[Danielle Balocca]: Hey listeners, this is Danielle. And Shelley. Shelley is a radical Dravidian and racial equity activist.
[Chelli Keshavan]: And Danielle is a community mobilizer and changemaker. And this is the Medford Bites podcast. Every two weeks, we chew on the issues facing Medford and deliver bites of information about the city by lifting the expertise of our guests.
[Danielle Balocca]: Join us in discussion about what you hope for the future of Medford. And as always, tell us where you like to eat. Alright, thanks for being here with me today. If you don't mind introducing yourself with your name, pronouns, and just a bit about who you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. So my name is Brianna Laquadara. My pronouns are she, her. I'm an aesthetic registered nurse in Woburn. I've been doing that for about two years now and I love it. And, um, I started a nonprofit this year called Defend Our Community, and I'm really excited to kind of teach everyone about it and what we have going on.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Brianna. So before we get into talking more about your nonprofit, I just want to ask you the question that we ask everybody on the podcast, which is, what is your favorite place to eat in Medford and what do you like to eat there?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is such a good question. There's so many good restaurants here, so I feel like this is really hard to answer, but if I have to go with my tried and true, I'm a big Rassos fan. I love any type of vodka dish that they have there. They're knock me out. I think it's called as delicious. So we definitely are big Rassos fans, but I would also love to give a shout out to Foe Town, which is also in Medford. I'm real far there. I don't know if you've been there before. It's so good.
[Danielle Balocca]: Oh, great. When you were starting to say anything vodka, I thought you were going in a different direction, but yes, so funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome. Yeah. No vodka puts me to sleep at their vodka sauce.
[Danielle Balocca]: Sounds great. Yeah. Um, so if you could tell us a little bit about the nonprofit that you started and kind of like what brought you to, um, to starting that, that'd be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally. So the idea came to me actually in 2025, I would say around September, October. Kind of an interesting story how the idea came to me. Long story short, I was in one of my therapy sessions, just kind of talking about, you know, the general state of the world and what's going on right now. Because I think it's hitting most of us really deeply right now. It's a really, really tough time. um, for marginalized communities, just being a human being in general. And my therapist kind of gave me the idea. She was like, you know, instead of being sad and crying every single day, she was like, have you ever thought about activism? And, um, I've always been a very vocal person my whole life. Um, I'm Italian, so I never shut up as is, but from kind of like a, a physical movement standpoint of activism, I had never kind of stepped into that realm before. And I really think that that kind of changed my approach in my thinking and how I wanted to take things on within like activism purposes. So it really was my therapist that kind of catapulted me into this. And I essentially was just like, who are the marginalized communities that need the most help right now? And like, what can we do to help them? So long story short, I posted on my Instagram story, I was like, who wants to help out with this cause? day one, we had 35 small businesses reach out to us, which is like unbelievable. I was like, I hope one person cares about this and wants to help out. So 35 people day one, And over the last couple of months, we've ended up with 52 vendors, which is just like unbelievable. And, um, I think it's really heartwarming to see that too, because it shows how many people care about what's going on right now. Um, so we have 52 small businesses involved and, um, we came up with the name Defender Community and it is for marginalized communities in particular. Embrace Boston, um, which their mission statement, I have right in front front of me. Oh, it disappeared. So Embrace Boston is for the BIPOC community helping combat racism in Boston through art and numerous other avenues. GLAAD, which is for the LGBTQ plus community to ensure fair, accurate, and inclusive representation of them and acceptance. And then Mirror Coalition, which is for immigrants to advance their rights and opportunities for refugees and immigrants across Massachusetts.
[Danielle Balocca]: Wow, so your, I think we maybe skipped a big detail there which was that you're, you're planning an event which is a fundraiser to raise money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, yes. So we have our event called Defend Our Community. It's on April 30th, 2026. We are hosting it at Artists for Humanity, which is in Boston, Mass. Incredible venue. They do a lot of work with them. They're actually a nonprofit as well. They do artwork for teens, LGBTQ. So I was like, this is probably one of the best venues in Boston that we could host this at. But yes, it's April 30th with 52 vendors, four drag queens, cocktails, dancing, live music, $20,000 in raffle giveaways. And it's to benefit Mirror Coalition, GLAAD, and Embrace.
[Danielle Balocca]: That sounds like an ambitious event, but it sounds like there's a lot of people signed on to help out. So that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, and I'm so excited. We've actually actively been doing interviews for board positions, so if anyone listening to this podcast is interested or kind of wants to get their hands into this situation in any way, the way I view it is the more the merrier. The more people that we can encourage to speak up, stand up, and kind of, you know, support the people that need our help right now, the more the merrier, you know.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, I think my next question was going to be kind of how do you hope this impacts Medford?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, that's a great question. So the organizations, the nonprofits that we're working with are basically all across Massachusetts. So whether it's Medford, Boston, kind of anywhere else, it should help and uplift the marginalized communities of Medford and the greater Boston area in general. I would also, though, love to have more Medford residents involved in general, because right now it's more so Boston, Woburn, kind of other surrounding towns. So I would kind of love to pull in more Medford residents and get them involved. Cause I think it's really important to, to not only, you know, have one or two people making decisions, but to have multiple minds coming together to help support these communities.
[Danielle Balocca]: And for the vendors, what, what kind of vendors are you talking about for the, like, what are you looking for? Are you still looking for more vendors for the event in April?
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent question. So every vendor under the sun that you could imagine, we have like 10 med spas coming, estheticians, hairdressers, physical therapy, massage therapists, yoga studio. trying to think of who else is coming, vintage clothing and jewelry. We're so lucky to have so many different types of people coming. With vendors, I would say maybe we could fit one to two more. I also want to make sure that we don't overpower the room with like a million vendors and then have not as many attendees to be able to fit in. But from like a Defend Our Community organization perspective, We welcome anyone and everyone to apply to be a board member, just a part of the organization in general. We welcome as many people as possible.
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it seems like you started talking about how you kind of came to the place to want to start this nonprofit. And it sounds like it came from this place of kind of feeling helpless and wanting your therapist sort of suggesting activism be an antidote to some of that helplessness. And it sounds like you've also created an opportunity for other people in our community to have some kind of way to feel active around some of this stuff. And so it sounds like also there's an opportunity for people to donate to the event or to buy tickets. How do people find more information about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Excellent question. So I can definitely, I'll send you my website to attach to the podcast, but there's so many ways to donate to the cause. People can buy tickets, which is definitely the top priority we would love is to have people physically there, um, you know, enjoying dinner with us, cocktails, networking, um, and just showing up for these communities that need our support right now. But people can also donate to the cause on our website. Um, it is a 501 nonprofit. So. tax-wise and all that people can donate to the cause and we would so so appreciate it.
[Danielle Balocca]: And you started to say there's like dinner and cocktails what can people and vendors like what can people expect from the event if they buy tickets?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. So dinner, we have a few different courses that night. This is a more interactive event, which I also kind of wanted to highlight as well. I have been to a few galas where, you know, it's a nice sit down dinner. You kind of sit for a couple hours. This is a very interactive event. Of course, if people need seating space, they can sit during the event. But this is very interactive. We want you mingling with each other, going around to the 52 vendors, entering in their raffles. We have four drag queen performances. So they're not just coming to the event, they're performing, they're gonna slay the house boots down, I can't wait. Live DJ, curated cocktails, just a very lively, fun, loud event. And I'm just so excited for it.
[Danielle Balocca]: That's really fun. Is there anything else that you wanna share about either your nonprofit or the event or anything else you've talked about so far?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, totally. I think a couple minutes ago you brought up such a good point of how I was feeling so hopeless and why I kind of started this. I think so many of us are feeling hopeless right now and we're all kind of looking for ways to like help and combat what's happening towards marginalized communities right now. And what I've learned through this personal situation is like getting involved in kind of redirecting your anxiety, your sadness, your anger towards what's going on into a productive event really makes such a difference for these communities and for yourself. Because instead of kind of handling it the way that I was, which was just like crying in my room every single day, I just feel so much more empowered seeing how many people care about what's going on. and how strong community is when we come together and say, we're going to stand up against this, you know?
[Danielle Balocca]: Yeah, it sounds like really powerful and I hope it's a really successful fundraiser and like, you know, continuation of your nonprofit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. Thank you so much. I feel so honored and excited to be on the podcast. And like I said, anyone in Medford, anywhere, any, anybody, anywhere, but especially in Medford, because I am a Medford resident. We would love to have you involved. We would love to have you at the event. And I hope to see you all there.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks, Brianna. And I'll put all that information in our show notes so people can access it a little more easily. But thanks so much for being with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, thank you so much.
[Danielle Balocca]: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. The Medford Bites podcast is produced and moderated by Danielle Balacca and Shelly Kisherman. Music is made by Hendrick Guidonis. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. You can reach out to us by email at medfordpod at gmail.com, or you can rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. Guys, what's the name of the podcast? Medford Bites. Medford Bites. Good job.