The
Upstander
Ripple Effect

What you do in this moment matters.

The world needs more upstanders — people who stand up for themselves and others in the face of injustice — bending the arc of humanity toward its better nature. The first podcast from the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center features inspiring untold stories of courage and resilience from those who survived the Holocaust, curated exclusively from our archives. We’ll introduce you to people activating their character strengths to stand up for justice in our world today. And we’ll show you how to tap into your own strengths to become an upstander right now. Chief External Relations Officer at the Holocaust & Humanity Center Jackie Congedo joins co-host Kevin Aldridge, Opinion Editor at the Cincinnati Enquirer, in sharing these stories and thoughtful perspectives on what’s happening in the world today. The Upstander Ripple Effect will remind you that you can start ripples of change right where you are, right now. 

 

The Upstander Ripple Effect is a production of the Cynthia & Harold Guttman Family Center for Storytelling.

Listen Now

Hosted By:

Jackie Congedo

Chief Community Engagement & External Relations Officer
Read Full Bio

Kevin Aldridge

Opinion Editor at Cincinnati Enquirer
Read Full Bio

Jackie Congedo

Jackie Congedo joined HHC in July of 2022 as the Center’s Chief Community Engagement and External Relations Officer. A former journalist turned community advocate and bridge-builder, Jackie spent six years as the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, which works to ensure Jewish security by working in coalition across diverse communities to build a more just society for all people. In this role, Congedo served as the chief architect of the Leaders in Light Institute, a new leadership development program for civic influencers designed to address trends of extremism and polarization and to strengthen democratic practice and civil society.

 

Prior to her work in Cincinnati’s nonprofit community, Congedo spent nearly a decade as a broadcast journalist, working for stations in Washington, D.C.; Lexington, Kentucky; and here in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she specialized in enterprise and investigative stories.  A native Marylander, she has called Cincinnati home for more than a decade and currently lives with her husband and two young daughters in Montgomery.

Kevin Aldridge

Kevin S. Aldridge, 49, is a Middletown, Ohio native and a veteran, award-winning journalist with 26 years of experience in the news media. He currently works as the opinion and engagement editor for The Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati.com. 

 

He is a 1992 graduate of Middletown High School and a 1996 graduate of Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio where he earned a B.A. in English.

 

In addition to working full-time as a journalist, Aldridge is a pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and co-owner of The Ohio Kings, a men’s semi-professional basketball team located in Cincinnati.  He is also vice president of community partnerships for Kingdom Vision Outreach, a Butler County-based nonprofit that focuses on character development and mentorship through sports, education and motivational speaking. Aldridge previously served as an adjunct professor of journalism at Miami University’s branch campuses In Middletown and Hamilton.

 

Aldridge is an award-winning journalist who has been named best editorial writer and opinion columnist in the state by the Associated Press, Cleveland Press Club and the Cincinnati Society of Professional Journalists each of the past three years. He was also part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team at The Enquirer In 2018 for the newspaper’s coverage of the heroin epidemic. 

 

Aldridge formerly worked as an editor at the Dayton Daily News and the Journal-News of Butler County, two Ohio news publications owned by Cox Media Group.

 

Aldridge is married to his beautiful wife of 16 years Marquetta Nichole. They live in West Chester, Ohio.