Amber Nicole Cannan | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Jenny is here, of course at the news table. And actually, actually I'm gonna let you introduce our guests because you've gotten an ore more than I more than I have. So uh but it is for a second time on the show. Go ahead and introduce Amber.

0:13 Speaker 2: I know I put you on the Great Commissioner of the best city in the world.

0:18 Speaker 1: Hello, good morning Amber Nicole Cannon. I mean we should probably should probably throw her name in there.

0:23 Speaker 3: I was letting your finish for giggle far Oh.

0:25 Speaker 1: Okay, I gotcha.

0:27 Speaker 3: Do you like to use the phone or do you like Amber?

0:29 Speaker 4: I'm Amber Nicole. Yeah, like if people call me Amber, but it's it feels more like me to be Amber Nicole.

0:36 Speaker 3: Okay, I like that.

0:37 Speaker 1: Okay, I got that. And uh so you're the commissioner now.

0:41 Speaker 4: Well I'm I'm a one of the public works.

0:44 Speaker 1: Oh I was gonna say, Okay, I thought I thought you were here to arrest us for something.

0:47 Speaker 3: I'm wanting you for the bat signal.

0:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't know what was going on.

0:50 Speaker 4: No, No, I'm not involved in police force at all. Okay, I'm about roads and sidewalks. I really like accessible sidewalks and bike lanes. Bike lanes make me very happy. I'm also very interested apparently in city plumbing, water treatment, and school repairs, building repairs.

1:10 Speaker 1: Well, very good, very good. Now, how do you how because you and Jenny have collaborated recently right on something or some things.

1:18 Speaker 5: We've been very fortunate.

1:19 Speaker 1: Yes, what have you been doing?

1:22 Speaker 5: Well?

1:23 Speaker 4: So the reason, the thing that got me all involved in all this road and sidewalk and bike lanes stuff is I have disabilities, and my time in the city with disabilities was really challenging. So my visible disabilities right when I was in a wheelchair for a year and I had no energy to take care of anything. At that point, i'd go home crying regularly because I couldn't do the grocery shopping. But once I got out of the wheelchair, now I you know, people don't know I'm disabled if they just look at me.

1:57 Speaker 4: It's a lot easier for me to get around. So I have a little more energy. So I thought i'd put it into making the city a little bit more accessible. And so I do that mostly just by sitting in the monthly Department of Public Works meetings saying the words sidewalks and bike lanes. I think that's most of what I do, and they're doing a good job too. More so now like they have more people that are thinking about sidewalks and bike lanes and staff and people who are pushing towards that, but their funding keeps getting cut.

2:26 Speaker 4: Of course, sure, so they're struggling to keep the bike lanes and the roads in good shape, not to mention the sidewalks and the curb cuts and all those kinds of things.

2:34 Speaker 1: So what are some examples of things, Because obviously, you know, we have a lot of listeners locally in Manchester, but we also have people who listen online from other cities as well. But I think what you're talking about is relatable to anybody in any city, right, because this is a challenge absolutely anywhere everywhere, and probably well not just cities too, right, probably even more so in small towns in some ways, because they in smaller places, they probably think about this off even less.

3:00 Speaker 1: Right.

3:01 Speaker 4: Way, in small towns, right, you might have a really really small center right where there might be sidewalks for houses, but then because the houses are more spread out, becomes exponentially more expensive per capita, right to put a sidewalk in that. They're like, oh, no, one's going to use that, but then that one person does, but also they can't use it if you don't put it there, And people aren't going to want to walk on a busy road, especially in winter when the roads get even narrower. So I'm always pushing for like really stable flat sidewalks with our curve cuts and tactile strips.

3:34 Speaker 4: I'm looking at a picture behind you right now of something that looks like that. It's in pretty good shape, and plenty of crosswalks because and traffic calming measures. I'm a big fan of traffic calming measures, yes, because I walk a lot of places. My disabilities currently sometimes keep me from driving. So I want a city where people can walk safely. I want a city where kids can leave Central High School and walk to the Career Museum of Art after school. And right now, that's kind of iffy, you know what I mean?

4:05 Speaker 4: Like, maybe maybe I don't want to do that because there are cars literally parked on the sidewalk.

4:10 Speaker 1: When you say a traffic calming measure, I think I know what you mean. But for those who don't know, or maybe I'm wrong, I don't want to assume anything. What do you mean by that?

4:18 Speaker 4: Oh, there's so many good ones. My favorite one right now, at least because I have a favorite one right now, is bump outs.

4:23 Speaker 5: Okay.

4:24 Speaker 4: And what this does is it's when you know cars turning. If you watch the video behind you, you see they turn and there's plenty of space between them and the sidewalk. And what we can do is we can take that space back for pedestrians, shorten that crossing distance, and it shortens the amount of time people spend in the intersection, therefore reducing the times that they might get hits.

4:46 Speaker 1: Right.

4:47 Speaker 4: And actually, oh my gosh, this is so funny. Yesterday I did literally get hit. It was really really slow.

4:52 Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I was.

4:52 Speaker 4: I was in a crosswalk and the guy just didn't look right, and I was. I was in a bright pink jacket, I wasn't in brown, I was. I'm usually very brightly dressed, and and I was walking in front of this this gold suv thing, and because he parked, he stopped in the crosshoks. I'm like, okay, I guess I gotta stop in front of him. But he was looking and left under the you know, traffic coming on and not right at all. And so I'm in front of him and he bumps into me.

5:16 Speaker 5: It was real slow.

5:17 Speaker 4: It was real slow, so I, you know, pounded on his head like, hey, I'm walking here, and.

5:22 Speaker 1: Like in uh, Urban Cowboy or not? Is Urban Cowboy?

5:27 Speaker 2: No?

5:28 Speaker 1: No, not Urban Cowboy.

5:29 Speaker 3: One of the movies?

5:33 Speaker 1: What is uh?

5:34 Speaker 4: Anyway, it was it's a media reference that I'm not, you know, and.

5:40 Speaker 3: I'm walking here. Yeah, I can see it, but I can't see it.

5:44 Speaker 1: I'm embarrassed anyway, I'm sorry I derailed you.

5:47 Speaker 5: Go ahead, No, it's fine.

5:48 Speaker 4: I know the meme, not the movie, and I just I just kept walking like like and this is not the first time either, but so that's like super low speed. Like my thigh was just bummed. But you know, there are people that are dying in the city because of because of challenges with pedestrian and vehicle interactions.

6:07 Speaker 5: To say it.

6:08 Speaker 4: Lightly, so bumpouts are a great one. The other thing they can do is they can narrow the roads, and when you narrow the roads, the cars feel like they need to go slower to be safe, which is really great. So it reduces speeding. Other traffic calming measures bringing our two lane one ways to one lane so we don't get people like trying to race down them, and that has worked on like Maple streets.

6:33 Speaker 5: It's great.

6:34 Speaker 4: And then it added the bike lane, which has really made things a lot easier to get around if you use a wheelchair in the winter or a stroller, because our sidewalks don't always get plowed quickly, so they're using people in wheelchairs and using strollers are using the bike lanes in the winter because they do get plowed.

6:51 Speaker 2: Okay, but I don't like the bike lane being in the middle of the road.

6:53 Speaker 4: I agree, i'd like it protected, but it's a first step. I see it as a first step towards more biking infrastructure.

7:00 Speaker 1: But I do like, though, you know what you're referring to when you take the two lane one way and put it down to one lane, because there's aways people who are gonna complain, well, well, it isn't traffic gonna be slower, But it really isn't, and it is safer. It's it's better for everybody.

7:12 Speaker 4: It's so I've never seen traffic on any of the streets. There's never been more than like five cars.

7:18 Speaker 1: And exactly exactly.

7:20 Speaker 5: Do we really need two lanes for that?

7:22 Speaker 1: Oh, by the way, I found I'm sorry it was Midnight Cowboy and I actually I actually have the Cliffer.

7:26 Speaker 3: But East Galt should want to buy it's motion.

7:29 Speaker 1: I'm a old and dignified social registered Times you know what I mean.

7:33 Speaker 2: They can't be trip down a Times Square to pick up the merchandise.

7:37 Speaker 1: And I gotta have some kind of middleman.

7:40 Speaker 3: And that's world.

7:40 Speaker 1: Daniel Compson, you know what I mean.

7:45 Speaker 5: I'm walking?

7:45 Speaker 1: Are there?

7:49 Speaker 5: You go?

7:50 Speaker 2: And the funny thing about that was that was not part of the movie.

7:54 Speaker 3: It was legit something. I saw some outtake on it saying that that wasn't actually.

7:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, that was impended, that that really happened.

8:03 Speaker 3: The really pull up on him like that and that's what he did. And they kept it in the movie.

8:07 Speaker 4: Real life experience city dwelling right there sall city. We're a small city, but it still happens.

8:12 Speaker 1: Oh does.

8:15 Speaker 2: Are the things that the city can do or does to try? And I don't know if I should say educate people or stop people or from because what my pet peeve is is when you go to a handicapped space and somebody parks their car on the lines next to it, between the handicap car and the ramp. You're trying to use to get on the sidewalk. Oh, I'm just gonna be here in a minute. I'm aren't in for food. And it's like and I don't think people understand that when you do that, sometimes what happens is the person who is going to use that space goes home.

8:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, because they don't spend their money business.

8:54 Speaker 2: They have no idea how long that why they can't get out of their car and go anywhere because you've just cut off the ramp.

9:00 Speaker 4: And we need that ramp sometimes to get in and out of our cars, right, and like, you can't get out of the car if that space is blocked.

9:08 Speaker 5: It's just like, yeah, like.

9:10 Speaker 2: A wheelchair user and you need to put a ramp down to get your wheelchair out, there's no way to get out. That's that space is part of the handicap parking space. It's not beside it. It's not a no parking zone. It's literally part of the handicapped space to enable somebody to be able to pull out a ramp and fully uxit their vehicle and safely get up onto the sidewalk. Because you know what you can't do very well in a wheelchair, especially the heavy electric.

9:35 Speaker 3: Ones, is jump a curb herbs. You can't jump the curb, you can't step up on the curb. You need the ramp.

9:42 Speaker 2: So when you park your car on the ramp, you trap the handicapped individual.

9:47 Speaker 4: Either in the restaurants in their car right, Like, it's no good. And there were so many times when I was so I had a variety of devices to get around. Sometimes it was a wheelchair, sometimes it was like a peg leg because I still had one good foot. But the number of times where like the only task I could really do to contribute to my family life was do the grocery shopping. I couldn't get the groceries out of the car and into the house, but I could do the shopping, and if I timed it right right, I could bring them home.

10:12 Speaker 4: My husband my partner would come home, unload the car, and I'd have done something helpful for us at the time, And it felt huge right to be able to contribute that way. And when the spaces were blocked, either because someone was parked in the parallel lines or people are like, oh, I'm just picking someone up, I'm waiting for them to come in and out, but you don't have an accessible placard. Then you're not supposed to be in that spot. I understand that people can have temporary disabilities, like you know all the time, but then you have to go and get your your placard, go through the process, get the placard.

10:44 Speaker 4: Absolutely, maybe you should have one.

10:46 Speaker 3: There are temporary handicap placards. That's what they're for.

10:50 Speaker 4: That's what they're for. And then I would not be able to accomplish my one task for the day, and I would go into businesses and I would tell them I was like, hey, you know, like in parking lots, grocery stores, you know that have accessible space spaces set aside just for their premise. And I go in science to be like, hey, do you know that you have a lot of people doing this that you know it's keeping me from being able to come in here, and they tell me it wasn't a priority. Like yeah, talk about the trauma that people with disabilities experience, just literally being told they're not a priority or the afterthought.

11:22 Speaker 1: And by the way, too for for people who do that, who do park in a handicapped spot when they shouldn't, you know, even if they're just a sociopath and they don't care about anybody else they should at least care that they might get a what is it, a five hundred dollars fine if you get caught doing that.

11:36 Speaker 4: True, you can call the parking department, yes and tell people that are and tell them yes. And they they've told me that they do like those tickets because they are such big generators for the city. Yes, so you know, do call the parking department. Their their numbers on their website and they say when they when they can, they'll send someone out.

11:56 Speaker 1: I saw it happen once in real time. I was at the not well, there was when we were on Elm Stream, there was that, but I also saw even before that, like years ago. I think it was when we first moved to Manchester. I was getting the mail downtown because we have a post office box, and I saw some some entitled jerk just you know, he parked across from the y but in one of the handicap spots.

12:16 Speaker 2: You in one of only two handicapped spots in that area.

12:20 Speaker 3: It's not like there's a bunch in that area.

12:22 Speaker 1: It's literally two and he's and he's uh, and he got, you know, he got. He's on his way back to his car and the parking. Parking enforcement guy was waiting for him, and excellent gave him a ticket. Good And of course the guy's arguing with him. You know, well, you know, I was only in there for a few minutes.

12:37 Speaker 2: And that's not the point, dude, And that's always the excuse. It's only a few minutes. Your only a few minutes. Stop somebody else's life exactly.

12:46 Speaker 3: In their tracks.

12:47 Speaker 2: They can't do anything, they can't go anywhere, they can't accomplish what they're doing. You can accomplish what you're accomplishing from any other location.

12:54 Speaker 3: They can't.

12:55 Speaker 2: So we had some hals happens, and I've seen it happen and I've done it myself. We go home, we can't get what we need to get done done where we gener go home, And that is in and of itself, is a really depressing thing to have happened. It's in disability life. Your limitations are such that anything you can do independently is a very valued.

13:18 Speaker 4: Yes, I say it sent me home in tears on more than one occasion.

13:23 Speaker 2: I'm glad to know that you're doing this, that there's a voice, and I like the fact that you're you are a disabled person who is sitting at the table because I'm a firm believer and nothing about us without us. Yes, you know when they create laws about disavailable people, but they don't include us at the table when they're creating that law or that program or that thing, So they don't really consider our perspective.

13:45 Speaker 3: They consider what they think our perspective is right.

13:48 Speaker 4: And then on top of that, I'm going to add to that, not only should we be sitting at the table, okay, but maybe consider paying us for our lived expertise, because having us consult on projects about whether something is accessible or not is wonderful.

14:03 Speaker 5: We want to be there.

14:04 Speaker 4: But you need to also recognize that it is an expertise that you know, paying a consulting fee isn't out of the question, right That this is you need this information and we have this information right right?

14:19 Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, you need to.

14:20 Speaker 2: Have like a It really forms around a discussion of trying to get people to change the way they think instead of thinking of disability as something special, we have to do something special for you. We don't want anything special. We just want the same accessibility at everybody else house. I want to be able to walk through that business's door, just like you do, which means I have to be able to park, and I have to be able to get out of the car onto the sidewalk.

14:45 Speaker 3: To that door and then through the door and then through the door.

14:49 Speaker 4: Yes, so many things.

14:52 Speaker 2: You have a lot of hats though, you know a lot your commissioner, you work on these issues for the city.

14:58 Speaker 4: Yes, I'm a person with this abilities who's you know, constantly advocating whenever I can. I'm also the founder of Uncharted. It's a it's a nonprofit here in Manchester that teaches kids science, but we package it to look like art. We trick them into thinking it's art. And we're doing that from like because I've talked about it here with y'all, we're doing it from Franklin, New Hampshire, down to Lowell, Massachusetts. And I've got ten people working for me doing this.

15:26 Speaker 3: That is so awesome.

15:27 Speaker 4: It's honestly the best life ever.

15:31 Speaker 1: That's great.

15:32 Speaker 3: How do you make science look like art?

15:34 Speaker 4: Okay, So I think we mostly have an adult audience here, So I'm going to talk about a slime I'm inventing right now. So for the Sahegan Valley Rotary Club, they have a big Kentucky derby party at the at one of the casinos to raise funds, and they are constantly giving away funds.

15:52 Speaker 5: They gave us funds.

15:52 Speaker 4: They're really great, and they wanted a gift basket that people can raffle on, and so I'm going to invent a mint.

16:00 Speaker 5: Julip slime for them.

16:03 Speaker 4: So last night I was boiling down a handle of bourbon, yeah, to make the smell for the slime. I'm getting gold, I'm getting ice cubes, I'm getting horses. And that's a real simple one, right, But I'm doing science trying to figure out how do I put bourbon smell in a slime? An adult giveaway, but I've thought of those things for a lot of concepts for kids. Whether it's like what is ambergris right that comes out of whales and washes up on the shore and is found in perfumes. Is it their earwax? But we put it in perfumes.

16:37 Speaker 3: It's ear wax? It's yeah, wow, Yeah, it's.

16:42 Speaker 4: A good way to it's a good way to describe it. Or or like how does a whale feel in compared to a shirk? What's their skin like? And I can do that entirely with slime.

16:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she's uh, we've both been coffin. No allergies, We're not sick, it's just out.

17:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, my nose won't stop.

17:03 Speaker 1: The allergies brutal. It's I'm living on and musinacha.

17:08 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's my life too. Sometimes it mine's more in the fall. I'm fortunate like the spring. When I get the fall.

17:13 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh it's it's been awful. The magnolias are yeah, I mean everything's blooming all at once, and yeah this is this is particularly rough on this year for whatever reason.

17:23 Speaker 4: But the hyacinths were strong. I smelled them in my French porch. I've got a really great set of hyacinths I put in and they just they were pungent this week.

17:31 Speaker 1: So oh really, yeah, is high here?

17:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a beautiful magnolia tree right out of my art space, right on the outside of the window.

17:40 Speaker 3: It's gorgeous, but it kills me.

17:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice to look at, but.

17:43 Speaker 3: But I love looking at.

17:44 Speaker 4: Magnolias are some of the oldest trees around. They were around in dinosaurs were around.

17:49 Speaker 1: Really, yes, I didn't know that.

17:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, they're a really cool tree. Like in general, they're just a cool tree. So but that that kind of thing. So when we're talking about dinosaurs, you better believe and tell kids about magnolias. But we are all about, you know, using slime to educate with a variety of concepts. Or we can use paint and talk about negative and positive space, or we can talk about color play, right, warmth and cool. While that's art, that's also science. That's physics, and that's light waves and we can talk about that.

18:19 Speaker 4: We also use like zombies. Zombies is a lot of fun. So zombies wear their anatomy on the outside, right, So what a great way to get kids excited about learning anatomy, bones sestive system. And then also we can talk about why do rotting things smell bad? And what does zombie actually smell like? And we can put that smell into this lime for real, right, and we can put little decomposing parts and little worms and maggots, and the kids love it. Oh it's very gross, it's lovely. The kids gets so excited by it, and it's that excitement that makes sure that they internalize the concepts then hold on to it, you know, just the length of the class.

19:00 Speaker 1: What was the genesis of unchartered. Why do you like, how did you start this?

19:04 Speaker 5: Yeah?

19:05 Speaker 4: So I'm a biomedical artist, that's my My degree is in biomedical art, and so I work.

19:10 Speaker 3: Can you explain what biomedical art is?

19:12 Speaker 1: And that's an actual degree, biomedical art.

19:14 Speaker 3: I didn't know that was a degree.

19:16 Speaker 4: There's only two programs lest I checked in North America that graduate people with this degree.

19:21 Speaker 1: Wow.

19:21 Speaker 4: So I went to the Cleveland Institute of Art a team of Case Western Reserve University for the science courses, and it's a combination of art and science.

19:31 Speaker 5: Well, think about it.

19:32 Speaker 4: This, that's the way you have science books, right, somebody you had one either in school when you were like when you were in high school or whatever, and there were drawings in those books. Someone has to do them.

19:42 Speaker 1: Oh okay, now.

19:43 Speaker 4: It gets a little more Yeah, so it gets a little more complicated than that. Like my favorite is when you know there's a new technique or a new science, or a new protein that's discovered, and we need to have ways to demonstrate to people what that is and what that looks like, a new surgical procedure, a clinical trial that's being recruited for that kind of thing. So I did work in radio pharmaceutical clinical trials for a number of years, doing like informed consent and patient and physician recruitment ups and downs in the pharmaceutical industry, and it was honestly uncharted.

20:19 Speaker 4: Was an accident. People always just stare at me in disbelief, But it was an accident. I just started tutoring a young man who was gifted in science. I wanted to get better at art and I was between jobs right with the layoffs in the industry, and it went really well. So his mom asked if I wanted to teach a class after school at the school she worked at, and then and then Player's Charter School wanted the same thing. Within two weeks, I was in two schools, and then within six months I was in all the Title one schools in Manchester.

20:48 Speaker 1: Wow's so awesome.

20:49 Speaker 4: And here we are eight years later, and as of this month, we've been a nonprofit for one whole year, which means we can apply for grants and bring our programming to people for free, which is my favorite. I love the I hate billing people. I just want to give every way everything away for free. Unfortunately I have people I need to pay, and I kind of need to make money too, yes, sometimes, So yeah, we're being able to, Like we got grants from like the Bean Foundation and Citizens Bank and Saint Mary's and they've helped us both with our space expansion.

21:23 Speaker 4: So we're in a totally new space now. We went from my six hundred squarefoot garage to a twelve hundred square foot place at the corner of Elman Webster. Okay, and we've already filled it somehow, It's not that surprising, I guess when I think of all this stuff we have. But we take all our supplies, we pack them and we take them to the schools, to the classrooms so that students don't have to get transported, right, you don't have to go somewhere else to get these classes. We're in the schools where the kids are, and our favorite place to be is in our Title I schools where the kids don't always have everything everyone else does.

21:56 Speaker 4: So it's title one means the schools like half the schools on lunch assistance. Okay, these are the schools that need the programming, that need the homework help, that need to know that science is fun and creative. Yes, and so now we're on all the title in schools in Nashville as well. And we're also working with Franklin High School that just got they just got New Hampshire School of the Year because of the unique programs, and we're one of the programs. Huge congratulations to Franklin. Franklin High School and David over there, the principal, revolutionary, wonderful thought processes.

22:31 Speaker 4: I love everything going on there, and so we've been able to contribute there. And then we work like Housing in Urban Development and Lowell and we're gonna we just got a new grant with Positive Street Art where we're going to be doing mural work and teaching the kids how to make the murals. And then Positive Street Art is going to take the whole community and work through a big, big, bad, bad cool New York can I Okay, I'm always in the school, so I realized. But it's going to be really beautiful because we know that the work that they're constantly produces absolutely top tier.

23:00 Speaker 4: Yeah, and so we're getting to collaborate on that project.

23:03 Speaker 1: In terms of how you do this. Did you does something like this already exists elsewhere that you were able to sort of model or get ideas from, or did you have to come up with this whole concept on your own.

23:15 Speaker 5: I came up with it.

23:16 Speaker 1: Wow, that's all that's awesome.

23:19 Speaker 4: Like for me, art and science has always been something that's together. I don't see them necessarily separate. I was my mom homeschooled me growing up. She's an engineer, so she was able to give me all the science I possibly wanted. But I, you know, as she says it, I was outdrawing her in like first grade.

23:36 Speaker 5: Wow.

23:36 Speaker 4: She knew art was going to be a part of my life, Okay, And so I was just always able to combine them in my explorations. And so I've been able to take that and give it to other people. Okay, that my life experience is being homeschooled and arts and science educated and combine them in the ways that I see the world. And really modern education silos subjects in ways that didn't used to happen. You think of the rent of the Renaissance artist, right, and they were they were engineers, they were artists, they were oriitators, they were poets, they were they were building buildings, they were architects.

24:10 Speaker 4: Like the science and art was always together, it wasn't separate. Yeah, because art is ultimately a way to process what we know and what earned and then communicated to others.

24:20 Speaker 5: Right, So it's a more.

24:22 Speaker 4: Recent invention, and I think we should do away with the siloine like art and science always together.

24:28 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, interesting. Yeah, I'm curious about the homeschooling thing because there's a stigma. I don't think we talked about this last summer. Were now There's there's such a stigma attached to that. But you seem like an example of someone who clearly would would cut against the stigma because you're obviously very successful at what you're doing. It sounds like for you, homeschooling worked out pretty pretty well.

24:52 Speaker 4: So I was homeschooled, So I went to kindergarten because I went to kindergarten very early.

24:56 Speaker 5: I wanted to go to school.

24:57 Speaker 4: I was born at home, and so my mom, I'm someding to a private school kindergarten, and then I I But then we moved. So we were in the military, so I moved a lot growing up, Like we were living in Texas and New Mexico, Korea, Hawaii, like I was all over the place. So homeschooling made sense from a consistency stamp.

25:13 Speaker 1: Oh, so you weren't. So you weren't constantly being put into a school only to be taken out of it and then putting out another school.

25:20 Speaker 4: And okay, exactly, And so that allowed a lot of consistency with my education. Yeah, and my mom's an engineer and my dad, you know, has a physics degree, so they were able to educate in like subjects and allow me to explore, like I think I probably went to college level anatomy and physiology in third grade. Wow, so interested in it allowed me to explore and hyper fixate on the subjects.

25:44 Speaker 5: I was moved. What is your IQ?

25:46 Speaker 4: I've not been tested. I'm not I have family members who are.

25:51 Speaker 5: I have not been tested.

25:52 Speaker 3: Okay, I have not been tested.

25:54 Speaker 4: Ah, but yeah, I mean I so I in high school, I graduated thirty second and class at six hundred and twenty five.

26:01 Speaker 5: So I did alright for myself.

26:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, the homeschooling allowed that consistency. But you know, my parents also were very aware of that stigma. So they've worked with homeschooling groups. And I was constantly in sports teams, so I know that there's this idea that homeschoolers are antisocial or can't socialize and that hasn't been what I've noticed. I know there are homeschool but I would say that maybe people who struggle to socialize are choosing homeschooling, and so that's a skewed demographic because maybe they are struggling socially in school and so they're not learning, and so homeschooling might be the more appropriate choice for them, right that to help them build tools.

26:39 Speaker 4: I would not say it's for everyone.

26:41 Speaker 1: It's yeah, I was gonna say, because you might in the grand scheme of things, you might be the exception, not the rule.

26:46 Speaker 4: I you know, I've seen plenty. I've known plenty of people who homeschool who turned out.

26:50 Speaker 1: Just oh sure, me too, me too.

26:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, But I've also seen some people who maybe had some deficiencies in some subject areas because my parents didn't have the expertise to carry that through.

26:59 Speaker 1: Right.

27:00 Speaker 4: But you know, I think there's a lot more tools online now. They are a lot more acpable for people to be able to make up for any particular deficiencies in their education if they're choosing to home educate their kids. But I am also at the same time, while my parents chose that for me, I'm a huge proponent of making sure we fund our schools adequately and make sure that's available for everyone. Yes, because a lot of parents are working two and three jobs and they're not able to homesol.

27:25 Speaker 1: Right, So well that's the other part of it, too, is like how does anyone even afford it to be able to do it?

27:31 Speaker 4: You know, my mom didn't work or and then when she did work, she was self employed as a seamstress and she'd like make square dancing outfits. I remember, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's very good at sewing, so she made money that way. But yeah, my dad worked. You know, we lived in the military provided housing and my mom My mom took time off of her engineering career to educate us, and then we went on. We went onto small pate schools. I did for middle school, and then I was in a very large public high school, which is why I have a six hundred and twenty five person graduating class.

28:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, I ran the gamut of the varieties of education out there.

28:12 Speaker 1: Well, so now I'm curious, so when you went to that high school, was like, what was that like, because that's obviously a huge transition after all that homeschool Yeah.

28:19 Speaker 4: Fortunately I had this this smaller middle school in between. Oh okay, that that really helped. There was I look, I'm strange, I'm weird. Okay, the homeschooling, I love you.

28:33 Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that's why we like you.

28:34 Speaker 4: Homeschooling probably allowed that to flourish. And did I have some social difficulties, yes, but who doesn't in middle school and high school? Right, And for me, honestly, it came out of more. I'm a very black and white person, and I believe strongly in things that are right or wrong, and I will say them and stand up for them. And I look back on it now and maybe the people that were you know, I felt ostracized from I didn't really need to be friends with, right, so in the time, and I didn't feel that way, but.

29:09 Speaker 1: You get that, you get that with hindsight. But yeah, but at the time it's rough.

29:15 Speaker 4: Yes, And so you know, I was able to find my people in the arts community and and and and then science nerds too, so you know, I got through it. What else I don't know. I was very able to study on my own. So if I came across a teacher that wasn't great for me. I was able to get through it.

29:34 Speaker 2: When you entered Were you in an advanced grade then were your class Were you in the same age bracket is your classmates or were you advanced from them?

29:44 Speaker 4: Yes, I was in the same age bracket, and so yeah, school was easy for me. School was ultimately easy for me, except for math. I struggled in math, and I think if I could go back in time, I know I get I'd get like diagnosed with dyscalculia. Dyscalculia, which is like dyslexia but for numbers.

30:05 Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Yeah, I learned something because I didn't know that. I just always assumed that dyslexia covered both letters numbers. Yeah.

30:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, because I don't have any problems with letters. I'm an avid reader, fast reader even, Yeah, But the numbers just would move on the page. I would use bash paper and put each number on each square and try really hard to get through math that way, no kidding, and I could get the concepts, but then I could never just get the right answer. So I kept getting swapped into the advanced math class down to the regular math pass to the advanced like because I like, you get it, but you just can't make it happen on paper, you understand it.

30:40 Speaker 1: Yeah, So math.

30:42 Speaker 4: Was always a challenge for me, and and that really, you know, fed my understanding for un chartered because I'd see a lot of my friends who'd struggle in different subjects and be like, you're smart, why aren't you getting this? And ultimately, like when you presented it to them in a different way, like with the hands on learning method or related to a subject that they love, like art, they would get into it. They get excited by it. And I tutor my friends, you know, I'd I'd help them out in class all the time.

31:12 Speaker 4: And it when you look at my life as like a gamut, as a journey, it makes total sense with where I am today.

31:17 Speaker 5: Yeah.

31:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's not where I thought i'd go. I'm thrilled, Don't get me wrong. I love my life, but yeah, founding a company that teaches science and packages it to look like art and then turning into a nonprofit so I'm sure that every kid can have access to it.

31:33 Speaker 5: Yeah, is it totally makes sense?

31:36 Speaker 1: Yeah? If you're just joining us, we're talking with Amber Nicole Cannon. Am I saying your last name? Credit?

31:41 Speaker 5: Absolutely?

31:42 Speaker 1: Okay? I just want to make sure it wasn't Cannon, and I'm just like blowing it. That's what I thought, Okay, because it's not spelled.

31:48 Speaker 4: Like people, it's c an and A and yeah yeah instead of oh and. Honestly, when I married into that name, I thought people would get it easier than they do. Oh no kidding really Yeah, yeah, that my my name before I got married with Suepan. So if you're into baseball, you might know the name s U P p A n. My dad's cousin was a picture for the Red Sox. Okay, the Red Sox don't like him because he didn't do super well there, and then he went on to the Cardinals and like won the world. Yeah he he looks like a Soupan like all the men in my family.

32:22 Speaker 4: Okay, definitely related. But I thought that name was just annoying to have to tell people how to spell time. So I went to Canon thinking it would be easier. But because of the A, I can't win whatever.

32:37 Speaker 5: Yeah, fine, I moved up in the alphabet.

32:39 Speaker 1: So that's that's true. That's true. Yeah, when yeah, people people struggle with my with my last name.

32:47 Speaker 4: People, Yeah, I keep wanting to put a second C in it. That's what I always want to do because it's Canarton, right.

32:55 Speaker 1: Well, so Canarton became my nickname in school because it's Connorton Conorton. But the first day of school, inevitably there would be or the first day of the semester, there would be teachers in high school who you know, they'd be doing roll call, and if they didn't already know me, they'd get to my name and they would be like Matthew Kinnarton. And so that kind of became my nickname in high school. Most of my friends called me that, but it's but there aren't many of us. There are not many Connorton's.

33:26 Speaker 1: And you know, the the spelling that makes more sense co o n n E r t o n for how it makes more sense for hout's pronounce that's some more common spelling.

33:35 Speaker 4: Really you have a special spelling as well.

33:37 Speaker 1: Yeah, c O n n A r t o n is very rare. There is another matt Connorton right here in New Hampshire, but he's my uncle, so that kind of doesn't count. But yeah, but people struggle with my name. But the good news about that is, like, if you know, like I'm not likely to run into a problem. You know, in terms of branding, like with the radio show.

33:55 Speaker 5: You know, yeah, that's great. You got to think about that.

33:58 Speaker 1: Like when I went to get matt con dot com. It was very it was easy.

34:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, that's that's well. And that's what they say too. That's why famous people sometimes name their kids very uniquely, right, because they want to make sure they have a brand.

34:11 Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.

34:14 Speaker 4: Your parents were just watching out for you.

34:16 Speaker 1: Yeah.

34:16 Speaker 4: I guess they need to be an entertainment.

34:21 Speaker 1: If you want to call it that.

34:22 Speaker 5: Sure, I'm entertained.

34:26 Speaker 1: So I chartered so and so this has grown fast, right, because how long? How long is this? I wanted to start it ten years ago?

34:32 Speaker 4: We've been doing it for eight years?

34:33 Speaker 1: Eight years? Okay.

34:35 Speaker 4: We had, of course that dip in during COVID everyone no one wanted a traveling teacher.

34:40 Speaker 5: I get it, it makes sense.

34:42 Speaker 4: I support that choice.

34:43 Speaker 1: Were you able to get work arounded at all doing remote.

34:45 Speaker 5: Things a little bit?

34:47 Speaker 3: Yeah?

34:47 Speaker 4: And actually we ended up with like student clients in like Colorado and California and Alabami like we were Virginia.

34:53 Speaker 5: It was it was kind of fun for that. It was not.

34:57 Speaker 4: A money maker. We kept it going for consistency for people's lives. They needed that kind of connection for their kids in after school kind of activities. And we've been holding steady now for the last three years at about like ten employees, which is really great. Where we grew though last year by twenty percent by becoming a nonprofit because we were able to apply for and give away that entire twenty percent. So that's like one hundred students that had programs expanded. They would have only had four weeks before, but now they got eight weeks.

35:29 Speaker 1: Oh, that's great.

35:30 Speaker 4: And one hundred kids that got programming for eight weeks that wouldn't have at all before. So that's a huge amount of growth. Plus last summer we were able to give away like I think it was eleven summer camps through the New Hampshire Council and Developmental Disabilities. They gave us funds to scholarship kids with five or four plans and i EPs to our summer camps. And that was a huge joy to just give away the summer camps entirely to this population.

35:58 Speaker 1: Oh, I can imagine and.

36:00 Speaker 4: Kids that sometimes you know, they need that smaller space to make sure their needs are addressed and that's one of the things we focus on in our summer camps is keeping it to fifteen students at a time to make sure we get that one on one time with each student.

36:12 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's good, super valuable.

36:14 Speaker 4: And the New Hampshire Council and Developmental Disabilities has also wanted me to make sure that everyone around the state knows that kids with IEPs and five or four plans in any summer camp can get a scholarship. And the includes are camps this year at the Sea Science Center.

36:29 Speaker 1: Oh yes, I'm familiar with the ce Science Center.

36:31 Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yep, so that's where our summer camps are.

36:34 Speaker 1: Oh okay, excellent. You should probably too explain what an IEP is for people who don't know.

36:39 Speaker 4: That's a great idea. It's an individual education plan. Okay, so if you learn differently than what they've decided is standard. Maybe you need to make sure you always get notes from someone already written down from you. Maybe you need to get your book in an audio format because reading is a struggle, or you need to be able to have the opportunity to get up and walk around the classroom for whatever reason because sitting is painful. That would go into an individual education plan. Some people need things like someone who assists them all day long, like a one on one para.

37:12 Speaker 4: And some people just need, you know, to be able to get up and move around the classroom.

37:17 Speaker 5: Make that simple.

37:18 Speaker 4: But the teachers need it to find so they make sure they are supporting you in the best way possible.

37:22 Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha, No, that that makes sense. That makes sense. What's kind of been? Is there anything that's really surprised you on this journey with unchartered? Is there anything that's really kind of you didn't expect? Oh, that's a good question, hopefully in a good way. Although you know, anything or maybe even even challenges that you didn't anticipate, So it could be something.

37:43 Speaker 4: I'll say, so the good thing. We'll go with the good one, and I'll talk about the challenge. Okay, the good one, Well, is it good? I don't know, it's kind of neutral. I did not expect to have to put my face on social media this much. Oh, just a little. Like it turns out like as we follow our trends, like the videos that do the best on Instagram where I'm talking about our programs is with my face of all things people want to see my face, which confuses me, and then the videos do ten percent better.

38:07 Speaker 4: Get this, videos do ten percent better if I wear false eyelashes.

38:11 Speaker 1: Interesting? Interesting?

38:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, will I do it?

38:15 Speaker 5: Yes?

38:15 Speaker 4: Am I a little sad by it? Yes, I'll do it to get the extra tension and get people. But our videos are great apparently, I'm sometimes funny, so you know they're worth a watch.

38:26 Speaker 1: Well, you got those school glasses too.

38:28 Speaker 5: I do like big glasses.

38:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, anything big and bold something that. Plus, when you put on glasses, people don't notice it if you didn't put on makeup unless it's all lashes.

38:37 Speaker 1: Interesting apparently, and they assume you know, there's a there's an authority with that.

38:41 Speaker 5: Right, I'm smart?

38:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm smart. Wasn't there a study that showed that there actually is? It's not just a stereotype. There actually is a People who are near sighted tend to be higher IQ.

38:55 Speaker 4: I want to say I heard that, but I can't verify it with a source.

38:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I and I may have just imagined it because I like it, because as you can see, I'm not I don't wear glasses, so it might just all be in my head.

39:06 Speaker 4: It could be I wouldn't be surprised if there's a correlation. Like people who have glasses discovered they needed glasses because they were like either paying more attention to school and couldn't see the board or reading something at a distance because they like reading.

39:21 Speaker 5: There you go, and so there.

39:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like a reach.

39:24 Speaker 4: I'm not gonna lie, but well, you know, we don't want to. You know, Causation is not correlation.

39:29 Speaker 1: That's right.

39:29 Speaker 4: Correlation is not causation, right, right. You know we should see the data. We should see the data.

39:35 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but but yeah, but to your point about social media, it is so important with anything that you're doing. It's critical.

39:42 Speaker 4: Oh and then if I dress up as a whale shark, that really wins everything.

39:45 Speaker 5: Really Yeah, okay, so I.

39:47 Speaker 4: Have a whale shark costume that I made. Yeah, it's uh, you know, whatever it takes to get science to yes, I'll do it, I will do it.

39:57 Speaker 1: Yeah.

39:57 Speaker 4: As far as challenges, so this is that's an interesting one, and it's all totally my fault.

40:02 Speaker 5: It's that.

40:04 Speaker 4: I like to do everything myself and I am learning and I usually have to learn the hard way to delegate, okay, and trust my team.

40:16 Speaker 1: That's a challenge for a lot of people in leadership positions.

40:19 Speaker 4: Yes, and teach them the skills they need to do what I'm doing, and then they end up doing it better. Only like so I do the videos right, it's me recording them, but Emory does the writing and posting of them, mel edits them for me.

40:32 Speaker 5: So I don't do any of that.

40:33 Speaker 4: Anymore, and it's doing better with letting them handle it. And the thing that I always the thing that always pushes me to delegate when I really should have been delegating, like six months ago. I'm usually at least six months late delegating anything is like the fact that I have disabilities that keep me from doing things the way and how I want to do them, and whether it's pain or because I need a surgery or or whatever, or I'm not gonna be able to go in the classroom. That forced me. That was our first big gross s burt that forced me to rely on my teachers to totally handle everything.

41:09 Speaker 4: I wasn't in the classroom and I was working on the business and we had giant growth. So like that's been my biggest surprise challenge. Side of things I don't know, like the lesson is I should delegate sooner.

41:24 Speaker 5: Probably.

41:24 Speaker 4: I don't know what the lesson is for everyone else, Like I hope it teaches other people things. But that's been my challenge.

41:33 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, now that makes sense. That makes sense. I do want to circle back before we run out of time too, about talking about disabilities, because I know that Jenny had to go answer the doorbell. I know, I know the doorbell does show up in the audio, so people hear it. It's kind of become a joke, a running a gag on the show. But because she tells everyone in the instructions, don't ring the doorbell, and they ring the doorbell. No, it's fine. But so you were talking about how it's uh people people have a misconception if they can't and I'm sure we're we're probably all guilty of it at one point or another.

42:12 Speaker 1: If if, if a disability isn't necessarily easily visible. Yeah, and so part of the struggle, because Jenny talks about this a lot, part of the struggle is that if someone doesn't see, if they can't see your disability, they assume that you don't have one. So maybe if you say you have a handicapped placard in your car. Then you park your car and they see you get out and you look like you're fine. You know, they might be thinking and they might or if they're even rude enough to say it, you know, but they might take that as, oh, she's fine, Why does she why does she have to take that space?

42:49 Speaker 1: Why does she have that that placard? And you know, because we were talking earlier to Jenny, use the word educate. How do you educate people? Like, you know, like when when people park in a handicapped spot when they should because they have no right to be there because they don't have a placard. I mean, how do you I mean, is that something you've run into specifically yourself, where people don't understand that just because it's not something they can see, that doesn't mean it's not there.

43:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, I have quite in different ways, but I and I think educate this is the solid word there. But I also think it's representation and that so we need to be sure that we're reaching out and accommodating people so that they can be in spaces two help us understand how normal disability is right. So, like I don't see a lot of teachers with disabilities, but we should have teachers with disabilities. But of course teaching is a very hard job, stressful job, one that does not allow for a lot of doctor's appointments, admittedly.

43:53 Speaker 1: But then again, to be fair, you might even see more teachers with disabilities than you realize.

43:56 Speaker 4: It's true because you don't see them. So there's there's something about being open about a disability. To Now, I am in a situation where being open about my disability is very unlikely to get me discriminated against in an employment fact, you know, in an unemployment way, because I'm I found it a nonprofit that I am running, so you know, no one's gonna not hire me because I require accommodations. I get to make the accommodations in my office. But there's a lot of people that don't feel like they can talk about their disabilities because then maybe they won't get hired for a job that they really really want.

44:36 Speaker 4: And that's that's that sucks, man, Yeah.

44:40 Speaker 5: That really sucks.

44:41 Speaker 4: Because so I can be really open about you know, like my idiopathic hypersomnia and the pain that I'm constantly in, or that I need a special chair, or if you see me at at city meetings. I bring in my own camp chair and I sit in that, because he knows those metal folding chairs are awful on someone's back. So, like we, we need to be able to provide space to people to genuinely be themselves and accommodate themselves. Right, You'll find most people with disabilities they don't want to ask for help.

45:08 Speaker 4: They want it to just either be there or carry their own accommodations, like me carrying my chair in right. And the only time they're asking for it is when they really do actually need it, they really do. It's not because they want to make work for.

45:23 Speaker 1: Someone else, of course, of course.

45:24 Speaker 4: They just want to be able to go on about their day and access to things that make them comfortable or healthy or enjoy life a little. It's so sad that people can't be as open about disability as as we should be able to.

45:40 Speaker 1: Right or grade agreed? Yeah, absolutely absolutely well so as we near the end of the segment. So of course, if you are just joining us, we have Amber Nicole Cannon here with us in studio. She is the commissioner, the commissioner of what's.

45:56 Speaker 5: The Department of Public Works.

45:57 Speaker 1: It's true, the Department of public works. Yes, and of course the founder what do we call what do you call yourself? The founder, the CEO of.

46:04 Speaker 4: Our founder, executive director. It doesn't really matter. I just got to get the job done.

46:09 Speaker 5: Charged.

46:10 Speaker 3: And the board of directors the seasides.

46:13 Speaker 4: Yes, I am on the board of directors at the Sea Science Center. Oh great, and that is that is one of my most exciting things I'm working on right now is our summer camps are hosted at the Sea Science Center. Oh okay, and it's a it's an interesting thing too. It's not just that they're hosting our summer camps, which you can get scholarships through if you have a disability, by the way, reach out to me. But also we encountered like the same problem or same coin, different side problem where they have to hire seasonal workers for their summer camps.

46:41 Speaker 4: And I have teachers that are super employed during the school year, but their hours go down in the summer. So not only are we hosting all our summer camps at the Sea Science Center, yeah, we're staffing.

46:52 Speaker 5: All of their camps.

46:53 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, So if you're.

46:55 Speaker 4: Going to a Sea Science Center camp, you're going to get the wonderful caring, loving, supportive individuals that work for Chartered helping your student through their day.

47:05 Speaker 1: Oh, that's awesome. No, I'm I'm I'm at the c Science Center usually a couple of times a week. I'll I'll tell you off air why why I'm a frequent visitor there, and that's with something else I do, uh employment wise, but but uh yeah, so that's that's wonderful, excellent, excellent uncharted Where should people go online?

47:25 Speaker 4: To uh uncharted dot org. You gotta check that it's it's that W E R E. D card heard dot org. You can also follow us on Instagram and Facebook. That's where I post all the videos and talking about our latest move and just the hygienks we get up.

47:43 Speaker 1: To Okay, outstanding, and also to just generally where should people go online to keep up with everything that you're everything that you're doing, not just unchartered.

47:50 Speaker 4: But yeah, so my my, my my personal art page is bioside creative okay dot com, and I'm also on that at Instagram. I don't post as much there, but when when I'm doing a gallery show or making a piece of art, that's where I'm posting it.

48:05 Speaker 1: Outstanding, outstanding and do you want to spell your last name for people who can't.

48:09 Speaker 4: Canon C A and then a N. Yes, there's no, oh, there's no.

48:14 Speaker 1: Oh.

48:14 Speaker 4: That's what I say when I call the doctor's office because they always write a note and I'm like, no, that's why you can't find me.

48:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very good. Well, Amber, Nicole Cannon, thank you so much. This has been wonderful.

48:25 Speaker 5: I'm so happy to have come today. Yeah.

48:26 Speaker 1: Absolutely, Oh this happened because we ran in you it. It was at Mosaic, right, yeah, ran a Mosaic art collective.

48:32 Speaker 5: That is the social scene it is.

48:34 Speaker 1: It is, Yes, wonderful. I love that place. All right, well, very good. Well, if you are listening live, please stick around. Coming up in the third hour, we have Who I Am and thrax Is h Is here as well as Very Good, so they will be in studio with us in the third hour. I'm gonna play I'm gonna play another, I'm gonna play this again. We played it in the first hour, but this is my favorite track from joh Wobble, who joined us in the in the first hour. Eventually we were able to get him on the line.

49:00 Speaker 1: He's got uh, he's got his new album and this is Uh, this is one of the tracks on it. This is my personal favorite. This is called who Wins and Uh, when we come back, we'll show some love to our amazing sponsors and then we will have who I Am and tracks in studio and uh, Amber Nicole Cannon, thank you again, Thank you,