members to become their own advocates. i also have the honor to be elected as the president of cta this year, and i hope to be more active advocate and to develop our membership base across different neighborhoods to come together to fight for our rights. i would like to thank the president for recognition of my work but i would like to recognize that this honor belongs to everyone of our board members and members of cta. i appreciate the support from our members as well as staff, and i would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family for giving me motivation as well as a rallying in support behind me, and also my wife who does all the house chores. thank you. [applause]

supervisor chiu: our next commendation today will be offered by our colleague from district four, supervisor carmen chu. supervisor chu: thank you and thank you to everyone who has come today and congratulations to all the other awardees. as we have seen, it take a lot of people to create community, with a community organization, community activist residents, or our merchants. aside from that, i just wanted to talk a little bit about

martin. it is hard to get to know martin through his work with the outer sunset merchants association. he is not only a regular member there but someone who has always gone above and beyond to really engage the community to improve our merchant corridor. for many of us who serve the diversity that is san francisco, we oftentimes have in our image area people who might not be able to speak english as well, and that is the same thing for our irving street location. because of his help and his work being able to speak different languages and communicate with many of the residents and merchants, we have been able to get much more active merchant purchase a patient and really create a sense of community that was not there before. just this past year, we had our first ever christmas holiday like project where we have almost 95% merchant participation across all different ethnic groups, so that would not have been possible without margin. in addition to being a terrific merchant partner in the

community, he is also someone whose generosity really shines in his day-to-day life. he volunteers once a week at project open hand, volunteers twice a month at st. ignatius church, and probably many of these -- many of us can never say this, and he has actually donated blood 85 times. we want to thank you and recognize you. you are truly a goodwill ambassador in our community. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i am honored and glad to be receiving this award. everybody is an inspiration over there here actually, a lot of people volunteer with me regularly who put in much more hours than i do, and i am just humbled by the experience. to be honored -- honest with you, september 11, 2001, was a

turning what in my life. this is a place where people come together to be a family. on that day, i decided to donate blood. actually, i had to wait about six hours. unfortunately, i was not able to donate blood the day, but i have made the commitment since that date to start donating blood regularly. every great endeavor begins with one simple step, so, hopefully, everyone of us can just accept is that and become part of our community. thank you. wa

supervisor chiu: our next commendation will be provided by our colleague from district 5, supervisor ross mirkarimi. supervisor mirkarimi: 90. i would like to honor rodney chin, executive director of the buchanan ymca. he is a native san franciscan, lived in district 5, the western addition, with his two sons. he has been the executive director of our ymca for a little more than a year, but his life with the ymca goes back to the very beginnings of his time as a youth in san francisco, while learning how to swim, while playing in the chinatown ymca, and growing as a child and through his youth and adults could of nurturing that relationship with ymca. ymca, as we all know, makes

quite a bit of difference in helping of our community and providing access to the kind of services and the kind of opportunity and the kind of recreation that many communities that are underserved and are disadvantaged do not always get. i have to confess -- i have a bit of a warm spot for ymca because my father was a director of a ymca in chicago, so we grew up with the same level of exposure that i know rodney like to apply as the executive director of our ymca in the began an area of the western addition. it is not the largest ymca in san francisco, but it has served thousands and thousands of people, and how it is well used is a real testament to the incredible administration by rodney and his staff, who was able to serve a community that is incredibly diverse. it exists right off very facing

japan town out webster, and it exists in what is known as the western addition. but japan town and the fillmore were united before it was installed, in many ways, also of building the steps of redevelopment over the past years. that ymca over the last few years has served as a linchpin and it did it to really help bring together a number of communities from the asia- pacific community and the african-american community to get there. it has really proven to be quite an effective template in showing what foster in collaboration in communities that are incredibly diverse but yet have kind of historical challenges in trying to work together and prosper. this ymca sits right on those multiple borders to do just that. under the leadership of rodney chin, i cannot say enough of how proud i am of what the ymca has

been able to do, especially since you have become executive director. so rodney chen, please. >> thank you. supervisors, first, i want to say thank you for this honor. it is an honor to be here with the other honorees who have worked hard in their communities in sanford cisco as well. i want to say that i am very fortunate to be able to work for the ymca of san francisco as well as in a district 5. to show my appreciation for this report, i have,coo and cfo here to support me. earlier, our ceo was here but he

had to leave. our pilot crime rate has dropped significantly, and i feel this has been accomplished by forming collaboration's to serve the community. on top of that is our leader, supervisor mirkarimi, with his eight -- aide. it brought together organizations in the community to help dropping these rates of crime. of course, i mentioned ross and rally round. urban services ymca. london breed the african american arts and culture center. sue ginsberg at park and wreck -- cardin -- park and rec.

this is just a partial list of the community based organizations that have banded together to work with the youth and families in the western addition. these are organizations that serve the community. last week, with the merchant what that the mayor came to, all these organizations were there. after that in the evening, all these organizations working together. i like to thank supervisors mirkarimi for bringing these

organizations together to serve the district where we all work together. thank you. [applause] supervisor chiu: congratulations. i like to ask our colleague from district 6, supervisor jane kim , to make the next presentation. supervisor kim: thank you. as i mentioned last week at our asian pacific heritage month kickoff, one of the reasons this is so important to me is it is a huge part of my identity. as a high-school student, i remember when my best friends older sister brought us a tattered copy of [inaudible]

and learning about asian- american history as a 16 year- old. what i learned and what struck me the most was something i had never learned in school which is that asian-americans have been an important part of building the civil rights movement, of bringing change to this country and are also leaders. that was important for me as a young person, not having role models who were asian-american, knowing that we had a history of making change, positive change, for this country. that is why i think it is important for us to recognize community leaders to continue to be part of that history. i am very lucky, being here today, and many of the books that have mentored me and my family here in san francisco are in this room, and i just want to acknowledge all of them. today, i get to recognize a young leader in our community, someone who came into a leadership in an unexpected way.

steve is not a resident of district 6, but i was so inspired by his story and what he has done in such a short time, i thought it was important to recognize him. a 20-old city college nursing student, washington high school and france's middle school grad, and an active member of aspire, asian students from an immigrant rights, an organization for young in asia- pacific students. many of you have read about his story. on september 15, 2010, he learned for the first time the truth about his residency from ice officers who came and raided his small compact apartment at 7:00 in the morning and arrested him and his family. as we all know, many young people are unaware of their residency or citizenship when they come to this country, and that is true for many members of my family as well.

steve was detained for two months. during that time, his friends and teachers who knew him well got together to start a grassroots campaign, calling for his immediate release. they recruited over 7000 supporters on facebook, send letters, and made phone calls to senators dianne feinstein and barbara boxer, and this body, the san francisco board of supervisors, adopted a resolution denouncing his deportation and calling ice to determine -- postponed his deportation. they also urged congress to pass the dream act, which would grant undocumented immigrant children citizenship if they entered the u.s. before age 15 and are attending a two or four-year college, which steve would qualify for. steve dreams of opening a health clinic for low-income san franciscans and -- but was facing deportation back to peru. he was eventually released from arizona and at a greyhound bus back to san francisco. as i have mentioned, steve would

have qualified for the dream act, a piece of legislation that would give undocumented students a pathway to legalization, but his story was important in putting a face to the broader injustice of deporting undocumented students. also, the many people that were involved in the campaign to release him easily with transition to work on the dream act when it faced a critical vote in december. since this time, since his release, steve has not stopped his advocacy purity has continued to advocate and speak out on any rights issues. many it -- much of his work included participating in press conferences and on my party's right before the dream that boat in december 2010, making himself available to other youth, dreamers have not come out yet, and speaking about his experience in giving them the courage to speak out, and advocating directly to obama during the state of the union speech and got an answer from obama himself on whether he would support a moratorium to stop the deportation of dream accidents. his hobbies include the giants

and snowboarding -- dream act students. his hobbies include the giants and snowboarding and today, on behalf of our community and our office, we would like to thank and congratulate you for your courage and standing at for equal justice. [applause] and advocating on behalf of many in our community who have felt that burden of silence, so thank you so much for being here. >> thank you all. it is an honor to be here today receive this award. after the experience last year, the experience of diving through and learning about all this injustice that is happening to the broken immigration system we have in the united states. i feel the need to speak out against this injustice, against deported students like myself would just want to go to school

and just want to get a higher education so we can get back to the communities we grew up in. i am now part of a bitter family, which is about 30 undocumented students, and i am here today with fiona. she recently got accepted to graduate school for stem cell and science but is in deportation proceedings. that is why it is so important that we continue to fight for the dream act and for equality. all we want is a pathway to be able to have the opportunities to work and give back to the community. so thank you so much for this award. we are working to hold the first ever conference everapi -- conference for api students in

california. thank you so much, and thank you to the supervisors. thank you. thank you. [applause] [applause] supervisor chiu: our next commendation will be offered by our colleague from district 7, supervisor sean elsbernd.

supervisor elsbernd: my awardee today is someone i think we all know very well. mary, if you could come forward. i can see you hiding over there. a little brief bios, some things were even a little new to me. i did not realize the great extent of her contribution to the city and county of sanford cisco as a public servant. currently, she is working for pdt, but prior to that, she was commissioned secretary at the puc, prior to that work at mocd, prior to that worked at moh. that is as far as i got, but i bet you could tell she probably did a little more work. win over work with the democratic california central committee, her work with the democratic party, and beyond that is all the work she does in the community. in a color, one of the organizations in which she is working and which she is a line

is the pacific asian american bay area coalition. i think the title of that organization speaks for itself. it is a wonderful organization that really empowers asian- american women, networks, folks, and really help them grow to their potential. but today we will quick stories -- very quick stories i want to share about mary, why i think it is so perfect that she is the district 7 nominee today or awardee. first, when i called her yesterday, i said that tomorrow at the board meeting, each member of the board was going to honor someone for asian american history, and before i could get out the final question, she threw out the name of someone she thought i should honor. in typical fashion, passing off any honor for herself and wanted to highlight someone else. i think it is indicative of her

personality, as someone who shies sometimes from the limelight, but every now and then, you need to bring those folks forward and give them the award. second, for you, when i went around to get signatures on your certificate that i'm about to give you, there were a lot of members of this board who said, "i wish she lived in my district. i would have given her the award." i think that is even further indication of the contributions you have made to the city. on behalf of all of us here and certainly the residents of district 7, thank you for all that you do for us. [applause] >> thank you. my normal m.o. in situations like this -- first of all, i did not realize i would have to do this. i would be the first person to get up here, speak, get it over

with, and then sit back, but again, i am really glad i of the seventh person speaking. i have heard these really inspirational awardees, and i am just amazed. i have read about steven's story and followed closely in the paper. the fact that he is here today, i am so glad that you honored him. he worked with the blood donation, the community groups, absolutely amazing. i considered an honor to even be considered. anyway, thank you. i really do appreciate that. the first thing i thought of, i wondered which ones wished i did not live in the district. seen such a political world. but it's such an honor to work with all of you.

we have such good policy discussions. everyone does such good work, and we all do it for the greater good of not just san franciscans, but people of the world. san francisco really is a guiding light to many people throughout the country. when i was at the california democratic convention in sacramento this weekend, i remember a time when sanford cisco brought forth -- we were the leaders in the resolutions that brought california forward and brought the rest of the nation forward. so i am really honored to be part of that democratic tradition. i guess the other thing i want to say is i grew up in cleveland, ohio, where i did not really think of myself as a person of color. the only people counted in the sense is as far as i know where african-americans and quarter ricans quarterpuer -- puerto ricans. i was 23 before realized i was

not. i thought it was just amazing to be part of this community. to be here, to be honored for the first award from the board of supervisors during this month, during a year when we have our first asian american mayor in san francisco, it is just an amazing thing, so i thank you for everything, and thank you for everything you do. i know how hard you guys work, and i know we do it with the best interest of everybody, so thank you. [applause] supervisor chiu: our next

lottery will be recognized by our colleague from district 8, supervisors got wiener -- supervisor scott wiener. supervisor wiener: thank you. before i get to my honor, i would like to second supervisor elsbernd's nomination. no one works harder and expects less credit, so, mary, congratulations. today, it is my pleasure to honor gordon chen, the executive director of the chinatown community development center, one of district 8's most distinguished residents. slightly more distinguished than another distinguished district 8 president, ccdc's deputy director. gordon, as you know, is the founding executive director of ccdc.

founded almost 35 years ago. it brings together community organizing, affordable housing, development, property management, and neighborhood planning, all under one roof. during gordon's tenure, which will -- i do not want to say come to an end, but will transition to a different days later this year, ccdc has built or rehabilitated over 2300 units of affordable housing. this is one of the most important and successful community organizations in that city. many of us know gordon's amazing work, but his roots go much deeper. born in san francisco, board and attended oakland public schools , junior college in the area, received a master's in social welfare from san francisco state. he entered with the late congressman phil burton in the 1970's. he has been very active in san

francisco civic affairs, serving on many boards from the chinese chamber of commerce to bridge housing, saving as a public utilities commission and a rec and park commissioner. san francisco is truly a better place because of gordon. gordon, it is my honor to present you with this commendation today. [applause] >> thank you, scott. supervisors, first of all, i want to thank supervisors wiener for the nomination.

i want to thank all of you for the hard work that you do. i could not do what you do. you have a very tough job. in here to accept the honor today with a great deal of humility and maybe a little bit of pride. i am truly humbled to be associated with an outstanding leaders, the courage of steven lee. i am also humble because, you know, we get more credit than we deserve, and we sometimes get more blame, but i cannot do any of the stock i'd do without a great staff and board of the chinatown cdc, exemplified by the gang here today. i am also very proud today because i had been a resident of district 8 for 30 years. i am really proud of that fact. i want to apologize to supervisor wiener right now. he tried to visit me a lot last year unsuccessfully.

i promise you, before november 2013, i will get my doorbell fixed. i am proud to be a native san franciscan. i have lived in six different districts, i think, in my 63 years. i want to get around to the other five, perhaps in the next few years. i am proud to be a san francisco giants fan. so thank you for your good work. thank you for your leadership on behalf of this championship city that we call san francisco. thank you. [applause] supervisor chiu: congratulations, gordon. our next honoree will be recognized by our colleague from district 9. supervisor campos: thank you very much. what an impressive group of people being recognize