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Hello, I want to welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell, laughing in the face of motherhood.

This is Margaret. This is Amy. Today we're

talking to Susan Sutton. She is the founder of the Ember Project, a nonprofit that supports

teen and early mothers with mentorship, education, financial literacy, and real community. Welcome,

Susan. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

Let's start by talking about the Ember Project, what it is and what led you to start it.

Absolutely. So Ember stands for early mothers become empowered and resilient. And what led me to

start it was becoming a mother in the 10th grade and, you know, thinking about all of the things that I needed, the

services I needed, the support that I needed, and it wasn't there, you know, that follows

you all through life. And as I got older and the Big 5-0 was looming, I started feeling this

need to do something memorable, something that I could leave behind that people would remember

years and years later. And I had always said that if I won the lottery, I would do something

for teen mothers. Well, I didn't win the lottery, but I was lucky enough to claw my way out

of living in poverty for many, many decades and raising my kids on my own. And I had got to the point where I had a really good career and was making enough money that I felt

I could actually start to help and do some things that I wanted to do for teen mothers in general.

And so I started the Ember Project and it's kind of taken on a life of its own.

We're just in our first year and it honestly, it's coming together. I believe that the universe is putting the people that I need to meet in my path. Things like this podcast. I mean, I was so excited. Anytime I'm going to be traveling for work, I look for a new podcast. And I was like, oh my, I need to know these folks.

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