(applause). . (applause). . . >> thank you guys so much for

that beautiful performance can we give them another round of applause? (applause). all the this time if i can ask mr. joaquin torrez to join us again on stage, joaquin will be introducing the mayor and if i can ask my fellow committee members to also join us on stage. joaquin. >> thank you very much i have to say as director the mayor's oches of neighborhood services it's refreshing to have a mayor so dedicated to couldn't and it makes my job easier when our people in the community want to feel our elected efficients make our needs and it's in physical presence and i have had the great pleasure of serving

under our mayor lee who i would like to make a invite to make a few remarks in honor or of arab heritage month here in san francisco. >> thank you, thank you joaquin, thank you, welcome to our orange city hall. i want to welcome everybody here this fourthth animal america arab month of separation and it's my pleasure to join us here and many of us know that we are such a lucky city, and we are lucky because people around their world make their way to fraction, find hopey until the city they know that we celebrate our diversity and find strength in the different cultures that pretend together and now, i ask you also to bring me talent from the arab america communities to make me and help me lune run

the city. yes, it's incredible. union, i think i can talk about how wonderful diversity is, but we have to get the talent from our communities to represent all of the different thing that we do in the city. and you know, tonight, even though there is something called a baseball game out there, but these wonderful events that we have in the city whether it's america's cup whether it's fleet week, whether it's the 49ers playing or the giants playing, even eventually when we land the superbowl it all board of trustees all of us, i know that what i'm doing as a mayor and making sure that i support smallbitions in the city is helpful to the america arab community because all of us whether we are chinese americas hal teen know arabs is a starts for us to make our life a little more pleasant and own our business and is make sure that

our kids get the best education possible and this is a story about immigrants in our great city. and so why not you have the first chinese mayor inviting immigrant community to really identify the talent in our community and allow me to give them appointments in the various moo commission and the city and i want to announce my newest point to the aging commission because per not getting younger i want you to know doctor sham meret tan knee has been selected to be on our commission on aging and yes, he is going to help us because there is a lot of you that want to be in our city and you want to make sure that healthy nutritional unusuallile programs and housing are constructing wisely and so i have asked him to step forward and i have asked john paul s ema h a

who has been on our treasure island and watch what he is going to do because that is a new part of our city and it's one where if he conducts all of the work that he is going to do as a commissioner on treasure island, he is go to get a lot more treasure island to serve the that you saws of small residents that are a part of it and so we are seeking more fault and please step forward and represent our communities proudly and i'm very willing to work with all of you and on behalf of our city and on behalf of this wonderful celebration that we have, i call upon on our coaches for the arab heritage celebration, jeff who's here as well as l u b n a to please come on up and receive and just again, thank you very much for your work in the film festival and l u b n a for the wonderful leader ship that you have and

devise that you are giving to he to run a vibrant culture center and i hopey that you are able to get a larger cultural center is because the population is going and i hopey that we are able to get you a larger cultural center and get you the resources that you need to run the cultural and art programs and so on behalf of the city l u b n a and jeff this is our arab heritage month celebration proclimation. (applause). and go giants: enjoy everybody.. >> thank you mr. mayor.

(applause). . >> yeah, mayorly thank you very much for the letting us use your house here tonight and letting -- we really appreciate it we know that you ran from the game to get here and so we really appreciate your commitment to our community and we are happy that you are here to celebrate this momentous day with us. we have an awesome community here, we are here to celebrate the awesomeness of our community the dedication of our community and, you know we are hebe here to serve all of you so really this award should go to everybody here in our community. thank you very much. (applause). and i just want to echo jeff's words and say thank you for having us here today and thank you all for joining us and we look forward to many more arab heritage month celebrations and as well as our bigger community center and you know, through all of the

different work that we do in different arab organization, different community organizationings it's about strengthening our community and contributing to the amazing cultural land scam of our city and we are very thankful to here today. >> and thank you shad deand the committee for putting on such a great show and where joaquin. thank you very much also for all of your dedication and work. okay thanks a lot:. >> so please everyone, join us for the reception, for the following if he is activities we have a fashion show, as well as some food and accommodations and so please follow us into the hall. thank you.

♪ ♪ >> it's just great to have each one of you here. all of the volunteers working so hard and all of our volunteers up here who will soon be working hard. and we just thank you for coming together to help the people who will receive these meals tomorrow morning. we're going to start with a word of prayer and then we're going to continue on. heavenly father, we just thank you for this time and thank you for all the people who have come together today. and as we think about thanksgiving, we think about all the blessings that you've given to us. and we praise your name, lord, and we thank you for the opportunity that we have to give to other people during this time of the year. so, we just pray that you would bless this time together and pray these things in jesus' name, amen. >> amen. >> and now, ladies and

gentlemen, i'd like to introduce to you our executive director [speaker not understood]. (applause) >> the salvation army san francisco center is a state licensed [speaker not understood] recovery program. at any given time upwards of 200 people are here on-site, go through the program and get their life back together. our residential capacity is 106 single adults with up to 30 families and up to 52 kids with those families. you're not likely to find many treatment programs with child care program and also a licensed detox facility, but we have them here. we are truly a place for new beginnings and we have been that place at this location for 40 years. all those years we've been celebrating thanksgiving with

our friends. as evidence of our thanksgiving history, i have these photos. some of you have already recognized dianne finestein before she was mayor. she was on the board of supervisors, i think. even before that, the gentleman in the middle uniform there is my grandfather who was the executive director here before i was born. so, we've been doing this at least 50 years, a long time. it's become a tradition for us. but we're here for more than because of a tradition. we're here to -- [inaudible]. because this gives us an opportunity to thank you for being here with us. gives us an opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with you and do good to serve those who are most in need. today we finish our preparation. tomorrow a fleet of volunteer drivers help us deliver these 5100 meals. so, thank you again for being

with us here today. thank you for your help throughout the year. thank you very much for your help throughout the 70 years. and now back to our mc. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. (applause) >> and we're going to whip right through this. so, it may look like a lot, but it's not. what we're doing mostly is introducing the people who are here today because without you we wouldn't be able to do any of this. we appreciate it so very much. so, first we're going to introduce some of our folks. the divisional officers and staff. we'll start with the divisional commander who you've met, lieutenant colonel steve smith. give me one clap. (applause) >> very good. divisional secretary for program and metro coordinator major jack bird. (applause) >> faster, got to be there. harbor light center staff turkey carving producers, we have the harbor light strategic project coordinator who you've seen running around this morning, john mcknight. (applause) >> hey, that's better.

from harbor light assistant youth director trey hillary. can't miss him. the tallest guy in the room. maybe second tallest. food service manager shawn bradley who is probably back in the kitchen. let's give it to shawn, right. assistant food manager, anna. all right. (applause) >> and our harbor light residents. [cheering and applauding] >> good, very good. the advisory board, advisory councilmembers who are with us today, harbor light advisory council chairman jim ayers. right over there. (applause) >> harbor light and chinatown core advisory council lilly chin. hey, lilly. chairman of the salvation army metro advisory board and harbor light center advisory councilmember, you all know him, pete ratto. (applause) >> hey, pete. and introduce our volunteers and vips, san francisco city ask county, the honorable mayor

ed lee. [cheering and applauding] * >> from the san francisco police department, the chief of course, greg. and the san francisco police department command staff. [cheering and applauding] >> the san francisco fire department. with chief joanne hayes white, san francisco fire department command staff. [cheering and applauding] >> we're not there yet. a little anxious. [laughter] >> where was i here? united states army, deputy commanding officers of the pacific division, colonel petty stratford, senior officer staff. [cheering and applauding] >> san francisco heights president hu man services commission, commissioner scott kahn. (applause) >> okay, here we come now. san francisco fire department lieutenant bob arazave.

(applause) >> san francisco fire department station 2 headed by lieutenant jay johnson. [cheering and applauding] >> and the firefighters from san francisco fire department station 2, let's hear it for them. (applause) >> now, did i miss anybody? college fire -- >> the city college fire captain. where is that person? fire academy. >> oh, the academy, we know about those guys. the fire academy, let's hear it guys and gals. (applause) >> very good. okay. one big applause for all of those folks, please. [cheering and applauding] >> and now i'd like to invite the mayor himself who promises me he has taken some turkey carving courses this last year, please welcome the mayor of the city and county of san francisco, the honorable ed m. lee. >> thank you, terry. (applause) >> thank you very much, terry for the introduction again. thank you to salvation army and

harbor light center. to know that over 5100 family will receive a great thanksgiving dinner because of your efforts here is remarkable. and i want to thank all the volunteers here from the chief of the fire and police departments to our men and women in the armed services, to our commissioners who are here today. all the volunteers from salvation army and their friends. it's a wonderful time of the year. it's one of my favorite times. as we kicked off the season of giving yesterday, as i call it the season of giving, of caring and of sharing, because people in many of their own personal ways will help somebody else. it doesn't have to be money. it doesn't have to be resources, but ultimately it has to be care that we all want to share with each other. and we have a lot of needy people in the city and we constantly talk about it. we have concerns of other social safety net as our congress is on the fiscal cliff

and we're all bracing for hopefully good things to happen, as they've been happening in our world class city. so, i want to again thank salvation army for helping us be the world class city that we are, giving ourselves the world class heart that we always have. so, happy thanksgiving, everybody, and let's get to these nude turkeys. [laughter] (applause) >> thank you very much, mr. mayor. and thank you so much for being here. you can carve while i do some more talking here. if you'll pay attention to the marvelous things they're doing with the turkey carving. we have 6,000 pounds of turkey here, believe it or not, 1400 pounds of green beans, 1600 pounds of yams. it's been cooking for 4-1/2 days around the clock back in that lovely little kitchen of ours. and all that work did not disrupt the usual activities,

360 meals, 400 sandwiches for homeless people. they're still baking the brownies cakes and cookies. 300 delivery routes, 500 volunteers, 6100 meals to seniors and shut-ins. the meal, roasted turkey with stuffing, gravy, yams, apple sauce, cookies and hot cocoa mix. we want to especially thank our many donors especially the aaa folks who donated 50 28-pound turkey plus aaa maps for our delivery volunteers. 15 pounds of coffee with cups. and our photographer donate his time and talent today. and it is due now. and then we're going to have some photo ops as you can see. it feels like hollywood around here. terrific.

and i'd like to be a little self-serving and promote another part of the organization i'm involved in. the salvation army annual celebrity bell ringing on union square is going to be on december 7th from 10:00 till 2:00. and we have wonderful entertainment including beatles tribute band and a rolling stones tribute band. and the list goes on. but in the meantime we're carving our wonderful turkeys here and we have this feeling of fellowship and thanksgiving comes tomorrow and it goes into full bloom. thank you for your generosity and your time. that was the quickest program you'll ever hear from the blessing to the closing words. the closing words does not mean you have to leave. you can keep on carving. but i'd like to invite roger

mccourt and the harbor lights, the officer and he's going to do our closing prayer. >> let's say closing prayer. i promise i'll be quick. don't close your eyes. father god, thank you so much for all of the people you have sent to help out and thank you for giving us the resources and the ability to help all of these people who are in need. watch over all of the volunteers as they carve this turkey and watch over all the people delivering all 6100 meals tomorrow. thanks gets to their destination. we sd it in jesus' name, amen. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> we love our parks, but we love... >> and the community who is really the core of it all, came together and said what we need is a place for our teenager to play, not just play grounds for the kids and soccer fields but we need a skate park that will

keep the kids home in the neighborhood so they can play where they live. >> the children in the neighborhood and it will be a major boone. and we have generations, the youth generations that will be able to use this park in different places. >> the best park in san francisco right here. >> creating place where people can be active and lead, active, healthy life styles that are going to just stay with them for life. ♪