and later journalists erika barnett looked addiction and book is quitter, memoir of drinking, relapse and recovery. >> all right, as folks begin to arrive i will say good evening and welcome to tonight's author event with greenlight bookstores. i'm jessica, one one of the owns and excited and she will be talking with the visionary giselle and daughter karina, you're in for an excellent night tonight. before we start, huge thanks to everyone to making this happen, to all of our participants for being here, publisher and all of you showing up. greenlight fronts are closed and all of us are still here and we appreciate that. a couple of housekeeping things, you, if you're logging in now

you can see and hear speakers, they can't hear you. you can use the chat icon to share comments, if you're here with the girl scout troop we want to know which troop you're in, let us know. we will have a q&a section in the evening and you can use q&a icon and you can click on that to type in your question and you can see other's questions and if you see one you can up load it to make sure we get to that question during the q&a. we are recording tonight's event, look for audio and video versions later on. i think this might appear on c-span later on as well and importantly tonight's featured book troops 6,000 is available for sale from greenlightbookstore.com. i pasted the link. bookstores are closed and we are working with warehouses, if you care about supporting careers of authors and independent bookstores buying tonight's featured book is a great way to show support. tonight we are offering $5 off

on the featured book when you purchase it from greenlight website y can use the coupon 60000 to apply your coupon. today through march 27th. let me introduce our speakers, giselle burgess, girl scout program specially designed to help girls in new york shelter and after becoming homeless she saw there was a great need and benefit for a program like this to be offered for girls and women living in the sheltered system as well. she's been recognized and received proclamation from the city of new york for outstanding service. achievements in her community and devoting her life to empowering and uplifting women throughout queens. giselle and her daughters continue to advocate for girls and women living in the shelter system and are determined to break the stigma of homelessness. so we will be talking to nikita stewart, the news women's club

of new york recognized stewart in 2018 for coverage of homelessness, mental health and poverty. she's been a finalist for the award and investigative report as an editor's award, she joined the new york times in 2014 after working tat washington post. nikita was with us a few weeks interviewing with sand her and i've been excited about this book for a long time. my daughter is a girl scout and this is such a great story about girl scouting and new york city. looking forward to hearing more. troop 6000 is nikita's book, aspiring story of first girl scout founded by and for girls in homeless shelter. you will be talking with giselle and karina and she will take questions from you, nikita, take it away. >> thanks, first of all, thank for having us tonight. hi, giselle and karina.

so good to see you. oh, one of the things that i want to talk about tonight is that this story goes way back before 2017, although we first spotted each other across a room in 2015 and i had no idea that you all would experience homelessness and, you know, i would end up writing about a book about your journey, so in 2015i had taken on the beat of social service and poverty in "the new york times" and i decided that i would go any shelter anyone invited me to and so council member in queens invited me to go to shelter in

queens that had been made out of a hotel. so i showed up and i was surprised to see all of the girl scouts serving the thanksgiving lunch and, you know, karina and her sisters were there and giselle was there and i didn't write anything that day. i just left like i saw the inside of a shelter, met some women experiencing homelessness and, wow, those girl scouts sure were cute and fast-forward, giselle was in the shelter system and then she came up with an idea for troop 6,000 and i will read a little bit from the chapter called troop 6,000. the troops needed a name,

giselle suggested troops 1101, the sleep-in zip code. although clever and easy to remember the name would contradict with long-hail traditions, they were limit today four digits, the numbers had always corresponded with the boroughs and in the bronx the troops were numbered in the one thousands, manhattan troops were 3,000, queens troops were 4,000 and staten island troops were 5,000 but the new troop was unique. it belonged to girls who did not know where they belonged. it wouldn't make sense to use the numbers normally applied to troops in any of the 5 boroughs given that the members had no fixed addresses, was like a floating borough in its own right or even a shadow borough because the rest of society was ignorant of or didn't want to acknowledge residents.

at some point girl scout staff realized that the 6,000 designated years earlier for specialized troops like those for girls with special needs were no longer used and so the girls scouts of greater new york settled on the name troops 6,000. you realize this is big, this is going to be amazing meredith told giselle. giselle we wanted to jump up and down but as usual, worries dogged her. what if she couldn't recruit more girls, what if she couldn't recruit parent volunteers, what if she couldn't maintain the little bit of momentum she had already achieved. 3 days after troops were officially named giselle hit anxiety as she stood on stage and accepted a proclamation from billy james, giselle was proud of her heritage which included her father's back southern roots. she was in esteemed company and it included the faces of martin luther king, jr., malcolm x,

rosa parks, maya angelo and president barack obama. the celebration was held at the jacob reese neighborhood house. giselle stood on the stage with her children and scouts from the sunny side and woodside troops. the proclamation made no mention of giselle's homelessness or troop 6,000 but a reminder for giselle that people were expecting her to be great. she had to make troop 6,000 bigger than 8 girls whereas giselle burgess' work have had ripple effect, and the girls she recruits and mentors goes onto build a better world and community and ms. burgess is an incredible role model to not only her five children but children across queens whereas giselle have truly enriched all of us with service and worthy of the esteem of all new yorkers,

now therefore be it known that majority leader of the new york city council gratefully honors giselle for her outstanding service and enduring contributions to the community. expectations were now in writing. giselle gave herself two weeks to find volunteers and to recruit more girls. so, giselle, tell us what happened next? [laughter] >> yeah, after that, it was really time to like hit the road and just keep on going, you know, so i remember going back to the office, putting together this flier, you know, recruiting volunteers and recruiting girls. i printed them out, got home that day, put on my blues, i had my uniform and i had permission

to place flyers in the hallways and i remember the first flyer i was putting i was somebody was like, what are you doing, i'm putting up flyers because we need volunteers, you can't put anything up on the wall and i was like, yeah, i got permission, i spoke with this person and i spoke with the supervisor and they said it was fine and somebody called supervisor to confirm and i'm standing in the hallway my paper and tape just waiting, okay, you can go ahead and as i just remember like, every single flyer, i took the elevator and i literally on each elevator, there's two elevators, i had to go inside each elevator and i'm getting off all floors and i'm taping it right in elevators and breakfast area, common area where everyone would heat up their food and stuff like that, so, you know, we had those girls for that series that we did and i was trying to get the volunteers. i remember having big lunch and i ordered food. i had everything set up for

people to come down and to train and help me and no one came. i had all of this food and no one was there and i remember i had spoken to corey the night before and i told her i was going to do training the following day, please come and so i called her and i'm like, hey, where are you, i'm in my room, the training started 15 minutes and i need you to come downstairs and do the training, so she was like, oh, okay, yeah, i'm just getting up. i have food, okay, i'm coming down. and we are eating and, you know, i'm just talking to her, look, i need to walk training with you and she serves herself a plate and she's eating and then she's like, all right, so i'm like the training is done and we will answer a couple of questions. >> yeah. >> corey was not paying attention. [laughter] >> right. and we get to a lot of that in the book. i guess i'm also wondering, so after that, you know, i showed

up and what made you decide to let me follow you for more than a year and be in your face and show intimate details of your life? >> it was hard in the beginning. i remember every time that you've come around it was like just being a skeptic. i don't know, every time i say something she's writing in the book, i don't know what she's writing in the notebook of hers but then just seeing you -- i think it really was when we went camping, when we took the girls camping for the first time and seeing the way that you interacted with the girls too and the way that you went with us, we started to feel comfortable around you. you know, she's cool, she's all right. she's really genuine, so, you know, that camping trip did it for all of us and as everything you will read in the book, the trip was a trip to remember. >> yes, yes. so i guess it's your turn.

>> yeah, karina and i came up with some questions. this one is -- >> well, i wanted to know you're obviously a writer and you enjoy it, but what attracted you to our story? what made you want to write about our story? >> my goodness, from the very beginning, at the time and in early 2017, the mayor had just announced this plan that, you know, the city was going to try to open 90 new shelters around the city, expand another 30 because there just wasn't and there still isn't -- enough capacity in the new york city shelter system to accommodate the thousands of people who are experiencing homelessness and so there was a lot of -- a lot of people around the city were upset about homelessness and where shelters were being

placed, some neighborhoods felt they were getting the short-end to have stick. some neighborhoods that had zero shelters didn't want any shelters and so there was just a lot of conflict at the time over homelessness and shelters and when i heard about the troops in the shelter, i was like, oh, my goodness, this is like -- it just feels different than everything else that i've been writing about homelessness in this moment and the city and so i immediately jumped on it and it took me a while to get in touch with giselle and -- finally when i got in touch with her and did initial interview over the phone, this is going to be a terrific story but i want to see scouts in action and i was obviously amazed on what i

saw and i wrote the story and then it went viral and then i thought, hmm, i guess i should write a book and see what happens. i had no idea whether troop 6,000 was going to fourish or fail and i remember i sat down with giselle in the breakfast room at the sleep-in and i asked her would you be willing to allow me to be in your life and the life of your girls for, i don't know, how long, i don't know how long this is going to take, at least a year and she said, absolutely. i was like, wow, enthusiastic, but she was also secretly skeptical of what i was up to but, you know, i -- you know, i've just -- i'm still amazed at your candor and honesty in

allowing me into your life and that goes for all of the other parents and girl scouts who participated in the book. when i say participated, allowed me to follow them and i had to interview people's mommas and families and people -- what is going on, but we all got through it and i hope leaders see what i saw over 18 months. >> i have a question, during this whole time that you have gotten to know us and you've been with us, what has been the most challenging moment for you? >> the camping trip was challenging in terms of-does i didn't know whether troops 6,000

was going to flourish or fail, i was like, oh, no, what if troops 6,000 totally falls apart, oh, my gosh. that was hard. the most difficult part too was, you know, i could not be part of the story and i couldn't interfere and there were times when people would say things and i would be like, that's not -- that's not right, quite right or, you know, i was just thinking about when someone loses a job and a family member needs to wire money and i was like, oh, please don't go through that service because they are going to eat you up with fees, but, you know, i couldn't be like, hey, hey, stop , stop. and so that was the difficult part of watching people in and not being able to help but knowing that i would have to use

my journalistic tools, the tool of journalism to have an impact. >> you want to ask next? >> yeah. >> here. >> what was your personal favorite part to write? >> there were so many. i have like several just several chapters that warm my heart or are heartbreaking and i know, you know, when i was writing them i was like, oh, my goodness, so, of course, the opening of the book which almost didn't end up in the book and ended up being the beginning with hailey who is karina's sister and giselle's oldest

daughter, that was one of my favorite chapters. the chapter about giselle first deciding, okay, we are going to try to have the troops here and going around and putting up the flyers, that was actually the first chapter i ever wrote. it changed but it was the first chapter i ever wrote, so that's still dear to my heart and then i love ugly christmas sweater and i love man enough to be a girl scout, you know, and i love -- you are powerful women. just read the whole thing. i love every chapter. [laughter] [inaudible] >> okay, let's see. do you want to ask me a question? >> let's see, do i have more

questions for you? you know, i guess what was the most difficult part to read about yourself or others? [laughter] >> i think the hardest part for me really is reading the decisions that i've made in life and although they are not all perfect, i don't regret any of them, you know, i've learned from a lot of mistakes and a lot of challenges that i've had in life and i feel like it's really made me who i am today, persistent and persevering and really determine today make sure that i provide something better for my children and for myself, but manager able to read -- just reading everything that i've been through and being able to like close my eyes and put myself there again was hard for me. >> and karina, what is your favorite part?

>> my favorite part, probably when we -- we were all together and mommy finally established the troops and everything was good. i liked seeing it all come together because through the whole book it was roller coaster of emotions and series of events that were happening to her and stuff that was happening with us in the shelter and our emotions and seeing happy ending that -- >> yes, that's my favorite part. the way the bookend is my favorite part. >> don't give it away. you know what's interesting about is that when i was first outlining the book, you know, you know, it kept changing because i was always around even as i was writing i was reporting and so you would think that the -- obviously you're in a home and not in shelter. everybody knows that. they are no longer in shelter and that's not a surprise in the

book, but, you know, i thought that the bookends when you all finally found a home, you found a home and then more things kept happening and i actually think the events that occurred after finding housing were just as important because, you know, it shows how fragile life can be and how, you know, everything -- all of these unexpected things that happened in your life where you're like, oh, my gosh, yet another obstacle and so i think it's important for people to understand that, you know, everyone needs housing and there should have a right to housing but sometimes that's not the end of the story, that you need more, we just need more support,

so, yes. >> definitely true. i do, you know, i -- i wanted to make sure that we touched base today on the importance -- or on the impact that girl scouting has had for me, even before troops 6,000. as a single mom and just trying to find myself and trying to find out -- trying to learn how to raise my children and care for them in the best way that i could and it came at an amazing time and i'm grateful for the women that i've had in my life to push me into girl scouting, you know, and meredith making sure i was in camping trips and being able to bring my daughters into that and myself and seeing the changes that they've made and i've made and then seeing

this situation and living in shelter and taking all of that and being able to tell me kids, this is just a trip, it's a journey, we will get over it and get past it and making sure that everyone that we came into contact with felt that love and that happiness that we -- that we want to give to everyone else and we wanted everyone else to feel as well and definitely touching on extensive communities, how important community is it really shows animation a difference. it was such a big change from walking into the shelter and everyone with their head down and i will not be here long enough to make friends and then building the community and being able to say hi to everyone and we were all sisters and family members and we looked out for each other and we advocated for each other and so i am grateful for that and i did want to express that. >> yeah, you know, i thought when i sat you down and i was like, i want to follow the troops. i thought that i was going to be writing about homelessness

through the eyes of girl scouts and what i really ended up writing about was this sense of community, the sense of belonging, this desire to want to give more even when you have the least and, you know, i wasn't a girl scout when i was a child. my family kind of had to pick and choose what we could afford and at the time girl scouts wasn't one of them, but i always admired the uniforms and i was like, oh, what would that be like, and, you know, these past 3 years i've been a big kid and i've learned a lot and i've learned all of the songs and the girl scout promise and -- [laughter] >> the great big moves, and so,

yeah, just the power of an organization like the girl scouts to bring joy to so many girls. it's just so important and i do worry now that we are in the pandemic and so many people have lost their jobs and we know that evictions are around the corner and more families are once again going to be joining the new york city shelter system as troops 6,000 now in 20 shelters but there are 450 shelters in new york city and i think about 100 of those are for single adults, so more than half, i believe, are for families with children and so that should tell you that there are many other girls who also need to be served.

>> absolutely, yeah. if i could plug in there too, girl scouts and if you go to n nyc.org, you can volunteer, donating and purchasing cookies, please buy your cookies and, you know, of course, you know, what is the number now, somewhere near 12,000 kids we have in the shelter system at this point. >> 12,000 that are girl scout age. >> it's a dream for us to reach all of the girls and the ones that we do have i am grateful, we are still having meetings and holding virtual meetings with the girls and trying to stay connected to them during the pandemic and troop 6,000 means family and we are making sure that everyone is taken care of and everyone is seeing that we are following up with girls and families and even our founding girls we are following up with so i think that's really

important for people to know too that this continues and that this was something that started as something so small and turned into something so enormous and we want to be able to continue that, so -- >> yeah. okay. >> are we going to do some q&a? >> i guess so. >> are you guys ready for questions? they are pouring in so -- >> oh, boy. >> yeah, so we will see which ones people have up voted and we will start with those. so morieta asked, what are the ages of the original girls now and how are they doing? >> the oldest is now 18 and she is going to be graduating, unfortunately her family is still in shelter and she is hoping to go to college. we stay in touch, in fact, she

gives me story ideas. one of the first stories i did during -- in the pandemic was about remote learning and it was because she reached out to me and said, oh, my goodness, nikita, what am i going to do? my sister doesn't have a device. this is going to be horrible for students. and i was like, i'm on it, this is a story and so i couldn't interview her because we are too close now, but, you know, i found other children to interview including a young man she didn't even know who was in her -- who was in her shelter which doesn't -- still doesn't have wi-fi, so -- >> so you're still talking to them, that's awesome. karen asks, how many troops 6,000 are there, only in new york city or has it expanded? >> so, yeah, troops 6,000 has

expanded to other complexes have programs similar to ours so i think that we have maybe 7 or 8 other consuls. 7 or 8 consuls that have adopted a similar program as ours. >> awesome. this might be for karina, joanne asked what badge was most meaningful to you and why? >> probably one of my badges for completing my -- my cadet -- >> yeah, cadet -- or. >> my cadet journey. that was a lot of work reading the book and answering the questions, so that was a lot of work. yeah. and just working together, that was the most proudest badge that i have. >> that's really cool.

okay. lori asks, do this project and maybe this is for you, nikita, does this project affect how you view poverty in new york city, what are the lessons that you want viewers to take away about city and inequality and other lessons? >> i don't know if it changed my view. i think i already came in with a perspective of someone who didn't grow up wealthy, someone whose family had been on food stamps, had free and reduced lunch, so, you know, this was not foreign to me, but i think it reiterated what i wanted to get across in my beat is that i think the public has a tendency to view homelessness as the man on the street with a card board sign and homelessness is, you know, in new york city

especially, the people look like me. they're women, many of them black and hispanic who are -- families, and so to me this book, again, shows that and also, you know, people are people and sometimes there are obstacles, the economics, the education and unfortunately it ends in homelessness. at this point, i think our government is going to have to really think about housing policies, not just in new york city but around the country. >> i think this one is for giselle, allison asks, what advice do you have for encouraging and recruiting

female parent leaders like you in roles like this? >> good one. for recruiting, first of all, i will always say food brings everyone together, so having a meal, breaking bread with someone, having coffee, sitting down and being able to connect with that person and speak with them and letting them -- finding some type of mutual -- having the conversation and then opening up to like this is what i'm doing, this is important for me because, giving them the reason why it's important, this is tough situation for women and girls and we need to be an outlet for them to lead them into, you know, better direction and offering them opportunity and support. we all pretty much need that when we are in a tough situation and tough place. we look for the person to kind of lean on for a little bit. we need to be there for each other and being able to express that and just being down to

earth and, again, stressing importance of leading these girls and the women to better futures. >> awesome. karina, i've got a couple more questions for you. are you up for it? >> yes. >> what level you are? >> i'm a senior. >> yes, yes. [laughter] >> and then heidi ask, can karina talk about bravery it took to speak about her living situation and how speaking out helped to break the stigma and stereotypes of who homeless people are? >> yeah, when i first went into the shelter system i was really young. i was like in fifth grade or something like that and it's the type of thing that kids your age, they don't really think about, i guess, they don't really know the full -- what the meaning is, so whenever you tell someone, like, oh, i'm homeless, they are going to think that you live on the street like nikita said because the stereotype in

new york city and around the world, you see something sitting outside with a box asking for money and going on a train, at first for me, i was not ashamed, i guess, because it was normal, it was natural, but it was just very -- i thought they were going to like judge me because i was in a homeless shelter and i don't like to be pitied so i didn't really want them to pity me, so when i did end up telling me they were understanding because what people think it is it's not really what it is. >> it's great. this one is from megan, maybe for all of you, you can each say your own, what is your favorite scout song? [laughter] >> the the moose song.

>> i love the moose song. >> i will never forget. she broke out singing. all the girls are singing. that's the coolers song i've ever heard. [laughter] >> what's your favorite? >> which song with the worm and he ate the lives and grew bigger again? when i first joined the girl scouts, a lot of my older friends were there. we made a remixversion because we were saying how the warm kept eating so it was bigger, big as the world or something like that. we were like my mom kept having kids, it was more and more kids. [laughter] >> it was like remix. [laughter] >> how about you, nikita? >> i'm partial to great big moose but i like chuga, chuga.

[laughter] >> we will have to have a sing-along after this. so another person asked, what did it mean to have this program in your community and not at or through the school? .. .. i wish they would have news for the school as well but to be able to build it where we lived, where we work every day , that was important to me because that was our home and that was our territory

for our safety so yes. >> okay, one more here. and i was curious about this too. how is troop 6000 operating during the pandemic given technology issues in shelters ? >> i'm grateful to say the majority of the girls that are serving do have devices at this time.i know it's hard to get through to these devices given the amount of children and we have children where girls maybe i'm going to a charter or a private school and they don't have that and one thing is we are fortunate enough to have vendors who have been able to say if you need anything for your girls and we donate, can we have a donation of laptops and we had people who see if

we can get supplies for the girls. that's why it's still a big issue and it's something we are trying to work on and figure out different ways to handle it but for now, it is challenging and a lot of our parents are using their laptops on their phones, but we are able to at least offer these families, we make sure everything's okay but if i need help we're able tofind ways to provide for those families . >> so i think we're winding down on the audience questions. actually there's a couplemore that just came in. want to share their favorite songs . repeat after me, a bo diddly bob . that's my favorite one. that here's one from allison.

what kind of events do you want to do with troops from across the city? did troop 6000 want totalk about the issues of homelessness with others ? >> like with other troops? >> i guess so. was there interacting with other girl scout troops, didn't feel like athing where you were trying to get a message across ? >> i know from the events in the book that was always a little awkward, especially that first camping trip when the girls were interacting with, from around the city and in fact giselle didn't want to even really, she just wanted them to begirl scouts that she camping trip . and it's funny because troop

6000, yes, i mean my story went viral but everyone does not read the news. and so a lot of the girls and even leaders didn't really know. they were like 6000 and they were lightweight, there's 1000, 2000, what istroop 6000? there a special troop . and so but i think now there has been more education throughout the girl scouts of greaternew york about troop 6000 . >> not all of our girls know that they are living in a shelter.some of them don't know that, that's just where they live so we don't want them to feel like there, now you have this on you and you have to go out and know that you're wearing this label so we also didn't want to put them in that situation and you had your older girls that

we were able to speak with them and the mentor them and we have a licensed social worker to that takes time not to speak with older girls and let them express how they're feeling and they get that and they take this opportunity and we have a group that are like we want to go out and we want to advocate for other girls. we want to inform the other girls that are in troop 6000 how important it is and then you have girls who maybe don't want to let people that are there, but there enjoying the fact that they have a community around them and they're here during meetings and that's just pretty much it but for the most part, these girls are anydifferent than a traditional troops and we want them to feel that . class kind of a connected question another person asked how did earls stay connected to troop 6001 they leave the shelter. were you able to get them in the new troops? >> have a transition

coordinator who works with troop 6000 and her job is to keep in contact with them after they schools out of shelter for what we've done is we've created a message where when girls are joining the program there setting up these, keeping in touch forms and once they leave or they move out, where notified by leaders and then jessica goes and talks with the families. we send them a beautiful welcome home package. they might need essentials and activities for things for the girls to decorate their rooms and we keep in contact with them to what we can do business if anyone where they're coming from,very few but sometimes will allow girls to continue meeting there . they just feel comfortable with comfortable with a variety or if not were able to place them in traditional troops throughout the five boroughs depending where they moved to so we're definitely keepingin contact with them

and wealso actually have a transitional , we call them transition girls . once they've moved out going to begin meeting next week so the girl that has moved out of troop 6000 can join in that meeting with our transition coordinator. she'll be posting those meetings to keep in contact with the girls . >> and the asked what would karina's message me to get experiencing homelessness now and what would your cells advice db2parents ? >> i don't think it's something to be ashamed of. don't let anyone put a label on you and pity you i guess, no one likes to be pitied and i don't think you should listen to other people say. you know who you are and what you're going through and don't let people assume that your reason is something bad. >>. i continuously tell my children and all the girls in troop 6000, homelessness does not define them. doesn't it say you are or

where you come from and then being in a shelter to, just making sure it's scary, i was cared and you have to be strong and you have to be brave for your children but i've never been through this situation before, i didn't know what to expect and your children are asking questions and you don't know what answer to give them but be mindful of i guess how your expressing it and remember to tell your kids that this is just an adventure. where on a trip right now in our lives and they come and they go, it will change and it will pass and keep reminding your kids of their worth and how important they are and how even though they're in a rough situation be grateful that they have each other and that we have family to lean on and that's pretty much it and be able to support others. keep your children and keep yourself, treat others with kindness and love you would want to be treated with.

>> amazing. here's one more for nikita. what areas have you found in your research do you feel households of women may need to strengthen to guard against homelessness such as financial literacy, budgeting, etc. >> we always talk about financial literacy and budgeting for like, if you don't have any money to budget with that's hard so i think we have to start with people should demand higher wages. and it starts there with people making living wage. when you make you know, $16 an hour, and your rent , the average rent is like i guess the city gives you a voucher for 1300 something dollars,

it can go a little higher but i would ask any of our renters who are here in new york city if they can find more than a studio apartment for some of the prices or you know, it's just impossible. it's impossible so when we talk about our main households or households led by single mothers or single fathers, we have to start with talking about telling people what theirworth . >> makes sense. i want to close out by asking both of you about what's next for you so giselle, can you talk about your goals and ambitions for troop 6000 and yourself and nikita, can you talkabout what you're working on now ?

>> my goal for troop 6000 obviously is to reach girls who are living in the shelters, that for me is my biggest goal and my dream and i'm determined to help in any way that i can to ensure that that's something that happens and where able to help these girls. i know i dream big ,a lot of people tell me that but why not ? and making sure that the team is able to expand. there's a lot of girls to serve and donations go a long way. if we want to build a stronger and bigger team that were able to sustain the program for the girls and then for myself , as much as i would love to be a part of girl scouts for the rest of my life i will always be a leader but i am finding i'm running for city council and in my district so that is my next goal formyself and

working on that now . >> that's so great. what about you. >> i can't talkabout running for city council, i'm not running for city council . i'll tell their story. and you'll hopefully see soon . one, looking at the food lines that have been stretched around the city that so many people who never thought it would be on food lines, they're in them now. and i've also been working on a story about what's happening child welfare in the pandemic and what's happening with parents who are trying to get their children back, who were removed from care before the pandemic and how children, some children are experiencing abuse at this time . and they don't have you know, teachers and coaches that we

usually have an eye on them seeing what's happening to them so that's pretty heavy and you'll read about this. >> you both so much for the amazing work that you do in your field and i'm so glad you got to know each other so we could get this book . troop 6000, you can get it anywhere you can find books and support the work of the troop and nikita's wonderful reportingso thank you guys also much again . >> have a great evening. >> every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors . trends 21 created by america's cable television companies as apublic service and brought to you by your television provider . >> she means the world to me and my family and i'll see

you on thursday. iq, thank you. >> watch live coverage at 9 pm eastern with 2020 product presidential nominee joe biden's acceptance speech and speeches by former south bend mayor buddha change in atlanta mayor he's a lance bottom. watch live coverage of the democratic national convention tonight at 9 pm eastern live streaming and on-demand at c-span.org. or listen on the free radio app. >> postmaster general lewis detroit testified before congress amid concern about changes to postal service operations and their impact on the upcoming november elections live friday at 9 am eastern on c-span before the senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs and then on monday live at 10 am eastern on

c-span2 postmaster general detroit and robert duncan share the united states postal service board of governors will testify before the house oversight and reform committee watch live coverage of the hearing friday on c-span2 and monday on c-span2, on-demand c-span.org or listen live wherever you are with the free c-spanradio . >> welcome, my name is sameer and i'm director of events at the strand . we are happy to have everyone here area before we launched into a discussion of perez new book strange right i like to share history about this. the strand was founded in 1927 by benjamin bass over on fourth avenue book road. stretching from union square to after place, but rome dwindled from an original 48 stores until 93 years the strand is the sole survivor and now run by third-generation owner nancy ss