Lakeside Entertainment Group is proud to support the Ryan Seacrest Foundation and has had the opportunity to see the positive impact of their work first-hand over the past ten years. This week we had the privilege to speak with Meredith Seacrest Leach, the Ryan Seacrest Foundation Executive Director & COO and driving force behind the conception and development of the foundation since its inception in 2009. In her current role, Meredith manages and cultivates relationships with key partners and donors in entertainment, healthcare, education and technology, while strategizing financial campaigns and programs to help continuously advance the organization.
Prior to overseeing the foundation, Meredith was the Director of Creative Affairs at Reveille, now known as the production company EndemolShine North America. Some of the programming she was responsible for included Nashville Star, MasterChef and The Buried Life. She also worked in hospitality public relations, managing several luxury resort accounts at the agency Murphy O’Brien and worked as the Manager of Communications at Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, where she oversaw national press for two top entertainment news programs. Meredith attended the University of Georgia, receiving a B.A. in Journalism from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
The Ryan Seacrest Foundation has built broadcast media centers within pediatric hospitals across the country giving patients the opportunity to explore the creative realms of radio, television and new media. Through these Seacrest Studios the Ryan Seacrest Foundation aims to contribute positively to the healing process for children and their families and bring an uplifting spirit to the hospital community. We’ve had the honor of working with the Ryan Seacrest Foundation and their exceptional team on multiple occasions while bringing our artists to partner hospitals throughout the country for performances.
LEG: We’ve been a proud supporter of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation for many years. We’ve been to many of your studios in hospitals across the country with our artists and seen the great work that the foundation is doing first-hand. We’d love to learn and hear more about how the idea came together and how it all started.
MS: The idea of the studio really got started when Ryan was living in Los Angeles working his radio show. He’d go to the Orange County Children’s hospital and they’d set up the radio show there and bring in some fun celebrity guests for the patients and he really just got so much great feedback from patients and families saying what an energy it brought to the hospital. He saw kids getting out of bed that weren't getting out of bed typically but when they realized Selena Gomez was there they were getting dressed and out of bed and he saw the power that had. He had a lot of parents say, how fun it was even for the older teens, sometimes a lot of things target younger children at Children's Hospitals but you can be up to 20 years old and be in a pediatric hospital, so these teens are missing out on going to the concerts and seeing the live shows so to have all this music and fun brought into the hospital really brought energy.
These experiences stuck with Ryan and he thought you know, I can't broadcast daily from a children's hospital but what I can do is create a place where the kids can have space to be creative and escape what they're going through when they really need that and give them just another thing to do and another resource while they're being treated. From there it evolved into what we now call Seacrest Studios.
Selena Gomez
Leon of Athens
The Jonas Brothers
LEG: What are the studio like? Are they the same in each hospital?
MS: These studios are basically a hybrid of a radio and television studio and a lot of the design mimics Ryan’s actual radio equipment that he uses daily for his show. We've been lucky to work with a lot of wonderful vendors that put together what he uses every day and recreate it for the patients to use. The patients get to learn the equipment hands on and go on-air!
You’ve helped us to bring in special celebrity guests that the kids were able to interview and engage with. They get to talk to their idols and a lot of times we have kids that can't believe that they're in the children's hospital but they are meeting some of the biggest stars and their friends at school are jealous. You don't think that's normally what's going to happen when you're in the hospital and we've had so many kids who don't want to leave the hospital or check out because they know someone exciting is coming later in the day. We've had many kids that want to book their treatments around activities going on in the studio so they can hang out. It’s amazing to see.
LEG: Where was the first studio built and how many studios are you operating now?
MS: It has really evolved beyond our dreams. The first studio was built in our hometown of Atlanta and then we got connected to Philadelphia through some Ryan’s business partners. Selena Gomez helped us launch that studio in Philadelphia but she was from Dallas, so she connected us to our now Dallas partners and the next thing you know we're building there and it opened the gates for us. We're now up to eleven Studios across the country!
LEG: With the Pandemic this year and artists not being able physically come into the studios how have you been able to adapt?
MS: When the pandemic started we didn't want to stop providing this distraction to patients so we had to pivot. We knew we couldn’t do in-person visits and decided to utilize the technology out there and do virtual visits instead. That’s what we did with you and Lakeside a couple of times this year, where we had the talent zoom in from their homes. We brought iPads to the patient's rooms and they had the opportunity to interact, have a one-on-one question and answer session, and watch the talent perform remotely.
We also developed a system where we can have multiple hospitals join the same program. As you know, talent are busy, we can’t have them do eleven separate virtual visits due to time commitments, so we can take a 30-minute window and have artists perform for patients at eleven different pediatric hospitals nationally.
To be candid, I was a little concerned when the pandemic started, that kids weren’t going to get the same rush and drive talking over zoom. But from the feedback I’ve gotten, in some ways they like it more because doing it like this you can get a moment to talk with someone and have more one on one time. We’ve been asking all the hospitals for feedback and making sure that the kids are having positive experiences and they actually really do like it a lot more than I thought. Also, sometimes with the in-person performances kids get so starstruck and shy sometimes but over the computer it's a little less intimidating. I think they've actually been engaging more which is nice to see.
LEG : It’s clear that the internship program plays an important role in the success of these programs. It’s amazing to see these young people helping to run the studios, having an opportunity to interview celebrities, having an impact on their communities, and gaining real broadcast experience. Why is this internship and mentoring program so important to you, Ryan, and the team?
MS: Ryan always shares how he got an internship at Star 94 in Atlanta when he was in high school. He got it due to winning a prize, he was a caller and he was able to figure out a way of getting an internship and having that opportunity and that hands-on experience really opened so many doors. So when we started these studios we really wanted to be able to give students that opportunity to learn from the equipment and as you mention, they're not only learning how to use state-of-the-art equipment and interviewing celebrities but they're really learning about what these patients and families are going through and getting a perspective on life, and what to be grateful for, and I think the experience will impact them forever. It's been really special to see that now several of our interns are now running our studios, so they've been hired and gotten jobs out of it. Since we started this in 2010 with launching the first studio, we've had over a thousand students from different universities across the country.
LEG: The creation of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation and its studios is such a huge undertaking, from the first hospital to now having eleven studios nationwide in just ten years. Have you experienced any obstacles along the way or things that haven’t worked out as planned that you’ve grown and learned from?
MS: From the first studio we built I think we learned that we wanted to get more real estate in the hospital so that we could make the studios bigger and make sure there is enough space for the wheelchairs, green-screens, cameras, and all the equipment. The technology has changed so much over the years too so we’ve been constantly updating and evolving the technology to make sure that it stays state of the art so we can give our patients and families the best experience.
LEG: I know the whole Seacrest family is heavily involved in the foundation. Is this the only project that you all work on together and what are there pros and cons to working so closely on such a big project with the entire family?
MS: I was working in TV production at the time and remember when Ryan asked me after we launched the first studio if I’d leave my job to run the foundation. It was definitely a nerve-wracking moment hoping that you're making the right choice, but I think if there's one area to work with family and join forces that it would be something as meaningful as this. We work really well together and we try to get work done in work hours, so you set your calls like you would if you want to talk business, but if I call my parents at 7 o’clock after work I want to be their daughter. And same with Ryan, I set aside time with him to discuss the foundation, so that we don’t feel like we can’t separate family and business time. There’s definitely something to it but I think we’ve managed to figure it out in a nice way to work together but still remain family.
LEG: Both you and Ryan have been so successful in the television production and entertainment space respectively. Were there any signs early on that this is how it would all play out?
MS: When we were young Ryan would count down the hits like Casey Kasem in his bedroom and we’d have the tapes to listen to on car trips where he’d count down the hits. We also had a lot of production equipment where we would make music videos and I'd be the lighting girl, we did interviews and we made news segments, you know all kinds of stuff. So that was really a lot of the play we did. He would interview me and I would pretend to be Madonna and my mom would help dress me up, so we were doing a lot of that.
Then Ryan moved to LA when I was still living back in Atlanta and I was looking at internships and things to do in college, and then I’d visit him and really enjoyed it out there, and then next thing you know I was moving to LA and Ryan and I were roommates. I was out there for many years, and then recently made the move to Nashville where I am based now.
LEG: What brought you to Nashville?
MS: I was really brought to Nashville to work on the studio we built here. Taylor Swift was kind enough to do that opening for us and I just really enjoyed the city so much that my husband and I decided to move here and start a family.
LEG: What’s the plan for 2021? Are there more studios being built or any big events planned?
MS: We definitely are still talking with hospitals and looking towards the future. I think like a lot of us we don't fully know what 2021 holds right now. We hope to be able to bring patients back together in the studio and have it be a safe environment for them. But until then we're definitely focused on the virtual experiences. We've had a lot of people that have been super helpful, sending us creative content that we can upload to our networks. Our studio managers are still playing games and bingo still goes on, everyone plays from their rooms or in a safe environment. So, we still plan to continue to grow and make the programming the best it can be for these kids and adapt to the circumstances that we're all living in right now.
We are about to launch a studio in Orlando too which we are very excited about!
Ryan Seacrest Announces the Launch of the New Seacrest Studio in Orlando on Live with Ryan and Kelly.
