. >> no. >> thank you. >> we have john murray who is here. we also have lynn here. we also have nicole riviera from leader pelosi's office, who is going to read a proclamation.

>> are usually say the leader is in d.c. working, but she is in ireland, but she did want to send a letter. congratulations to the gardens initiative as you celebrate your wheen award. so many of you represent the health and are underserved neighborhoods. it has created a beautiful haven in neighborhoods that will only continue to flourish. they demonstrated community partnerships can create extraordinary work zeroth. all of this demonstrates the power this garden will have on the community.

this would not be possible without the volunteers who have made it a reality. congratulations and best regards, nancy pelosi. >> i feel like and billy crystal at the oscars. good eveninthe next person i woo introduce is stephen. steven is going to talk about our grow 1000 program. goo>> i get the best part of the presentation, which we will get to in a little bit, but frankly i prepared some comments.

this is our inaugural kicked off a. rather than try to explain, i thought a show of hands might be more oopprobrium. anyone living here, raise your hand. the work and you started fostering the community through gardening efforts, things you have already started, that is what it is for us, providing more support, providing more opportunities for the relationships to strengthen and continue to develop. for us the means finding more opportunities like this, hopefully to participate in 1000

of these throughout the u.s., canada, and europe, so this is one of five major ones we have chosen this year, so thank you for the opportunity. i have not gotten to shake everybody's hand, but mary, tom, jeff, i have gotten to shake a lot of hands today, and linda has an almost 1-year-old. that has an older brother in kindergarten, but it is not only about community biaseut about hg a nice place to go and a community spirit of the third- generation davey resident, just thought a house here. that is what is about, providing opportunities for kids to grow, so that is what it is about, and

it is not about us doing the work, and we just want to provide the help to do that. thank you for the work you have already started. now for my favorite part of the presentation superior -- presentation. we are giving a give back to grow award. the students had to write an essay and tell why they like gardening, so i have the honor of introducing serenity williams. i have been told serenity has a green thumb herself. she loves to water the plants, so she is going to read a little from her essay.

strikes and my neighborhood garden, we are planting food for everybody in our community. the garden is colorful and has healthy snacks. the healthy snacks include fruits and vegetables like strawberry and squash for people who do not have much to get healthy food. goothis is shaped like a rectangle, and is outside of my home. inside our garden, there are stones to walk on and different levels. the role i play in the garden project is planting seeds and

watering everything in our garden to keep plants healthy. i spent an hour and a half an hour community garden every week. the good thing our garden has done, it has grown healthy food and we have eaten the reagan region we have eaten. environmental education is important because natural food is really good for the body instead of candy. it helps care for the

environment because people can walk through our garden instead of using gas to go to the grocery store and spend money. [applause] >> great job! one second. louie, i think we may have a future employee. when she came here, serenities said she was very nervous. she read them pretty well. they have a couple of words and gibsofts.

>> thank you for making such a great effort inspiring people around you. you will have some tools so you can get started this season, so congratulations. >> you did that so well, i need someone to do the next question answer. you want to do that for me? all right.

>> congratulations, serenity. [applause] >> i know everyone is freezing, but i would also like to say thank you to the members who have been out here weeding, carrying heavy stuff. i would also like to thank my other colleagues. i think that is the end of our program. we have a sign we would like to officially unveil.

>> 1, 2, 3, there we go. very nice. beautiful. >> this is one of the museum's longest art interest groups. it was founded by art lovers who wanted the museum to reflect new directions in contemporary art. it has been focused on artists

in this region with an eye toward emerging artists. ♪ it is often at the early stage of their career, often the first major presentation of their work in a museum. it is very competitive. only a few artists per year receive the award. it is to showcase their work to have a gallery and publication dedicated to their work. ♪ i have been working with them on the last two years on the award and the exhibitions. the book looks at the full scope of the awards they have

sponsored. ♪ it has been important to understand the different shifts within the award program and how that is nearing what else is going on in the bay area. -- how that is mirror beiing wht else is going on in the bay area. ♪ there are artists from different generations sometimes approaching the same theme or subject matter in different ways. they're artists looking at the history of landscape and later artists that are unsettling the history and looking at the history of conquests of nature. ♪ artists speak of what it means to have their work scene.

often you are in the studio and do not have a sense of who is really seeing your work. seeing your own work at the institution have gone to for many years and has an international audience is getting the word out to a much larger community. ♪

>> want to thank you all for coming out on this beautiful san francisco winter day. we are delighted to be here in chinatown. thank you to all of you who came out. there's going to be some noise during this event. this is a very busy street. that's one of the reasons we are doing this project. we are here today -- i am transportation director with the sfmta. thank you, boss. we're geared today to mark yet another important milestone and

the steady, continued progress that we are making for the future generations of san francisco in this critically important project criticallyphase 2 of the light rail, otherwise known as the central subway. it is a project that is very important for building capacity, to move san francisco in the future. it also has benefits for current generations of san franciscans. the benefit comes in the form of jobs. you cannot mention the word jobs these days without thinking of our great mayor lee. out further ado, i want to ask mayor lee to come up and say a few words. mayor lee: thank you. thank you for your great leadership. we would be dryer if the subway was built. we would be right here. i'm looking forward to it for the work that is about to happen.

right behind me, you see this. i cannot be prouder of our mta. they're moving on this with the funding, with the schedule. they have been working hard with the neighborhood. we have the president of the chinese society here today. she has artist and a sense of old and new and it is reflected behind me. a vision of what the station will look like, and also the sense of history that this represents, only in transportation, but for this community. david represents the modern san francisco as the board president and also as a our supervisor in this district. of course, clearly, the chinese- american supervisor for this district 3. very thankful to him. working with the chairman and

making sure this continues to happen. we have some challenges with central subway. we have straighten them out. we step forward and continue to get really good news from our partners in the federal government. today, again, we earn the highest ranks with this central subway and all of the different federal and state agencies. right up to president obama's administration, to have set $150 million in his budget for this station, the central subway. that adds to the green light we have gotten through the notice to proceed with the tunnel contract that is essential to this. today, the unveiling here. this will be geared towards the end of this year.

you also need to know the little story behind this. how well our mta has been working with all the elements of the community. there's a little story here that i fit a lot of attention to, simply because my background is an attorney representing low- income tenants in chinatown. living above this building -- some eight small businesses that used to be in the front. while they're physically gone here, what does not go unnoticed is the way in which there was a solid communication with those businesses, those business owners, the employees, those 19 households to get them to understand and agree that they had to temporarily relocate themselves. they have done that. they have done that without lawsuits, without protest,

because we've taken care of their needs. i need to thank mta for this. we've had other projects in our city's history where the relationship with the impacted community was not as smooth. this is really to the credit of the whole mta family, working in concert with our community- based agencies, all these wonderful agencies that came together at a very early stage, identified resources that had to happen to make sure that the quality of life was going to be treated as importantly for people who are going to be displaced temporarily. we are going to find permanent homes for all of 19 households. they are in temporary places right now. we have assured them and they trust us to find them permanent homes. we're going to do that. we've gotten temporary relocation for all the

businesses. that is as important as announcing that we are forging ahead with a $235 million new subway station anin chinatown. then another station at union square and another at fourth. all part of a project that will be invaluable to connecting the whole city. i am here today to not only revealed the latest chapter, but to kind of congratulate everybody for doing it really well to this point in utilizing our federal relationships. i need to thank president obama, a minority house leader nancy pelosi, senator boxer, all of our leaders who have been with us from the beginning. i'd like to say there's no stopping us now, but we have to get reviewed every step of the way. we are glad to do that.

we've had the team together. we've done everything right. we are moving forward on it. the bid for the station is already on the street. there is a bidder's conference that will be held next week. the rest of the three stations that i just announced -- those bids go on throughout the year. i think every three months. every two months. we are on a very good pace to complete this. this is the moment i have been waiting for. i think this is the strongest indication. it gets stronger every time we are out here to announce it. today, it's about thanking the community. they have never lost faith. i want to thank the board of trustees, the board of directors, the mta. thank you for your great leadership on this, as well. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, mr. ma.

yor. he has been a steadfast supporter of this from its inception. the board president who happens to represent this the district has also been a strong supporter of this project from the start. i want to remind folks that every single action that the board of supervisors has ever taken with respect to the central subway has been approved on an 11-0 vote. there's not a whole lot of things we could say sail through with that type of track record. it speaks to the city wide importance of the central subway. it brings very specific benefits and very specific impacts to this neighborhood here. the board president and his role as district supervisor has been very focused on making sure that we do do the right thing, that we did the right thing in we did the right thing in relocating tena