president. so colleagues i have a great honor of bringing someone forward today before the board of supervisors. we're going to be voting on an imperative item to declare it father brenan mcbryde day in san francisco. we have san francisco's home to thousands of irish immigrants here in our great city. many great irish establishments that are all, i'm sure very busy right now on st. patrick's day with green beer and everything else. but today i get to honor somebody and we get to honor somebody who is one of the legends in our irish community here in san francisco. and so i want to welcome up to the podium father brennan mcbride. [ applause ] to give you a bit of background and it's such a great occasion to do this. i looked back at calendar and

st. patrick's day father mcbride come before us on st. patrick's day. just to give you a bit of background on father brendon, as he is known to everyone. he has committed his life's work to help our irish immigrants. he is a native of ireland and been in in countries in the world, to eventually here in san francisco. he has been especially formative in the irish immigration pastoral center here in our great city of san francisco and everybody identifies father with the center. he has grown it into a thriving hub, helping irish immigrants in our city. it is a non-profit community organization, assisting all

irish immigrants in the bay area. i would call his style working quietly and behind-the-scenes one of the most humble people you will ever come across. he is both a teacher and a student to so many people. he has offered citizenship advice, job interview consultation, just working with our irish immigrant families here in san francisco. he is a lead-by-example type of person and i have the great honor of being part of his angel's team thanks to supervisor elsbernd dragging me

out and happily we won as well. talking about giants and talking about the ryder cup that unfortunately europe has won -- and he such an amazing leader in our city and a great friend of mine. thank you for that. your dedication to our irish community embodis what we do in the city here, st. francis. to me you are the apostle to our city, much like st. patrick was the apostle in ireland and i want to recognize you for what you do and on a personal level to thank you for being such a great friend and leader in our community and this honor couldn't be bestowed on a better person. congratulations to you. [ applause ]

perhaps before you speak i would give supervisor tang the opportunity to say hello also. >> through the chair, very quickly, because we want to hear you all speak. we wanted to welcome you to our chambers on st. patrick's day. many have described you as the glue in our neighborhoods and i wanted to extend our congratulations to you as a representative of the district with very strong irish roots. we know you are there for familis to baptize their children and you are there to marry people such as olivia, from supervisor yee's office. you have been there for people when they are sad, when they are happy and we hope to continue to work with you for many, many more years and happy st. patrick's day and thank you for being here. thank you. [ applause ]

>> as you get older, you have to write thing down. [laughter ] >> madame president and members of the board of supervisors, supervisor farrell thank you for this great honor which i accept on behalf of the board and members of the irish immigration and pastoral center. when i was asked to come to san francisco in 1996, at the invitation of then archbishop levvida and bishop mcgrath, who is now the bishop in san josé, i had no concept of the huge irish community on the west coast. i found a very vibrant and welcoming community from the beginning and they supported my work to establish the irish immigration center. the needs of any immigrant

community are similar, dealing with separation from family, cultural differences, the need for community, just the loneliness of the immigrant, which we tend to forget. they are all hard-working and they are care for one another. and all they want to do is make a better life for themselves and their families. so the mission of the center is to care for the needs of the immigrant community, young and old. and through our work, we inform, we educate, and support irish immigrants as they integrate into their new surroundings and the core part of that work has always been supporting the undocumented community ensuringing a safe place where they can come to

seek help much as san francisco does as a sanctuary city and we continue with many others to advocate on their behalf and encourage congress to pass fair and just, comprehensive immigration reform. the city of san francisco has always welcomed the irish and the irish community in turn has contributed to much to the growth of this city. the first foreign-born mayor in the united states was frank mccoppin from longford, who was mayor of this great city and of course, the city engineer, mike o'shaughnessy contributed much. he was from county limerick and

he was responsible for the hetch hetch reservoir that supplies the city's water. and jesper o'farrell was the first surveyor and designed the ground promenade that is today market street. in more recent times we have seen community leaders such as achieve of police, mayor frank jordan, john from plaster' union and fire chief joanne hayes-white and our own three center has three commissioners. so it's a wonderful city, a beautiful place to live and we look forward to many more generations of irish immigrants making the difference in the city.

and in conclusion, i would like to pay a special tribute to the board of directors, who have been so committed to the work of the center, both financially and giving of their time and expertise. we have bart murphy, jack fitzpatrick, joe duffy, agnes mccarthy and jong john ring and the executive director natasha mcpartland and joan cutty and the many volunteers who help us and represent the irish government for their financial support and commitment and finally to thank you for this honor. thank you, mark. and it's wonderful to be here. and i will go and celebrate st. patrick. [ applause ]

>> thank you, father brendan and i know we have some of our stalwarts from our irish community to be here with us. i want to invite our counsel general, as well as board member, commission, as well as in the city of san francisco, bart murray. >> thank you, mark, madame president and supervisors, this is the first time i have had the great honor to address you. i can't think of a better occasion. our national holiday, st. patrick's day and to honor father brendan mcbride, perhaps one of the biggest heros in our irish community in your great city today. i want to thank you for all the work that you do, in continuing to extend an invitation, a welcome and a home to the irish. it has happened for hundreds of years and it still happens today. many of you will be familiar with st. patrick.

you may not be familiar with st. brendan, who father mcbride is named after. st. brendan is known as the navigator and we claim to be among the first group of people from the west to discover your great country and continent. when i came here first i heard people refer to father brendan as the navigator and i thought it was because of the fantastic way he navigates politics of this great city and state and country. the way he navigates his own timetable. as you mentioned supervisor, many christenings and many marriages and consultation in times of hardship and distress. one even i heard someone said father brendan called the navigator. i said is that because of the great spiritual work he does with his community?

he said no. that is no bother to him at all. we call him the navigator he way he navigated the 17th hole at st. andrews [laughter ] >> father mcbride from my heart and on behalf of the irish government to thank the supervisors of this great city for making today a very special day father brendan mcbride day in san francisco. thank you. [ applause ] >> members of the bart my name is bart murphy and director at the pastoral center and on behalf of the board we're delighted to to be here today. so here he is with us. brendan as you have heard approach his work in an

unjudgmental way both irish and non-irish in times of great joy and sadness. he is the one that is typically there to lift us up and we're delighted that supervisor farrell that you have us here today, that we can lift him up and celebrate brendan. there is a old gaelic word that describes much of what happens in the irish community and it's a word that goes back hundreds and hundreds of word that describes how particularly in old communities like ireland that were primarily farming communities, how the people who would come together in times of need to help each other out as volunteers, much like barn-raising here, with the iroquois native-americans have that tradition and again we're

delighted father brendan is being honored today. thank you. [ applause ] >> colleagues as we wrap up our st. patrick's day celebrations over the past few weeks with our irish flag raising in city hall a few weeks ago. we had our parade on saturday, and today on st. patrick's day, i'm jumping protocol a bit, because we're going to vote on it in a few minutes. i want to congratulate father brendan and we'll be voting on this day, st. patrick's day march 17th, 2015 as father brendan mcbride day in the city and county of san francisco. congratulations. [ applause ] >>

thank you all for joining us and again, congratulations father, brendan. next we have up with commendations supervisor jane kim. okay, supervisor david campos together? okay. so together we will have commendations from both supervisor campos and supervisor kim. >> thank you, madame president, and father, congratulations and thank you for everything that you do for not just the irish community, but the entire san francisco community. today i am honored to recognize a few individuals who did incredible work to serve the residents who were displaced from the 22nd and mission fire that took place on january 28th of this year. while there are many people in

this city and in the mission in particular who gave help in a variety of ways to those displaced residents, and many of those individuals were actually recognized previously by mayor lee, i wanted to take a moment to thank four people who usually fly under the radar and who rarely receive recognition. and i would like to begin by calling on ames, the head of the disaster team and human services agency. ben has been with hsa since 20 01 and we're grateful for the dedication he has shown. since the fire broke out ben has been in communication with my staff and i want to thank carolyn from my office to work together to ensure that every person displaced in that fire

was given housing. together we were able to find housing for all 47 residents who requested help from the city. 32 of whom stayed at the salvation army emergency shelter and the remaining 6 residents displaced by that fire found housing on their own. i also want to call -- and she is here -- ben's incredible assistant, kiera and it's important to recognize her, because she has done incredible work behind the scenes, supporting ben's efforts. kiera has been with hsa for two years and is in charge of all client services provided by the agency. in this fire she worked tirelessly with ben to ensure secure housing for the victims and she did that using incredibly creative and resourceful tactics to make

sure that the available housing could meet the needs of every family. so kiera, we're very grateful for what you have done. i also call upon captain angie, if they can please come up, the salvation army. captain renee and angie have been married for 20 years. they have three kids, and together they run the salvation army mission core at 22nd and valencia, they converted the shelter to serve the victims of this 22nd street fire. these two individuals have selflessly extended the life of shelter past the original closing date for the purpose of accommodating these families.

it's tragic when a fire happens at any time, but for a fire to displace so many people at the worst housing crisis that the city has faced you can imagine the challenge that we face. the many times that my staff and i went to the shelter at the salvation army, i was struck by how they treated every individual who was in that shelter. it was just really awe-inspiring and it really motivated me just to see the selfless way in which they dealt with every person. captains rene and angie met at a church service at the salvation army, hollywood core, when they were teenagers, 15 and 17. they were friends for many years before they were married and they have served the salvation army at several locations including san josé

and modesto and now here they are in san francisco. the fact is when a tragedy like a fire happens it takes an entire community to help those victims. it's remarkable to see how the mission community and the san francisco community came together to serve the families. but these four individuals were instrumental, and as is often the case, people who are that instrumental go unrecognized and so today we wanted to take the opportunity to recognize each and every one of you. so on behalf of district 9, on behalf of the commission or mission, on behalf of the city, thank you for all you have done and i will turn it over to you if you would like to say a few words. madame president and members of the board, supervisor campos, thank you very much. as you know, i have been doing this for a very long time and during this time, we have had nine fires in various districts, and while we are

working on these fires, there are fires in district 10, district 5, district 7 and be able to do the work we do because of the support that we get from the board of supervisors. it's important to acknowledge the work that you folks do that allows us to come forward and do the work that we need to do. because many of you have taken earlier morning/late-night calls from me when i have nothing, but bad news and yet you keep answering the phone. i would like to say thank you very much for the folks up here with me, because without them, this project would not have come off. kiera is excellent. and i spent very little time at the shelter, because i knew that the salvation army was

running it in such a way that i knee all the resident were being well-cared for. thank you. >> madame president, members of the board, i just want to say thank you for acknowledging all of us, and my job was made easier by all of the support with the team i had to work with. thank you. >> madame president, members of the board, we want to say thank you. we feel honored to receive this acknowledgment. we wouldn't have done it if it won't for the great community response and we thank you so much for that. >> just want to say thank you. i think just to be able to come together as one body takes the difference and it takes everybody to make things work. thank you everybody. >> i want to give supervisor kim an opportunity to see a few words and i want to say that we want to thank our team as well, and just to my colleagues and staff, there is cake in my

office after the meeting. tartine was so impressed with the two captains that we wanted to make sure a cake was presented to them. so captains, wanted to make sure and anyone who has been to tartine knows it doesn't get better than that. so congratulations. supervisor kim. >> thank you. and i just wanted to take an opportunity to thank the salvation army as well. you have really helped us out on numerous occasions, with fires, but also with helping us to put together the emergency shelter when we had an unprecedented amount of rain. and you are just a super star in the agency and we all talk about how much we appreciate you and you always go above and beyond to support our residents

when there is a disaster and contacting our offices so we can be informed and involved as well. i wanted to bring up community volunteers who supported our residents duration the fire. joining supervisor campos in recognizing really the tremendous collective effort that went in. also on behalf of our districts and the financial support for families displaced by the fire. i want to recognize that many, many people from the community came forward to contribute to the fundraising efforts for both buildings. both on mission and 22nd and at 642 hyde street. and i just want to recognize on behalf of the 642 tenants, which was local fundraising platform that our staff reached out to, who assisted us in helping to set up a group

profile for the families on 642 hyde street. it's a platform that many of our residents use regularly. it's supported by project homeless connect and raises funds for many things from rental subsidis to dental bills. it was key to get the stories of the families out. once we put the stories of the families out there, the dollars started to just come in, because people recognized them as their neighbors and as folks who really contribute to the value of the city every day. but a very key ingredient was the incredible staff, who organized a household item drive at the tenderloin and provided spanish language support to all families including helping them to fill out applications and calling to check in on them. i wanted to ask the staff to come up. as you know, in the fire, in

the tenderloin, the fire did displace six of our households, including families. and all five families thankfully, through the efforts of both treasure island development authority were able to place all of these families on treasure island. and the fundraising effort raised over $32,000 for each of these families. this was split evenly. and families were able to purchase furniture, school supplies and other household necessities. on top of that, kelly and sergio, who are both here, actually dropped off two truck loads to the families on treasure island. so kelly, ricardo, sergio lopez and sammy and maggie murphy, and i also know emily cohen from project homeless connect, who couldn't be here today, but she [whr-s/]

really helped us coordinate these efforts. these are volunteers and non-profit workers who often don't get the chance to be appreciated and go above and beyond their daily dutis to make phone call and call in and check on family (please standby for change of captioner) 3 33 3