(applause).

>> there is inappropriate buzz in the room, appropriate because the city that knows how has done it again. -- there is an appropriator buzz in the room. we have leaders from all sectors that have gathered to demonstrate and make a commitment to our young people. we're thrilled that all of you are here. so it all started -- i was 14 years old. i wanted a job. single -- only child of a single mom in the western addition of san francisco, living in martin luther king square. west side. sorry. [laughter] and my mom enroll me in the mayor's use, employment, and education program. [cheers and applause]

and it was my first exposure. i was placed at, then, call the department of public services. and i spent my summer at 170 otis. and it was my first exposure to the workplace. what does it mean to be professional? what does that mean to show up on time? timeliness. what does that mean to show up on time? it gave me the opportunity to understand the possibility, with regard to growing and learning, and it in precise the importance of education. so it was a great and amazing and foundational starting place for me to now be in front of you as the coo of united way bay area, to ensure we bring more opportunities for more young people. so we're thrilled to welcome you all here today. with that, you're going to hear from a number of our leaders to have made commitments. we're also going to issue you a challenge, so get ready. there is an enormous need, an

enormous number of young people who are in need of opportunities. we want to create as many as possible. you will hear about the challenge in a moment. today's launch is made possible because of many fronts. there is no one who has been a more staunched committed leader, committed to our city, committed to job creation, and in particular, committed to young people that our cities leader. please welcome mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you. thank you, eric. good morning, everyone. welcome to city hall. thank you for that introduction. thank you for what you're doing it united way and with the obama administration to help work with us to get youth jobs this summer. how is that as a goal? [applause] before i introduce other people to speak though on this very important topic, i just want to say thank you and welcome to an

amazing house democratic leader nancy pelosi, for bringing the sunshine in today, thank you. [applause] as well, i want to thank our board president david chiu for being here this morning. thank you. [applause] i see david campos is here, and other members of the board of supervisors are coming in and waking up and doing other things. [laughter] [applause] i also want to thank our superintendent of schools, carlos garcia. thank you for being here. [applause] and from united way, thank you, ann, for being here. roberta from after college, thank you for being here. -- roberto, thank you for being here. and you'll hear from two one a fall youth from our city. we will hear from you in a moment -- two wonderful youth from our city. we will hear from you in a moment. as you know, we have a lot of

berbers and shows. companies, associations, are college board, school board, leaders from the non-profit area. our community-based organizations have been so and valuable to helping us build an infrastructure here. thank you, all of you, for coming to, i think, this is a historic an unprecedented day, because we have got some great collaboration going on that i have never seen in all my years working in san francisco. this is exciting. it is historic to be part of this, because as a city with our nonprofit partners, private sector partners, and business, we're all putting together our resources, our expertise in all of our communities to create an unprecedented number of summer jobs and paid internships. by the way, i say paid internships, for our young people in san francisco. for this summer and hopefully to create an infrastructure for

the ongoing future working with united way. thank you. a few people around here have heard me talk about a topic, something called jobs, once in awhile. i mention that a little bit when i am are around city hall. but as you know, it is been my mantra, my purpose for wanting to be mayor of this great city to try to create jobs for everybody, for every neighborhood in the city, for every classification, for every age group. and we are seeing some of those results today in our great city. with our unemployment rate falling, we are seeing jobs created. obviously in the technology industry. the construction industry and health care, manufacturing, hospitality, and in some many of our local companies. but i know we can do better, because, especially when it comes to our young people who suffer an unemployment rate that is three times more than our general population, we can do better. we can try to erase those

barriers to employment that makes it so difficult for our youth, especially when you no statistics that we have been sharing with a lot of you. age 16 to 19, 35% unemployment rate. when you get to age 24 group, between 20 and 24, that is about almost 18% unemployment rate. they have got it tougher, while we are now enjoying an unemployment rate that is down, going down below 8%. that is why earlier this year, when president obama challenged our nation, the private sector, and they also challenged all of our mayors in washington -- we were there in january, to join him in a national campaign to produce jobs to our young people. i said, san francisco must step up. we can be part of that national leadership on this call by our president. because i think many of you know firsthand that a quality work

experience for a young person can simply be a bridge to a lifeline. the lifeline for young persons that are setting themselves up on the right path, for lifting up their families. and of course, helping make our city a better place. so the date -- today, we are kicking off san francisco's summer jobs plus, a partnership to create more than 5000 high- quality summer jobs and paid internships for our young people with a focus on at-risk and is connected youth in our city. as you know, the white house designated the united way to be their national and local partner. i want to thank our united way for everything they do every year. we are into the charity aspects of our city agencies. united way is there to help escorted a that. well, this summer, with their good work, they have helped us win some real commitments from

our private sector companies that are here today. also, i want to thank them for helping us build an infrastructure, an ongoing infrastructure to make that job referral right to the private sector very unbreaking, a consistent pipeline that we're going to be announcing today. that will help our young people who are looking for work, connect right into the companies who are ready to welcome them at this summer. i know many of you are here today to be part of this historic event. i want to thank all of you as well. the city, the largest of lawyer, those city departments are here today, all the agencies we have worked together with, thank you for providing the leadership and recognizing that we have limited resources, and we know that, and we have had those budget meetings already. i asked you to do something probably near impossible. but like so many mayors before me, when i was a department

head, they did the same thing to me. i get to do the same thing to you. and it is always asked that you go right to the edge with us. because guess what, for our young people, it is worth it. it is were that to give hope to our youth. so you join us. you take the lead. then i can go out with the city's commitment to 2500 jobs in the city agencies. city agencies like our public utilities commission is going to take kids into the sewer, into the water mains, and learn what it is to keep our infrastructure going. right? we have rec and park in charge of the most beautiful parks in the world and our neighborhood parks, our golden gate park. we are going to have youth working with them all summer. our public libraries. the libraries that are not closing. they are opening as we speak.

more neighborhood libraries open. they have an exciting program for our youth. even our juvenile probation department. yes, they have jobs for our youth this summer. they're going to be part of a challenge of all of our departments working together with youth works, with our department of children youth, with our families, our school district, to 4 hour 2500 jobs. so i want to thank all of the department heads for being here today. you are really finding out how hard it is to do more with less, but you are working with me to make this bonafide commitment to all of our youth. now i turn you to the attention of our private sector. the true economic engine and job-creators for our city. our private sector employers are here today. whether you're with associations. i want to thank you for joining us. actually, i want to thank you in advance for matching the number

of jobs we are going to have for our youth. in fact, if i can say this, i actually want to thank you for beating us. [laughter] [applause] together, we can create more than 5000 jobs for our young people, especially kids from difficult backgrounds and with barriers to traditional employment. and we are here to help you make sure that their work-ready and that we can place them with you. and we will hear more about this in a minute. some of you in this room have already made an early commitment, and i want to really thank you. i want to applaud your leadership. i want to thank you on behalf of all of us but we have companies like bank of america, wells fargo, and pg&e, along with sf city, jamba juice, hornblower,

price waterhouse, salesforce, union bank, ups -- there are so many of you that early register your tremendous support for this unprecedented collaboration with us. so i want to thank you. but i will probably do something that will make my staff a little nervous. you know, in an addition to just thanking you today, hopefully with your commitments that you're going to reflect, i am going to offer something else. and i hope that my staff listens to this carefully. if you join us that if you create jobs for our young people this summer and beyond, i am going to get out to as many of your company's this summer and thank your employees personally. i want to be there with you, with the youth in your companies, and personally thank them for helping us meet the high number, unprecedented number of jobs you're creating, and thank them for celebrating our future with our kids and

your work force. because this is important to me. this is important to president chiu, superintendent carlos garcia, and others have joined me in this unprecedented cause. we're making history. we're making history with bringing everybody together, united on this front. speaking about making history, i just want to say a little bit about nancy pelosi being here today. our house democratic leader has been a national champion. she was with me yesterday for a good part of the day, going through and revering with our municipal transit agency and our very hopeful completion of our central subway -- revealing with our minister transit agency our hopeful completion of central subway. she was kind of like me. all we can talk about is jobs, jobs, jobs. and there are some great programs president obama and her have put together, and we have benefited from them so much here and used it rightly so to

employees so many people. it is my great pleasure and honor to introduce her this morning to be part of this exciting and historic effort. please welcome leader pelosi. [applause] >> thank you very much, mr. mayor. i am honored to be here with you this morning on this very important occasion. listening to you and the enthusiasm that you have always had and that you demonstrated here today, we're very blessed to have your leadership on this initiative and many other initiatives as well. but the summer youth jobs initiative is an important one. it is important in terms of survival for some of these kids to just get a chance. it is important for their success once they get that chance. it is really transforming to of for them and for our community. it has a benefit of their

contribution, which is a very individual one and a very special one. i wanted to join you in acknowledging the businesses that have already made some level of commitment to all of this. i want to add to that ron conway, because i know he is representing many, many tech businesses, which are largely small businesses. while we want to acknowledge corporate america that is participating in a very strong way, and that is very important, and some small businesses, as you mentioned. but the idea that this connection will be made with these young people and small businesses in our community, hopefully they will all grow big, these kids and these businesses but that is really a very important part of the public-private initiative that the president had in mind. certainly a pleasure and a great source of official pride to be with the mayor, with david chiu,

with members of the board of supervisors, and of course united way, the official partner the president named. thank you for your leadership, eric. your story told it all. it told it all. what a difference that job made starting when you're 14 years old, and we are all blessed that that opportunity was there and was taken advantage of. i am excited that we're here with carlos garcia, our superintendent. unfortunately not for much longer, but fortunately for the length of time that he was. jose and alicia, your our vip's of the day. we look forward to hearing your story. and roberto, that is a college program that is very important. i want to say how this fits into some things. when the president became president, we had the recovery act, which is done great things for san francisco, i am proud to say. but part of it was the jobs now

initiative. it had different names in different communities. but san francisco was in the lead and demonstrated to other cities how you can take advantage of this public-private partnership and what it meant to not only young people but some a little older than young people as well. a new congress who did not have the opportunity to renew that, some of us went to the president, many from this area. we went to the president and do it, but the need is still there, but it is not going to pass legislatively. so we want you to do it by executive order. we will help juggle the funds, but this is called making a summer youth jobs a priority. which the president did in the grand way that he did. a priority, elevating it. united way, corporate america, small businesses, educators,

public agencies, and the rest to be part of it. so we would have liked more than $250,000 for our whole country, but this is an exam or, a model. and again, as the mayor said, the private sector may even exceed what the match needs to be. but this is really important, and i have always said when you combine our educators, our public sector, our private sector, our nonprofits to help young people who might not otherwise have an opportunity. the training, the education, the opportunity. you are doing the most important work that we can do for our society and for our economy. for our economy. it is a practical pay off, too.

i really believe that. so what all of you are here with all of the enthusiasm and all of the excitement, the jobs and all the dignity that goes with it. as eric said, to show up and be responsible, to understand what it means to work and to command respect, it is just, as i said, not only about survival, not only about six says, it is transfer much of. mr. mayor, i congratulate you on this transformed into a vacation. i salute the president for just going out there and doing it, even though it was part of the americans jobs act as the second approach to this. the first thing, the recovery act, and then the jobs and that was rejected. but he decided to take the risk, take the leadership to make it a priority. we still have to fight for the

money in the appropriations process and the rest, but it is there. the usual what happens in washington during that time. but nothing, nothing will be more important in that fight than the example that is being said here. this leadership role that san francisco once again, as it did on jobs now, as it is doing now on the president's initiative, all hands on deck. so not only are you doing what you are setting an example for the rest of the country, and you are proving the point that the president was right when he took this initiative, made it a priority. as he would say, and he says it all the time, it is ok -- thank you for the congratulations. what is really important, we talked $250,000, $2500 at least and san francisco. what is really important is what happens to one young person at a

time and the change it makes in their lives and the contribution its helps them make for all of us. congratulations, mr. mayor. congratulations for our private sector, public sector, nonprofit, united way, to all of you. this is, again, of national significance. i am very proud of san francisco. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you, mr. mayor, and thank you leader pelosi. i almost called you speaker. i do not know if that is a mistake or a prophecy. we will see. [laughter] [applause] i will take a moment to say to the young people -- young people in the room, stand up. no, the real young people. not the older people who wish to be young. [laughter] [cheers and applause]

stay standing for a moment. young people, look around the room. these are older young people. [laughter] committed to your future success. i want you to appreciate that. and older younger people, i want you to see these young people. this is why we are in the room today and white is so important we do whatever we can do individually, institutionally, so one more time, one more hand for our young people. [applause] you can be seated. so you're going to hear now from a few more leaders or committed to you, who have risen to the challenge videos are going to call on them now. first we're going to hear, on behalf of the entire board of supervisors because they're all committed to this issue, we're going to hear from president david chiu. then we will hear from our superintendent carlos garcia. then we will hear from