and anaciata as well. i saw your family over there and got a bunch of hugs. all right. is shirley here yet? is shirley cavara here yet? good to see you shirley. calling to the stage at this time amanda bloom. [applause] >> it's a great honor for me to introduce shirley. for any of you that know shirley. whatever shirley wants she gets so she said i had to introduce her and here i am. sheerly is amazing

woman and was at alcatraz and taught children and supported me as a single mother, took care of my child there and i think she's one of the amazing woman in the community and this is a long over due award for her and congratulations shirley. [applause] so now we're going to -- now we're going to have a video. >> my name is shirley cavara and work for oakland school district and early education and people come from san joaquin valley and my family is located in the area. the best thing about working here is meeting all the families, and connecting

with the kids, and when it finally clicks to them "oh that's what that means". even if it's small steps with some kids it's a great feeling that you have made an accomplishment in their lives that they will remember, so here it started down at ice age and moved to second avenue because it got too big want there was a preschool there and out grew that area and we had three choice in oakland to have the child care center at and the parents chose this one and up in the hills and don't feel like you're in oakland and conducive to our setting and lifestyle as indian people, and a lot of our kids that graduated here are doing community work. they're out there working with their people so we have made a strong impact with kids and you don't think about it. you just

do what you do and what comes natural in working with kids and it's the only -- within the state of california the only urban american indian child development center. that couldn't have happened unless it involved the community and the staff and people that trurl cared to keep it going. >> one of the things i forgot to say there was a time when it was in danger of being closed and shirley lead the efforts to keep it open. [applause] >> oh wow thank you guys for this honor. we have been there for a long time and we were in the process of losing it for a while but the community came together and it's not about me or karen or the people being honored and it takes a

community and that phrase "it takes a village to raise a child". it truly does and takes everyone of us and people in the community, our education community, our native american health center community, our crc community because once they leave us then somebody else has to pick up where we left off and carry that ball to educate the students and i see the students and it's good to see you guys and i thank you for being here and honor all of us, and keep your prayers open for hinttelethat it will always be there. if i can hang in for a couple more years i hope to retire. knock on wood. thanks for being here and each of you

drive safely and thank you for your prayers and blessings and those that come before us and those coming into the world. hi pop. [applause] >> shirley, shirley. >> all my x's kids of taught by shirley. i'm kidding. and again with great pleasure welcome janet king to the stage. [applause]

>> hello everybody. i have the great honor and privilege to introduce and to introduce karen harrison who is also receiving this award tonight. karen harrison is a registered nurse and clinic manager at the native american indian center in oakland and a member from a tribe here in california. she started out as a medical assistant in 1985 with the native american health center and went on to get her registered nurse degree so she's been with the health center for 27 years and 21 of those years she has been a registered nurse. [applause] karen has greatly contributed to

the native american health center and sharing her knowledge and wisdom with the whole agency and this goes out to the community as well and serves as a chair on the advisory community and board member of the friendship house and coached american indian children in the tribal athletics program and known as the coworkers as the patient whisperer and when there is a patient that is angry or agitated she is always successful in calming them down. she is a mother and her with her family tonight. can all her kids wave? and she is here with her sister and lots of friends and now we're going to see a video about her. >> i am karen harrison. i'm the nurse manager at the native american health center and got into it as being a caretaker

and grew up in a lot of pain and suffering because of who we are, where we come from, and so early on there needed to be caretaker caretakers. i think what we always needed in the communicate. >> >> and work is -- >> and community and work and mentoring somebody behind us and finding the young people that will be the up and coming leaders. it's hard to think of myself as a leader in the community because i am taught not to think about myself or brag about myself except in prayer. we pray for ourselves to first so we can be stronger to pull other people up, but to pay attention to myself goes against the way i was taught growing up. we don't brag about it. we just do it and that's

our job and just do it. it's important to always do community work because we are teaching somebody without knowing and somebody is watching us and it keeps our community strong. [applause] >> thank you. thank you everybody. i made myself cry again just watching it, but thank kqmd and as i said in the video here it was really hard for me to accept this because i don't think myself and martha did convincing and remember there is always somebody watching. somebody young or old is watching and we have to carry ourselves in a good way because maybe somebody wants to be like us one day. i thank my

co-workers for coming. i gave this little speech a couple weeks ago and broke down crying and i said two weeks ago those are my heroes. anybody that can choose to work in health care servicing the people you guys are my heroes. shirley is my hero. she is servicing people and i think that is my message. anybody that chooses to serve people you're awesome. you're all my heroes, and i think i just want to leave a quick little word of what a uncle told me this year is "what -- actually "what is hard is told us to go out everyday and live a beautiful life" and i think if we can do that it's a good world. it's a good thing. so

thank you and i thank my family for dancing. that was awesome for me to see. thank you for coming out. thank you lisa for driving all that way and my co-workers -- like i said you're all my heroes and we came straight from work. [applause] >> one of the first times that the harrison family made it to city hall and they're not paying a parking ticket. once again congratulations to anacita, gwen, shirley, and karen. can

we have all the other recipients of this pres tangibleious award -- please stand if you're able. okay. don't be shy gosh. again how about a big round of applause for all these standing. [applause] one of the greatest awards is to be honored by your community, by your own people, so again my hats off to all the recipients for this year. we give thanks to the native american aids proyektd, the mayor's office office of services, each bay health center, aqmd, the health center of santa clara valley and

once again we applaud you and we thank you. [applause] going back over to our singers. smoky bay, two starts and a song -- one of your favorites and napsters two starts as well. dancers, do you want to come in? all right. here we go. make them dance. (drums).

>> good singing. good dancing. here we go. rocking san francisco city hall. good dancing. all right. (drums).

napsters take it away. two starts. all right. we would

like to get the honorees. if the honorees could come up here by the first step. napsters if you could take care of this honoring song. here we go. (drums and chanting).

all right. how about a big round of applause for all our honorees. thank you dancers. thank you singers. that concludes our program.