is truly the grunt work of the school that they kind of hand over to typically, I don't mean to generalize, typically the women, right? I always used to, my joke was like, the most overeducated, underutilized group of women you've ever seen on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I mean, we had lawyers and doctors.
and PhDs and they're all sitting around a table like how can we raise money for this thing? How can we get more computers? How can we raise the teachers salaries like you know the schools would do well to really tap into that energy and to that fire because why? We're doing this for our kids. We want them to have the most opportunity right? So I think there is a lot if somebody should write a book about the
Sharon (16:26)
100%.
Natalie Silverstein (16:35)
the leadership skills that you hone at the PA, the Parents Association table. all of these things that I kind of learned and honed while I was doing this, really a lot of volunteer work when the kids were small. I also think that
I'm a person who can prioritize the things that matter.
right now and the things that don't. And so time management and prioritization of the things that actually need to get done that are gonna make us happy and healthy and well, and the things that can maybe be put off until tomorrow or the things that if we're stuck, we can put a pin in it and come back to it. And this is a skill that I honed obviously at home with my children trying to manage all of their schedules and their lives and all of the other commitments that I had made.
But I truly think
as women, just kind of naturally do this typically. And our kids really need to learn how to do this because prioritizing what matters goes back to what I said before, right? Like we all could spin our wheels a million times about all the things that our kids need to do for enrichment and to get into that college and to list on their activities list. At the end of the day, let's focus on maybe,
the service work that we can do that will gain them human skills, relationship building skills, empathy, compassion, connection to other people, the stories that they'll hear, the people that they'll learn from. I think those things are life-changing and that's prioritizing those things and saying, this other stuff can kind of wait until tomorrow or until next weekend. And so I feel like that executive functioning, which is of course a phrase you and I didn't.
ever used when we were growing up. But that is probably my number one skill that I've gained from parenting these kids and that I use every single day now still, and certainly in my philanthropy work.
Sharon (18:12)
Not what we know, but our kids for sure. Yeah.
Right. And I also think
introducing kids to the nonprofit world, it opens their eyes in such a beautiful
And as
friend that we know, Heidi Johnson, when I interviewed Heidi, she talked about that dopamine hit that you get when you do something for somebody else.
and it just makes you feel so good. And that is a real reaction that happens in the body, that dopamine hit.
Natalie Silverstein (18:44)
scientifically proven research. This is how I always start all of my my sessions with kids and adults. Like this is research-based science. Doing for others makes you feel better about yourself. So if you're having a bad day and you're navel-gazing, the one thing I can guarantee you that's gonna make you feel better is to go out and help somebody else. That's just the truth.
Sharon (19:03)
Yeah, that
is so true. So let's talk about pursuing your passions.
And I think it's something that sometimes we need that gentle nudge to be able to take those first baby steps.
you said something so wonderful.
and it is so true, you said you miss 100 % of the things you don't ask for. So what is your advice on this topic and how did you integrate that into your own life
Natalie Silverstein (19:23)
Well, first of all, that's the great Wayne Gretzky, right? He said, you miss 100 % of the shots you don't take. And he meant that about hockey, but I use that all the time with my kids, which is, you know, in my writing, in all of the work, if I've written something and I don't share it with anyone, then no one will have read it, right? If I don't submit it, there's no chance that it's gonna be read. If I submitted it it's rejected, okay, fine. But at least I tried, right? And so maybe I get some feedback and then maybe I can...
change it a little bit or edit it a little bit and put it back out into the world. But, you know, I am just a believer that we there's nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Like not to keep using these platitudes, but like truly we can spin and spin and spin on wonderful ideas. And I think that this happens a lot with women. Women have these incredible ideas, but maybe they feel like it's not quite ready yet, or maybe they feel like they don't have the resources around them to try. Like
you know, again, another good one leap and the net will appear, right? So I was in a writing class a few years back, just creative writing, personal writing. And we would all sit around and just parse these things and parse them and edit them and edit them. And then finally, like I would say to them, ladies, just submit it. Just, because I promise you men don't sit around and edit this thing 10,000 times and eat their hearts out about it. They just throw it out there and think it's the best thing that ever happened.
Sharon (20:44)
now.
Natalie Silverstein (20:50)
So no one who's reading your piece knows what wasn't there before or that you edited out, right? Just put it out into the world and see what happens. Just see what flies, right? So that most of the good things that have happened to me over the course of my career are because I literally just sent an email or
I just tried and sure, a lot of times you fail. mean, that's how you learn and that's...
Sharon (21:15)
It's life.
Yeah.
Natalie Silverstein (21:16)
That's
life, but I hope if nothing else, my whole sort of writing career is an example to my kids and to others that without just kind of putting yourself out there, you'll never know. The reason the first book got published, and I think this is a really important story, I wrote a proposal, I bought a book about how to write a proposal, and so I thought, it was called sort of like the 24-hour or the 48-hour book proposal.
I used it literally letter for letter. This is the intro. This is what you need to do. Put together this proposal. I had a friend who looked it over. She's made a few suggestions. I did all of the things she said. I cleaned it up. I stuck it in a brown paper envelope, which is going to be hard for people to believe. it. I mean, this is the first one came out and whatever it was. Mailed it in the US postal mail to Griffin House, which is a publisher that I knew had published
Sharon (21:58)
That is really back in the day. Okay.
Natalie Silverstein (22:12)
similar books about service and kindness, but there hadn't been one in many, many years. That literally would normally, to whom it may concern, not even to a person, that would normally go in the trash, as you and I both know. Some woman, a mom, picked it up out of the slush pile, which is what they call that, and was intrigued because she does service with her teenage son. And she called me and said, I saw your proposal. I'm interested. Can you make the following changes? And I'm going to go to bat with my editorial team.
And that's how my first book got published. There was no advance. I had no agent. So when I tell people that story, they cannot believe it because that's certainly not how publishing works. But I would suggest to you it kind of is like you can self-publish. There are hybrid models. There's all of these things. And I had made a promise to myself when I was like 48 or 49. I wanted to publish something, anything, an article online, a book, a something, anything. I wanted to have something out there that I had written in the public by the time I was 50.
Sharon (22:44)
That is.
Natalie Silverstein (23:11)
And I will tell you that that book came out in April of the year that I turned 50 that summer.
Sharon (23:16)
Natalie, I really love what you said. It's about putting yourself out there. And I had worked for someone once who said, done is better than perfect. And you just want to get it done. It's good enough. Put it out there. And if they want you to make changes, they'll come back and they'll tell you that. And if they don't, great, it's out there. It's published.
Natalie Silverstein (23:24)
Uh-huh.
Sharon (23:34)
you really just have to take that first step. I like to call it getting that monkey off your back. and then, you know, okay, I can do this, you know, I've got the pitch letter, I've got the proposal, I've got whatever it is I need. I have the ideas and
Natalie Silverstein (23:38)
Absolutely.
Sharon (23:47)
I can go and do it.
Natalie, I want to chat for a minute about your podcast,
Simple Acts, big impact. It is unique. It is short and digestible. But what I really love about it is that you're talking to the kids and these kids have done incredible things. They've started nonprofits and you're picking brains of kids who are, you know, literally teenagers.
Natalie Silverstein (24:05)
some of them are even younger. I mean, I've interviewed nine-year-olds, 12-year-olds. So the second book was for teens, right? The first book came out. Everyone said, this is wonderful, but it was really for families with young children. The day of my book release, someone came over to me and said, this is great, but can you write one for teens? And I'm like, could I just enjoy this moment of this one book that I published? It's a miracle. So the second book was published for teenagers specifically, and it was written for teenagers versus
the first book being written for parents. And in the process of the research for that book, I learned about all of these incredible young people who I knew were out there, obviously, but I just started reading these stories and I started going down these rabbit holes on Instagram.
of these young change makers who had started nonprofits that were doing advocacy work, fundraising, you name it. I mean, you'll see them sometimes in People Magazine or on national news. They'll do like, you know, someone who does service in their community. But when it's a young person, I think it's really special because it means that something spoke to them enough that they wanted to go out there and do this, do something special.
I started to kind of recruit these young people and I said, I'm going to have a podcast where I am amplifying and celebrating these voices and letting them tell us their story. Literally from soup to nuts. I want to hear the spark, the inspiration, how it got started, and then tell me all about your organization. Tell me what your future plans are. Tell me any challenges that you faced and then let us know how we can support you follow, you know, all that good stuff.
And my sweet spot is between 12 and 17 minutes, about 15 minutes. It's every Wednesday morning and it is the greatest source of joy and inspiration for me because I get off the phone with these kids and I just feel like there's some hope in these fairly dark and hopeless times. It's nice to hear from young people who had a spark of inspiration because they were seven or eight years old and they were walking down the street and they saw a person living marginally or experiencing homelessness and said to their parent,
could that person come home and stay with us? And when their parents said, no, I don't think that that would be okay, but why don't we think about what else we could do? And now this young man who I'm referencing runs like a truck with homeless outreach in Atlanta where he gives away blessing bags and food. I mean, it's hard to talk to a kid like that and not feel like, all hope is not lost.
for...
Sharon (26:30)
And they're changing the world in their own small way.
And, and
I say to any mom, right?
they'll have all sorts of, sometimes we call them crazy ideas, but if something is so resonating with your child, they run with it
Natalie Silverstein (26:44)
Well, that's whole thing about my work, right, is helping kids find their purpose through their passion. I hate it when people say, I'm going to make my kid go and volunteer at X, Y, and Z. No, why don't you? Because they won't actually want to do that. Why don't you let them tell you what they're passionate about, what they care about, and how they might want to contribute. And I guarantee you, if you do that, they will want to continue to do that work. And it will be meaningful. And it will change their lives.
Sharon (26:57)
Right.
Right. And also not that you have to volunteer, how about you get the opportunity to volunteer? Just rephrasing it in another way, but it is, and to get that dopamine hit and to feel so good in your heart because you are helping other people, you get to have that opportunity.
Natalie Silverstein (27:16)
We get to. Absolutely.
Right.
Absolutely.
Sharon (27:30)
So Natalie, you had a major family challenge that has also impacted your philanthropy. So would you like to share what that is?
Natalie Silverstein (27:40)
Sure, we had and continue to have. So my very young husband was diagnosed with a genetic form of Parkinson's disease prior to him turning 50. So that was a shock and obviously really kind of threw our whole family for a loop. My kids were pretty young when that happened. So luckily, if you can say that, he actually had worked in healthcare venture capital. So he had access to and relationships with a lot of scientists.
really brilliant people who were working on drugs and cures and all this sort of stuff. We also had a relationship with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. So we were able to set up a foundation to specifically look for a cure for his particular kind of, which is a genetic form again. So we set up this foundation, which isn't about helping folks with finding other types of resources or support or anything. It's really focused.
on scientifically finding a cure for his kind of Parkinson's. Of course, that ends up being partnerships with wonderful organizations like Michael J. Fox and the Parkinson's Foundation. So this really tough thing that happened to our family, we turned it into an opportunity to potentially help my husband that may or may not ultimately help him, but to help other people with this condition and also with other types of Parkinson's, right? Because anything that you discover,
for one type of a disease is likely going to have some implications for others with the disease. So in starting the foundation, we raised money, we raised a lot of awareness, we give a lot of grants, we have a fellowship program.
everything happens for a reason, of. He had his life experience, his work experience, his connections, and I literally had a degree and had worked in and was a very organized person.
So I knew about grant making and grant writing. I knew about running an organization like this, a nonprofit. I had the complete skill set that we needed to run the foundation. So for all intents and purposes, I'm the executive director of the foundation and the co-founder and board member, et cetera. So it's a classic case of taking your hard, taking your painful personal tragedy.
It's a horrible disease. And to turn it into something potentially good. And also it gives my husband and myself something just positive and hopeful to work towards. he gets emails a lot from folks, we both do, who were recently diagnosed or whatever. And he always signs off with, hopeful. And I think that that's what this work does.
Sharon (30:15)
I think you have a very definite through line in your entire life. Like what I said at the very beginning, that you have found something so early on that just was so inherent to who you are. It is who you are,
I see the veins just running through all aspects of your life.
So we are, unfortunately time is drawing to a close for us today. This has been so,
expansive and hopeful.
But I have a question that I ask all of my amazing moms. have the privilege of interviewing. And that is since this is the Mom to More podcast, Natalie Silverstein, what is your more?
Natalie Silverstein (30:51)
I would say that my more is, you know, just always be a little kinder than necessary. I actually think that that's what it is. And that could be kinder to yourself, you know, as a caregiver, because that's what I am. And that's what we all are. Right. Whether there is someone in your home who has a health condition or not, we are caregivers for our children, our parents, our friends, ourselves. So just
Sharon (31:07)
May
ourselves. Yeah.
Natalie Silverstein (31:18)
Be a little kinder than necessary always to yourself and to others because, know, again, these platitudes run around because they are so true. You really don't know what other people are going through. And so I say this to my kids all the time when they come home complaining about someone or something. I always remind them like, maybe that person was, something was going on with them. Maybe somebody had a really bad day.
give others grace, give yourself some grace.
and certainly give others grace, particularly right now.
kindness will never fail you. Just be kind.
Sharon (31:54)
It's a beautiful way to end. And on that note, be kind, please tell everyone where they can find you online and folks, everything is going to be in the show notes.
Natalie Silverstein (32:02)
Yes, so on Instagram and Facebook, it's Simple Acts Guide, and that's also the website, simpleactsguide.com. And there's a link there to the podcast. You can also find the podcast, obviously, on Apple Podcasts and Google and Spotify and all those good things. But if you follow me there,
Sharon (32:21)
Natalie Silverstein,
I so appreciate your time and your wisdom and your insights and just your beautiful heart. So thank you for that today.
Natalie Silverstein (32:29)
So much Sharon, that's so kind. Thank you.