With so much chaos, furor, and dysfunction in culture, Entertainment has unsurprisingly become more depraved and disconnected from morality. Yet, new production companies continue to emerge aimed at inspiring families and instilling Faith and biblical ethics.
Entertainment industry veterans Monty Hobbs and Valerie Smaldone are among those creating inspirational content with their new company, Just Do GOOD Entertainment, a content creation effort that seeks to entertain, inspire, and motivate viewers to do good.
Their show, âDivine Renovation,â hosted by Erik Estrada, just launched its second season available now on major streamers. Itâs a Faith-based reality TV show about home improvement that brings in powerful spiritual themes.
Listen to Hobbs and Smaldone explain:
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Another project is âFinding Kindness,â a show that finds and features small business leaders who are helping out in their communities.
Smaldone told âHigher Ground With Billy Hallowellâ the inspiration for these shows and Just Do GOOD Entertainment more broadly came when she and Hobbs were working on a movie a few years ago in Connecticut.
âIt was a real feel-good, inspirational movie about doing good,â she said. âAnother person had written the story and we were just bringing it to life, but we were filming during the outbreak of the Ukraine war in March of that year, and I remember waking up every morning, thinking about how lucky we were to be going to set to film this lovely story and people were suffering miles away.â
Once the film wrapped, Smaldone said she and Hobbs wanted to continue working together, seeking to find ways to push projects filled with âpositivity, inspiration, helping your fellow person in the world,â she said.
Thatâs when they decided to launch âDivine Renovation,â which ended up blossoming into Just Do GOOD Entertainment.
âAt the beginning of this year, we decided to really finalize and formalize our partnership and to build on Just Do GOOD,â she said. âAnd, everything we do, all the content we create, is about a positive message and really about what can you do â our viewer, our reader, whatever weâre doing â what can you do to make the world a better place.â
Hobbs said they arenât trying to âreinvent the wheelâ and that they simply want to deliver âgood, quality, clean content.â
âThat seems odd in 2024, nowadays, with the messaging of values, the messaging of respecting our vets, the messaging of that there is a higher power,â he said. âOur goal is to shine a light that was embedded in us.â
Hobbs continued, âWe live in a polarized world now ⌠that itâs always in our face ⌠and the majority of the public doesnât want that.â
Thereâs no doubt a major opportunity exists to serve Faith and Family-friendly audiences, as evidenced by the continued success of popular TV shows and films like âThe Chosenâ and âJesus Revolution,â among others.
For too long, Hollywood has ignored the Faith and Family-friendly audience, though, which is where Just Do GOOD Entertainment comes in. Smaldone shared what she thinks has driven the Entertainment industry to embrace more edgy and non-Family-friendly content.
âI think sensationalism sells,â she said. âEven if you donât like it, you will watch it or youâll click on it because youâre curious. ⌠But the truth is we, at the end of the day, we all want to be better people. We want to do good things for our neighbors.â
And thatâs what Just Do GOOD Entertainment is all about, with âDivine Renovationâ and âFinding Kindnessâ setting out to leave people feeling uplifted.
âThe goal is to keep inspiring,â Hobbs said. âWhat we loved about âDivine Renovationâ is, when we go into the community, we werenât just a production company. We brought houses of worship. We brought nonprofits. We brought police departments and people that would unlikely be together. And we saw that after weâre there for a very small amount of time, they become friends, they become neighbors.â
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This story originally appeared on CBNâs Faithwire.
