Kathy Bacon is a woman with a drive to help herself by helping others

Kathy Bacon is the woman most women want to be especially with her luxurious and voluminous hair.  Besides having good hair, Kathy Bacon is driven by a simple personal mission; to be the best person she can be in the world. For her, this starts with her daily 7 mile walk in Denver’s City Park. When she is finally ready to sit down; she is ready to talk. With training as a voice actress and radio personality, her two shows: Pay it Forward Radio and Fashion Forward Radio out of Denver, Colorado are broadcasts that feature human interest stories and telling us all how we can be a force for good in our communities. I recently had a chance to do a phone interview with Kathy. Kathy Bacon is someone that had always interested me because of our fashion connection. As a founder and supporter of the Denver Design Incubator (DDI) and a well known person the fashionable circles of the bustling metropolis of Denver, I had the chance to interact with her from my fashion involvement but only on a limited basis. I was excited to be speaking with her in a real and intimate way and to learn more about the mysterious and esoteric Kathy Bacon.

Kathy’s journey to radio is a circular one. In some ways her and I changed places. Kathy is a native of Washington in the Seattle area and left for Colorado to get away from the cloudy and rainy weather of the Pacific Northwest. She had her 3 children young and while she was working for a engineering company on the dispatch radio, she found out that people liked to hear her voice and to listen to her talk. She took the suggestion alongside her desire to be on CNN and ran with it by graduating from the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. She launched her career with voice-over work but admitted that while it paid well at over $200 an hour, the work was limited and it was unable to fully support her family. However, that was not about to keep Ms. Bacon quiet. Instead, she became a special education teacher and finished raising her children. Once the family was moved on (and a husband later) Kathy was ready to take on the world. She was involved in bringing the popular Dress for Success franchise to Denver and helped a variety of women. However, times do change and so does Kathy Bacon. She moved on from that prosperous project and was looking for something else to do and to find other ways to help people. Her desire to help people in a big way inspired to her current projects: Pay it Forward Radio and Fashion Forward Radio

Pay It Forward

“You hear a lot of doom and gloom in the news. I was tired of hearing bad news and I wanted to hear more human interest stories.”

Pay It Forward Radio was inspired by the Pay It Forward Book and resulting foundation created by Kathryn Hyde. The concept of doing kindnesses to others with the only “expectation” being to “pay it forward” was something Kathy could touch into and that she felt would really help the community and fulfill her credo: “What can I do in my community to make a difference?”

Before the radio show she was looking at how she could hit the streets of the Mile High City and help people. As often happens, especially in Denver, there were ideas but little follow through. Kathy took matters into her own hands and bought 5,000 bracelets from the Pay It Forward Foundation herself and would donate them to events and charitable causes to use for promotions or prizes. She parlayed that success into the radio show so that she could inspire people to just do something for their community. By highlighting the good work of people she could give people a chance to open a door to more kindness in the world. Kathy uses her show to encourage people to do nice things for each other and of course to, “Pay it Forward.”

“Its important to pay it forward and to live by the golden rule.”

Her latest project is very exciting. It involves little pieces of paper and a jar. When she told me about this I thought that she was going to suggest I have a confetti party for myself every day! I wasn’t looking forward to all that clean-up. But she had something more clever, a Gratitude Jar.

Here is how the Gratitude Jar works:

You write something you are grateful for on a piece of paper everyday and put it in the jar.

Then after a set period of time (month, 3 months, 6 months or a year) you open it and read the papers. 

What are you grateful for? What made you happy?

Kathy reminds us that we “just have to ask the universe for what you want. All they can do is say no. As long as you pursue it, the universe is kind and will give it to you in amazing and unexpected ways.”

Kathy interviews the most fascinating people including Ashley Cooper and Filip Cederholm.  This remarkable couple photograph children making letters of the alphabet and then donate some of the money to children’s charities from the sale of the photos. This is the kind of thing that Kathy us regularly highlighting.

Pay it forward is important today because of kindness and because of love. “It’s really near and dear for my heart.” They are living in your city. She encourages people to connect with them. she implores us to think about, “What is your idea? How can you help people?” She even takes this good feeling to social media by posting amazing inspirational pictures and “memes” to help others and help herself. “People feel like they are so alone, they feel like ‘I’m the only one who is a certain way.’ Kathy knows, as well as I do that we’ve all been through a piece of each other’s stories.  If we can tell those stories and find collective strength from it then we are all stronger. That is an amazing mission to take on!

Kathy is very passionate about Pay It Forward radio for obvious reasons and she has exciting things going on. We now know that Ms. Kathy likes to talk and that led us into her other project.

Fashion Forward Radio

Kathy and I spent some time commiserating on the state of fashion in Denver. While I’m glad to have left the world of fashion she is still there on the ground working to help grow the nascent community. She views the show as the way she can help the community by highlighting amazing people and causes. She has recently highlighted Sam Russell, an image and gift bag consultant to the stars. Now he has created a non-profit called The Giving Closet. He finds women who need help and gives them $10,000 worth of items for their wardrobe, home and life. This is the kind of quality radio that Kathy is regularly producing. Her hope is that by bringing people together around the show more people will work with each other and the fashion community in the Denver area will grow. She would love more support from the community but she is also is learning to ask more and more from the community. She is creating a wonderful cycle of helping that is sure to germinate in new and interesting ways.

You can catch her shows on the air and online by interacting with her Facebook Page.