and activities. i have never been able to do this, even in the good years. i been in local government for 15 years. during the dot.com boom, no one ever announced that every child in public housing would get free access to a summer program. we just announced that. i do not think there's anything more important. it is one thing to get another -- summer job and another to keep people busy. in terms of cognitive development, the biggest concern we have in terms of learning is the summer months. if the mind is not engaged figuratively and literally, if you lose about two months of achievement. it is critical that we get people into these dynamic programs. jobs alone are not good enough. these summer camp opportunities are learning environment. they are critical. 100% of the children in public

housing will be afforded that opportunity. >> we also have a jobs program called workreation. we hire teenagers who are no longer eligible to participate in the camps. we will be hiring 110 kids from around the city to be assistant counselors in the summer programs. that is through the partnership with the department of children use and families. this is the 50th university this year of the program. -- this is the 50th anniversary this year of the program. >> it is one of the better programs i have seen in haight- ashbury. what programs bring education to the forefront? mayor newsom: maria is shaking her head. then reverend brown will

amplify. >> we're partnering with two other departments to find the early education service area. we invest a significant amount of money and blend with school districts dollars and headstart dollars to ensure that if a family in san francisco once a child care slot, they will have the opportunity to have that slot. with different types of subsidy programs to support families and all income levels. as the mayor said, if any families are interested in a child-care slots, please call 311. they can also go to the children's council to learn more about the availability of slots. >> there is no question, we need to provide jobs. that is essential. i would underscore one significant thing. someone referred to spikes in

violence in various communities. naacp's considered judgment is that whenever people given knee- jerk response when violence happens, if you give kids something to do, we will not have this happen. that is not necessarily so. you have people that are professional criminals. we know who they are. the d.a. and police department know who they are. our concern ought to be to put this into perspective and focus on those persons who are professional, career criminals who have terrorized communities, all crcommunities. i hope, pray, and appealed to you, and control you -- cajole you members of the press that

the recent spat of crime against asians is not traditional. crime exists everywhere. we must turn to each other and work together on this issue of people or opportunistic clique committing acts of violence -- the people who are committing opportunistic acts of violence. blacks and hispanics are more likely to be victims of crime in this city than other ethnic groups. if you would get that out there, it would help us to make sure the people take advantage of opportunities and not have any excuse to the perpetrator of violence and uncivilized behavior. mayor newsom: any further questions? >> off topic?

mayor newsom: nice try. anything else on this topic? pick up one of these. call 311. thank you for doing more with less. thank you to all department heads for their outstanding leadership. thank you all very much. [indistinct conversations]

♪ >> hello, everyone. welcome to celebrate a launch of

the trust it -- triscuit bull market program. we want -- triscuit home farming movement. we are thrilled to work with urban farming to create 50 community-based home farms across the country, connecting people in communities through the experience of growing their own food. in addition, we are helping people to grow food at home. just this month we have planted seeds into our cracker boxes. they are flying off of the shelves. they can be grown at home. anything from a pot in your kitchen to a backyard plots shows it is so easy. we have launched a new web site, and interactive community

for the green thumb froze to connect and share information -- pros to connect and share information. thank you for coming to the ground breaking. i would like to introduce you to [unintelligible] the urban founding director whose vision has helped us bring the movement to life. [applause] >> thank you so much. how is everyone doing today? i really appreciate that everyone came out. we have a wonderful crowd of people. it shows that they are interested in farming. the folks in the corporation, from urban farming, we are excited to have you here.

megan from the bethlehem church. i would also like to thank michael and kristen and everyone that triscuit and everyone at the urban farm team. urban farming is a non-profit organization that plants food of unused land m space and gives it to people in need. we started in detroit, michigan, with three gardens. we have 800 across the country now. we are excited to be breaking ground behind us here in san francisco. we are very excited to be partnered with triscuit this year to be planting 50 home farms in 20 cities across the united states. we are encouraging people to get back to the simple goodness of growing your own food at home.

in addition to these community- based farms. by started to find out about victory gardens in 2005. in world war ii, 20 million americans grew almost half of our nation's supply. that was before the internet. before all the cameras here. before all the different ways that we can stay connected. they grew 40%, and we are excited at home with this home farming movement. if people start to plant at home, we can recreate that and

make it sustainable. we are very excited by that. i would really like to call up astrid to the podium. she is going to have a few things to say about this project. i would like to thank everyone for coming out. looks like everyone here is into gardening. everyone seems to know what they're doing, we're very excited. there will be plenty of food coming from this 20 vote by 20 foot garden. thank you so much. -- 20 foot by 20 foot garden. thank you so much. >> good morning, everyone. working on our efforts in

improving the community gardens and local food production, i again want you to thank the urban districts for this fantastic partnership, the kind of thing we're looking for, improving the supplies of local food. direct mandates for the mayor to move beyond the obvious. to move beyond city operations and ownership, like this one, where urban farming has signed on with the real-estate department. this has been made for some time, we are looking to activate the area and the civics center at the edge of the tenderloin community. for many around the city, it is a fantastic program.

we also have a fantastic design contest that we started last year in the city. looking to innovative ideas and products in terms of business, the system of net worth opportunities across the city. the kind of opportunities we would like to share with all of you. sources popping into the needed information on the web site. we are learning from those innovative ideas to see how we can energize the strategies we have in our hands. we are looking forward to having an exciting expansion of the program. we wanted to bring you the green champion of the city, the mayor. [applause]

mayor newsom: thank you all for being out here. we are definitely in an urban setting. i appreciate the opportunity to be here, building on the legacy from a couple of years ago, when we decided to step up in lead by example, focusing on building a different narrative for stewardship that included a framework of public health and prevention, and focus on what we eat and how we procure our food and how it is transported in what it means to the environment and economy. we got them into a room, they created the framework with alice and others to invite the world to san francisco to have a food

conference a week-long celebration of what is good and right we marked a large victory garden in front of the city hall. we were mocked by the press. there were caricatures and cartoons saying that we were a bunch of nuts, literally in this case. people started making fun of alice a little bit. even the former mayor had a column, asking what was next. he was having fun, we were a

point of ridicule. that is where we like to be. many people photographs of the victory garden. -- photographed the victory garden. we brought people together. we worked with public schools to talk about edible schoolyards and different frameworks for education as well as the fact that there are no shortcuts in this life. those short cuts, of course, magnified in the course of regulation and financial problems that we experience in a macro economy. the seasons, the seeds, you

cannot necessarily put a narrative of education like these here at the public schools. that is a long winded introduction. of course, that all came home in washington, d.c. michelle obama decided to plant a garden of her own in front of the white house. suddenly everyone said the san francisco was mainstream. a mainstream movement. good that we took the lead, forgetting completely that we were ahead of the curve and the first to get locked. i had the pleasure of being with the first lady. about 10 months ago, sharing with her the story of our victory garden. we told her to pay attention to what is coming next in san francisco. we knew that we had to keep

stretching, raising the bar. that is what we are doing here today. we have got 15 of these victory gardens that are now permanent. here we are, looking at plots of land. we had a food policy from the urban rural food policy program in california. it will be advanced with an ordinance that will codify the recommendations of the policy. surveying they can land around the city, seeding with money, not just seeds the community for replenishing and renewing their neighborhoods by taking these old vacant lots and putting in these community gardens. where folks that live in housing can also procure their work in a way that is

sustainable and benefits them directly. those that toyo get the benefit of the hard work in the context of the produce they are cultivating and bringing home to their families. i think that all of this is a great thing. i have not been elegant, but i am trying to impress my belief in this. i think that in light of the president today signing a health care reform, this is the real reform of health care. talking about access, it is important. truly bringing down the costs and saving lives. that is what we are celebrating here today out in the communities. i am very thankful that, nothing full but you'll -- thankful that

you are all here. this is a part of the renewal of detroit, michigan as well. we thank you for bringing it to the city. to all of those folks at city hall that actually believed, that wanted to make this a bigger part of our future. to our friends in the design world where we want to celebrate creativity in the context of procuring a different strategies to solve problems, i think you for the progress as well. -- thank you for the progress as well. to all of our tenants for your commitment in long term to make sure that this day is not a day that will be forgotten, but remembered because he will be

here day in and day out, making sure that you celebrate the long term efforts. thank you very much. i want to thank our neighbors for indulging us in this new urban art. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much, mr. mayor. i would like to turn it over to charlie sheldon. [applause] >> thank you very much, mr. mayer. thank you to everyone at urban farming for making this possible. we try to do our part. first, my name is charlie sheldon. i represent the industrial designers of america, building products, everything that you can imagine.

we decided we were not really focusing on the right things. we spoke to the graphic designers association, the interactive designers association, putting together with our partners some non- traditional competitions. this competition took many shapes. we decided that the process, having come from the city, we sketched out what we thought would be best. the people that knew what was going on on the ground, coming to tell us what we should design and how to prioritize. putting it out to the design community, members across the country, having them get together and forming teams to design any kind of intervention. from service to the new

products. sustainable chicken coops. maybe someday on the roof of the mayor's office. though one that -- wonderful benefit was not only all of the electronics, but all of these services where we used technology and some really creative envisioning for how the former communicates with the person who will be eating the food and have a grower in the community can communicate with people who have the land. vertical gardens, hydroponics, cheap ways to compost, cheap ways to do this, sensible way as to get things off the ground. we thought to ourselves -- we built this for the community, now we need to invite the

community to give us your opinion. what we have done -- a bit too small right here, but you can go to digging deeper, the website where we have all of the information about products, service, and retrofitting the business plan. everything. voting on whichever you think is best for the community. we created this category because it is incredibly important. spread it around, let people know. go on the web site and vote for what you feel is important. we will try to do this again and again. we are urban. we are going to try to do this competition again, bracketing forward to provide through

completely volunteer efforts as many options and innovations for the city to move forward. when you see these ideas, you will believe in it as well. with that, i would like to thank some folks. the mayor's office has been a key partner in this. the industrial designers association came in together to help make this happen. all of the key stakeholders that volunteered. [siresnds] they have worked incredibly tirelessly to make this happen. he's just go the website, vote, and with that i would like to

introduce someone else who has being -- who has been doing for important work in the community, stephen wu from the tenderloin association. [applause] >> all right, what is up, everyone? most of you know us for developing affordable housing. we do have a community organizing department that can get results in taking leadership roles. that is our role around the garden, getting community volunteer support for the gardening. first of all, i want to thank a few people. john updike, he has been really great in lending the space. very cooperative in helping to cut through the red tape.

thank you for letting us stand outside of your restaurant. for those of you that do not know about our neighborhood, we have the highest saturation of offsite the licenses in the entire city. take a walk into our neighborhood, there is a liver store on every block, but no worse restores. -- no grocery stores. it poses a tough challenge. hard for our residents every day to not have access to something fresh and affordable. this garden here is one attempt to address that solution. i wanted to bring up another attempt that we see, another of our attempts to address the lack of access, if you come to our

offices, we can show you the plan for the grocery stores, the plot of land, but we cannot show you a brochure that wants to move in. everything is said to, we just need a brochure. however, we have approached about 40 and none of them would like to move in to the neighborhood. the main reason that they cite is lackingthat was a stark reals 140 grocer's told us that we run a profitable. we have a neighborhood of people who need food, but because it is not profitable, they cannot come here. this is more than just a plot of land to beautifyfy >> ready?

we actually do a little work. [applause]