The Bob Elliott Show Ep. 24 - Jenny Flynn

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
The Live The Dream Media Network is proud to host an Arizona legend. His remarkable journey spans college and pro basketball, business excellence, and community leadership at the highest level. Get ready for insightful conversations, expert analysis, and a unique perspective that only one man can deliver.
This is The Bob Elliott Show, exclusively on the Live The Dream Media Network.

**Bob Elliott** (0:40)
Welcome to The Bob Elliott Show. You know that we love to educate our community about different organizations and different people in this town. We emphasize these leaders in the community, what they do, why they do it, and how they do it. You know, I love the saying, people make the job, the job does not make that person. There are a lot of organizations in this town, some great organizations. You're going to learn about another one today.
So, my guest today is Jenny Flynn, who's the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona. Welcome to the show, Jenny.

**Jenny Flynn** (1:16)
Thank you, Bob.

**Bob Elliott** (1:17)
Glad to have you here. Your organization does, I think, a lot more than what people even know.
But before we get into the Community Foundation, let's find out about Jenny.

**Jenny Flynn** (1:27)
Okay.

**Bob Elliott** (1:28)
Let's learn about Jenny.

**Jenny Flynn** (1:29)
All right.

**Bob Elliott** (1:30)
So, we're going to do a little oral history here. Take us back, rewind the DVD. Where you were born.
Siblings, parents, education, middle school, elementary, high school, college, everything else.

**Jenny Flynn** (1:45)
Sure, sure. So, believe it or not, I was born in Manhattan, New York.

**Bob Elliott** (1:49)
Oh.

**Jenny Flynn** (1:49)
Yeah. But we didn't live there. We lived in New Jersey, but it was where the hospital was. So, I have that on my birth certificate.

**Bob Elliott** (1:56)
What part of Jersey?

**Jenny Flynn** (1:57)
At that time, Teaneck, right across the river. Do you know that?

**Bob Elliott** (2:03)
We lived in Teaneck.

**Jenny Flynn** (2:04)
Oh, you're kidding.

**Bob Elliott** (2:05)
No. When I played for the New Jersey Nets.

**Jenny Flynn** (2:07)
Oh, wow.

**Bob Elliott** (2:08)
We lived in Teaneck.

**Jenny Flynn** (2:09)
Beautiful Teaneck.

**Bob Elliott** (2:10)
Teaneck and Teneflat, that whole little area. Yes.

**Jenny Flynn** (2:14)
Oh, that's so crazy.
And then, subsequent to that, my father was a college professor, and so we moved to a very small town in Upstate New York, where Colgate University is, and to Hamilton, New York, a really teeny little town. And then, subsequently, he taught at Rutgers, so we went back to New Jersey.

**Bob Elliott** (2:35)
Oh my goodness.

**Jenny Flynn** (2:35)
Yeah, so we lived...

**Bob Elliott** (2:37)
Rutgers down in Piscataway?

**Jenny Flynn** (2:39)
No, New Brunswick. New Brunswick, yeah. Or actually Livingston he was at. Livingston, okay.
So Livingston College was the first super modern college that they built, and it was in the 70s, kind of trying to be very progressive and groovy.

**Bob Elliott** (2:59)
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

**Jenny Flynn** (3:01)
Yeah, so I do have some very early memories of kind of... The college even being built and the students... I'm a teeny little child and the students are in their bell bottoms and half-froze and everybody was like super, super hip.

**Bob Elliott** (3:13)
That's right, that's right.

**Jenny Flynn** (3:14)
Yeah, and funny colors on the walls and all of that. And then, I will say, my mother was at that point, a mom, an older sister.
And then, I did go through one of those dramatic family breakdowns, right, that happened sometimes. So the family fell apart and my parents had a pretty bitter divorce. There was some violence and...

**Bob Elliott** (3:43)
Oh my goodness. Are you the youngest or the two?

**Jenny Flynn** (3:45)
I am, yeah. Yeah, and it's just some really significant family disruption, which is... So I sort of have a life history where it's like things started out very all-American, and then they had a moment of break, right, where things did not go right, did not go well. And that influences the path that you take, I think. That's true.
And so for me, a lot of the way that I processed that... My mother had some addiction issues and mental health issues, and so we were really isolated with someone who was not able to function very well.

**Bob Elliott** (4:18)
Okay.

**Jenny Flynn** (4:19)
And was to become really focused on education. Education became the way...

**Bob Elliott** (4:26)
That's where you put your energy in.

**Jenny Flynn** (4:27)
That's where I put my energy. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Working. I got my first sort of off-the-books job when I was 11, and then my first on-the-books job when I was 13