- thank you for considering a career with the city and county of san francisco. >> good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. my name is beth stokes and i want to welcome you here. the supportive housing home to 134 single adults. i'm the executive director of the pittsburgh -- episcopal nudity services of san francisco. one of the leading providers of supportive housing. we are committed to finding solutions to end homelessness by helping individuals and families with the tools necessary to exit homelessness. including pathways to housing, workforce development, and permanent supportive housing. of the formerly homeless residents who access our services, 98 % remain

permanently housed. ninety-eight %. so we are very proud of that. here we are you currently are, we have the highest risk and most vulnerable san franciscans. this five-story property was completed in 2,009 with development funds from the city and county of san francisco. it is one of the best examples of solutions to ending homelessness in our community. we are proud to partner with the city of san francisco to end homelessness and i'm very, very pleased this morning to introduce you to the honourable mayor, mark farrell. thank you. [applause] >> mayor farrell: thank you best. i think the house for hosting us this morning here in san francisco. you know, we do not have to remind anyone why we are here this morning. why we are here today for this announcement. homelessness is a crisis in the city of san francisco.

our city government needs to step up. our city, our region, our state, our country is dealing with this tragedy every single day on the streets. the roots of the epidemic are complex. there is no single solution to solve the issue. we need to pursue a wide variety of initiatives. we need to fund programs that have been proven to work. we need to be flexible to fund programs that will work. we need to measure ourselves by the success of the individuals living on our streets today. and when they get off a street and get into shelters and onto their own 2 feet and onto better lives. today, i am announcing approximately $30,000 in funding to address the homeless crisis in san francisco. first of all, i'm doubling down on the homeward bound -- bound program.

this initiative helps struggling individuals with family members and loved ones. i know elements of this program may seem controversial, but we have to acknowledge the fact that it is here in san francisco where we have had a very effective program. as mayor of the city i'm connected to programs that are working and making a difference in their lives with getting people off the streets of san francisco. last year, 900 individuals used project homeward bound and of that total, lesson from four % turn to the city of san francisco. this program works and is having a dramatic effect and we are doubling the funding for this program. of those individuals that have been helped by project homeward bound, a man is here today from his home in reno. at one point he was unsheltered and struggling with mental health here on the streets of san francisco. after he spent time at the

general hospital, we were able to connect contacts, and connect them back home with his family. he arrived last month and sergio and the rest of his family are thrilled to have him back and he is making progress daily. that is what compassion looks like to me. without programs that we are funding to make a difference in individual lives. for are resilient individuals who have overcome great hardship, this budget package will fund projects to help to make sure they will never be on the streets of san francisco. we are adding $2 million to fund 150 new supportive housing units across the city of san francisco. and $2 million for the opening and operations of a building, a site with 50 supportive housing units in san francisco. with those new units brought online, san francisco will boast more than 7,000 permanent

supportive housing units and here just right here in our city. the most per capita of the city in our entire country. along with adding new units, i will be investing one and a half million dollars to provide additional services to these units. it will provide assistance for our communities and provide the resources necessary to help individuals who are coming off the streets. most importantly, and most substantially connect this budget package will include $50 million for new navigation centres. helping support our new facilities here. we will provide a million dollars for programs for transitional eyes use. a population that has been dramatically affected with homelessness in san francisco. we are specifically wanting to address this. we are providing new access points to provide resources, supports and services for families and residents juggling with homelessness on the streets.

this is a comprehensive package. this is about making sure we create new exits off the streets through temporary shelters and permanent supportive housing. it's also making sure we provide the resources necessary to stem the tide of new people becoming homeless in san francisco. we will not solve homelessness overnight in our city. but in san francisco we are investing for the future click as mayor, it has been one of my biggest priority since week one in office and i am incredibly proud of the policies that we have moved forward with in the city. we are going to continue to put a foot on the gas pedal until my last day in office. this funding package will ensure the city of san francisco, for years to come will have the resources necessary to continue to address the issue on the streets of san francisco. we are not going to do this alone. takes the help of community leaders, of organizations and individuals willing to come off

the street, but we are making progress and we are making life better for those that are on our streets and we are making life better for san francisco residents. with that i want to thank you all for being here today i don't want to bring up to the podium the person who is really leading the charge here and has been doing great work for our city of san francisco and will be doing so for years to come. our director for homelessness and supportive housing. [applause] >> thank you mr mayor. i'm here with the department of homelessness and supportive housing. first i want to thank san francisco community services for hosting this event and for all the amazing work that they do. we are very lucky to have an organization like ecs and san francisco and we are also very lucky to have them at the helm of the ecs. they are doing an amazing job leading this organization as the backbone provider and homelessness response system. i also want to thank our staff

who are here with a few folks are here from the homeward bound program to, every day, are out hoping to reunite family and people who are homeless with family and friends who are able to take them back into their lives. the chair of the local homeless correlating board, and then other hs h. staff. thank you for being here and think all of you for joining us but mostly i want to thank mayor farrell for this budget proposal that he is putting forward. we are very excited about the fact that this budget represents and really reflects the work that we laid out in our strategic plan when our department was created by mayor lee. we spent a year figuring out what can we do to best address homelessness and san francisco? we laid out a clear plan with specific goals. this budget practice really reflects what we see as the priorities that were developed not only by staff members and also in consultation with our nonprofit providers and

advocates and people expressing homelessness themselves. we are very grateful to see this expansion that focuses on three important areas that will help us, number 1 reduce unsheltered homelessness and opening up more navigation centres. to end homelessness by providing rent subsidies and supportive housing sights. we really appreciate mayor if there -- farrell. supporting 50 people every week exit homelessness through a variety of programs. but every week hundreds of people replace those folks get off the streets. we need to figure out how can we use programs like homeward bound, eviction prevention, flexible housing grants for people so we can help folks get back to the last safe place where they were staying and reduce the number of newly homeless people in the city. this does all o is all of thosed we are very excited. i'm looking forward to being

able to dig in and start doing this work once the budget is approved by the board of supervisors and signed off by the mayor. thank you very much. is now my pleasure, we have two hs h. clients in the house with us as well. one in the house and one on the tv screen. first i would like to introduce mr williams, first of all, and i want to thank him for our service to the country. he served in the navy for eight years. helping defend our country and ended up homelessness -- homeless but we are very pleased it is now he is living in the operant residence which is by this property which is housing that we put together for people who are veterans and to have also served the country and military and are experiencing homelessness and needed a hand up to get off the streets. mr williams moved in recently and joined me i join me in welco the podium. [applause] >> hello.

i am a san francisco native. i am a u.s. navy vet and i live in the bay area predominantly most of my life. i stay at supportive housing for the past few months and i am just happy, you know, to have a place to stay. i am benefiting from trying to get being put in a situation where i can get my life back together. it's looking good. i wish it was more programs like this to help people, you know, change their lives. thank you. >> thank you mr williams and fortunately, with this budget we will have more housing like the auburn, it is very close to the

auburn and what it we are excited it will be opening up very shortly. also we talked about the homeward bound program and the mayor made reference to mr bravo who is over there on the tv screen. he is one of the many, many individuals whose families participate in the homeward bound program over 850 people a year and all of those experiences are unique and i will tell you that that although this program sometimes may appear controversial to some, we get so many lanter is on a regular basis of people thanking us for reuniting them with their family members and people who are homeless themselves whose lives have really turned around by getting reconnected to family and friends. we're very proud of the work of this program and very excited mr bravo was here and it's going to be able to share some of his thoughts. mr bravo was there, and was able to share some thoughts.

we will try to reconnect quickly. but while we are doing that, i want to share some of the homeward bound stories in addition to mr bravo's. one gentleman that we have been made aware of was homeless in san francisco and reunited with his family in north carolina and is getting his master's degree at yale. we have another individual just recently, maybe four or five months ago, he was a senior citizen who ended off -- ended on the streets and was not really sure where she was exactly. and we were able to bring these guys over here and find her family member and return her to her family. escorted her back to where she was and she is suffering from dementia and we were able to reconnect her with her family. we also have so many stories of people going back to tennessee in chicagand chicago and peoplee

bay area and folks were able to reconnect with their people. i think it is an incredibly important part of it recovering from homelessness. like a not everybody has family or friends they can return to that when they can, one of the processes and healing and recovery from the trauma of being homeless is having people around you who care about you. i think there's no better medicine than that. we are really proud of the homeward bound program. i think we are going to end up having to conclude. let's get a last-minute technical failure. the mayor spoke briefly about mr bravo's story but his son was on the streets of san francisco suffering from severe mental health issues, we were able to make a connection with him and get him reunited with his father in reno and is now receiving intensive mental health support in order to help the sun get back on his feet again and be the best person that he can

possibly be and this would not have happened without the homeward bound program. i think at this point we will go ahead and conclude the program. thank you very much for being here today. [applause] [♪] sustainability mission, even though the bikes are very minimal energy use. it still matters where the energy comes from and also part of the mission in sustainability is how we run everything, run our business. so having the lights come on with clean energy is important

to us as well. we heard about cleanpowersf and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. it was super easy to sign up. our bookkeeper signed up online, it was like 15 minutes. nothing has changed, except now we have cleaner energy. it's an easy way to align your environmental proclivities and goals around climate change and it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it, and it doesn't really add anything to the bill.>> i want to thank eve

being here today as we celebrate the individuals that i just had a chance to meet here right behind us. and today is really an amazing day for the city of san francisco. we're showing that once again our city employees, our residents, but our city employees are stepping up to the task. and want to welcome, i know there are 14 individuals that came from our department of public health that went to puerto rico to help the victims of hurricane maria and really dedicated their time and effort to helping those that are in need. as the city of san francisco, these are the values that we embrace as a city. we've had our own incidents,

whether it's earthquake in particular, where we're the beneficiaries of other cities and jurisdictions coming to our help and participating in the rescue efforts here in the city of san francisco. and now we're paying it forward and replicating it in kind. i want to thank all of you personally for representing the city the way that you did. the doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, they are representing our city on the international stage and showing what our city is all about. it's an honor to be here to recognize them for their efforts, for their volunteerism, and really, barbara, to thank you, because i think this is about the testimony of the department that you have created as well. and that you are supporting. we're so lucky to have barbara garcia running our department of health here in san francisco and the values that we are part of our dna here in san francisco, that we own as a city government, as city employees,

are represented here in your department. i'm going to turn it over to you, but as mayor of the city of san francisco, i am so proud today to be here to recognize these individuals. i know we have certificates of honor. i was able to do this the other day, but we have a unique thing called the heart of the city pins, that we're going to give each of these individuals, that did the heroic work in puerto rico. i want to say thank you to each and every one of you for what you did and know how proud we are as a city, but as mayor, proud you represented us so well. congratulations. [applause] we'll give them their gift in a minute, but i want to turn it over to barbara garcia who runs our department of health. [applause] >> thank you, good morning. and thank you, mr. mayor. we should be proud of all our staff and we're really proud of the support that the city has

given our staff to be able to go to puerto rico. you know, we depend on the electricity and water every day. and the people in puerto rico still cannot depend on these fundamental services. the impact of hurricane maria had a detrimental effect on the people and the medical assistance in puerto rico. this is one of the main reasons we sent our 14-member health team to provide support to one of the community clinic organizations. in the northwestern part of puerto rico. the response to emergencies is one of the core responsibilities of any health department and san francisco health department has had decades of experience, so we felt obligated to assist the puerto rican people and their communities medical providers. you'll hear more from the staff, they supported the clinical staff and continued to provide care to thousands, the clinics in puerto rico. our staff crossed rivers and

climbed mountains with local clinic staff to provide medical and psychological support in people's homes. we want to continue to support these clinics and we encourage catastrophens to help us. -- san franciscans to help us. we set up a fund at our public health foundation and all the dollars go to the clinics to continue their efforts. i'm so proud today. and i had my own experience of running a community clinic in a middle of a disaster. i know how important it is to get the support we provided to these clinics, so i want to ask the staff to come up and talk about their experience. the first one is ramona. she'll give opening remarks. [applause] >> hello, everyone. my name is ramona, i'm registered further at the family health center. i work in the complex care management team at zuckerberg general hospital.

i would like to thank everyone who had a hand in putting this together. this was a wonderful medical relief mission. and i speak for everyone when i say this was truly an amazing experience, we feel so blessed to work the staff. the community offers primary care and home care services to patients at risk in the surrounding area. and it's truly serving its community in a time of need. i'm hopeful that the relationships we made there will continue to grow. our time in puerto rico was spent working alongside our brothers and sisters, providing care to patients in their homes. these home visits were in remote mountain areas. our team of nurses, doctors, mental health professionals, pharmacists, outreach team and community leaders would travel up to two hours every morning along hazardous roads, trying to outreach these vulnerable residents. it's been 217 days since

hurricane maria hit. and the people we visit still have no electricity. some no water. and many still have the blue temporary tarps as roofs. these people are still struggling. what i found especially tragic, in these remote areas, many of the patients were elderly. as a result, many of these seniors are taking care of their geriatric parents. from a nursing perspective, patients in need of skin care, wound care, a lot of foot care, nail-trimming, reconciliation. much needed teaching and education around chronic disease management, these were some of the prevalent diseases. these diseases are made much worse by the stress, anxiety and fear related to this hurricane. we visited a gentleman in his

70s dealing with the stress of the hurricane maria aftermath, no electricity, his hypertension and diabetes and he's the primary caregiver for his mother in her 90s. upon entering the home, our physician recognized that his elderly mother was not well. she had the signs and symptoms of sepsis, it's complicated because of delayed medical attention. we jumped into action, recognizing the signs of this complicated infection and the possible risk of death. the team facilitated medical attention and intervention. everyone working together to improve the outcome of this family. this is just one of many of the success stories we brought back with us. the most healing intervention we provided was our presence, our time. we provided a sense of humanity, it reminded us them that puerto

rico has not been forgotten, seven months after hurricane maria, we still care and wanted to help. puerto rico. [applause] >> good morning. so i'm ricardo, i work for comprehensive crisis services here at the department of public health and feel fortunate to assist in the disaster relief as a senior psychologist. one of the things that happens is that you have the honor of hearing people's pain. you have the honor of maintaining the confidentiality of what people are suffering. yet in a disaster there is no confidentiality, everybody knows

everything. one of the things that happened, this team, none of us really know each other, some of us colleagues, some didn't know each other as well. we blended seamlessly. and became a topnotch primary care clinic on the road that included behavioral health and we found some very chronic conditions. a lot of anxiety. a lot of depression that existed before the hurricane, but exacerbated because of the lack of water, lack of electricity. one of the behavioral health interventions was to get a generator started. a woman could not pull the generator. that is the only way to get electricity. she's by herself. lost her husband 11 years ago. depressed by herself. children don't visit and there

was nobody there to pull her generator. so two of us did. a younger guy than me, he was able to pull it, make it happen. [laughter] so that was our behavioral intervention for her, but we were left with lots of different thoughts about follow-up. one of the beautiful things, the agency responsible for that community took our recommendations and will follow-up, so hopefully this woman will do care. i was in the middle of doing a panic attack treatment when they say, sorry, we got to hospitalize your mom. so he needed medical attention. he got treated for that. and the mother, yeah, she was really in grave situation. and had this agency not been there, this team, or the other

team that was serving them, a number of those people might have died because they just really needed that attention. so i think, i want to support this effort and any other further efforts to continue to do that. we do that at crisis. we respond to disasters, we do the fires up north. i got deployed to katrina and rita and that's the kind of think we do in the city and county of san francisco and we're able to do it. the fact that we're able to spare the staff helped them and gave us the psychological boost. they taught us a great deal on how to be humble, responsive, responsible, ethical. and i'm glad that we in the city and county of san francisco were able to do that. thank you so much. [applause] >> i want to introduce dr. hammer, i asked her to find a

group, identify the group and to lead the group. i'm really proud she did that and she did that with so much pride and also i think, i'm really proud of the work and her leadership. doctor? [applause] >> thank you. thank you for sharing your stories. and to the other members of our amazing team for your service to the department of public health and the people of puerto rico. and sincere gratitude to the mayor and director garcia and everyone at dph for giving us the opportunity to represent the city and county of san francisco on this important mission. our team spent seven days in puerto rico, working alongside colleagues, a group of four federally qualified health centers based in the northwest part of the island.

they're sister clinics to us in many ways. the clinics in san francisco are federally qualified health centers with a mission to serve the most vulnerable members of the community. we each came back from our time with so many stories and images. houses and cars washed down mountainsides, broken bridges and roads. dark living rooms, empty fish tanks. but i think and hope that our most lasting memories are the incredible resilience and sense of hope we encountered. speaking for the clinicians, this mission was a natural extension of our mission in the dph. each of us is called to service. and to a person, we were deeply honored to have the honor to serve in puerto rico. we rode vans deep into the forest, where we stopped in tiny

communities and attended to people in their homes. all of us were left of a renewed connection of what brought us to the healing profession in the first place. our ambassador of hope, as i like to think of them, were the puerto rican partners at csm. they are health care professionals working tirelessly since the hurricane seven months ago to do anything in their power to help their community. ever since the storm passed, their teams have traveled every day to find people in need and bring them whatever they can. food, water, medicine, generators, or just a healing presence. we feel honored to work alongside them. we learned from their example. many people have asked us what they can do to support puerto rico's recovery effort? first and foremost, we should remember puerto rico and visit there. it's alive, but suffering, and definitely recovering. it's a beautiful and great place to live and work.

also, we encourage san franciscans who want to support the relief effort to donate to the clinics we worked with on our trip. you can do that through the san francisco public health foundation. we handed out this flyer. the public health foundation has set up an account to support the clinics and the outreach efforts. please take one of the flyers with you in you want -- if you want to get information how to donate. one of the most enduring memory from our time in puerto rico is families welcoming us into their home, so grateful for the care, medicine, water and food we provided. thank you for coming, these beautiful elders would say to us as they gave us coffee. thank you for not forgetting us. and they expressed their gratitude not just to us, but the people of san francisco. it was a great honor to represent the department and the people of san francisco. it's also an honor for us to

bring back a certificate of honor from the executive director of csm to present to mayor farrell and gift to present to director garcia. [applause] >> this is a certificate of recognition dedicated to the honorable mark farrell, for your initiative of sending aid with health professionals from the city of san francisco to assist those affected by hurricane maria in puerto rico. thanks for your support. it is signed by the executive director of csm. thank you. [applause] beautiful neck and we bring a

gift for director garcia. we acknowledge and appreciated your support everywhere we went when we were in puerto rico. you were the spark that made this happen, so thank you so much for giving us this opportunity and a necklace for you from csm. [applause] ellen davis. [applause]

ricardo. [applause] richard santana. [applause] ann daleman. [applause]

ramona. [applause] steven delgado. [applause] vita mullins. [applause] jody scottniss.

[applause] kenneth pilon. [applause] jesus pestano. [applause] last but not least, halle hammer. [applause]

we're going to do a picture, but how about one more round of applause for everyone here? [applause] i see that vivian is here. and she was our connection to puerto rico. and so i really want to thank her, she also worked for the health center in california. thank you, vivian. [applause] and this ends the program.

>> manufacturing in cities creates this perfect platform for people to earn livelihoods and for people to create more economic prosperity. i'm kate sosa. i'm cofounder and ceo of sf made. sf made is a public private partnership in the city of san francisco to help manufacturers start, grow, and stay right here in san francisco. sf made really provides wraparound resources for manufacturers that sets us

apart from other small business support organizations who provide more generalized support. everything we do has really been developed over time by listening and thinking about what manufacturer needs grow. for example, it would be traditional things like helping them find capital, provide assistance loans, help to provide small business owners with education. we have had some great experience doing what you might call pop ups or temporary selling events, and maybe the most recent example was one that we did as part of sf made week in partnership with the city seas partnership with small business, creating a 100 company selling day right here at city hall, in partnership with mayor lee and the board of supervisors, and it was just a wonderful opportunity for many of our smaller manufacturers

who may be one or two-person shop, and who don't have the wherewithal to have their own dedicated retail store to show their products and it comes back to how do we help companies set more money into arthur businesses and develop more customers and their relationships, so that they can continue to grow and continue to stay here in san francisco. i'm amy kascel, and i'm the owner of amy kaschel san francisco. we started our line with wedding gowns, and about a year ago, we launched a ready to wear collection. san francisco's a great place to do business in terms of clientele. we have wonderful brides from all walks of life and doing really interesting things: architects, doctors,

lawyers, teachers, artists, other like minded entrepreneurs, so really fantastic women to work with. i think it's important for them to know where their clothes are made and how they're made. >> my name is jefferson mccarly, and i'm the general manager of the mission bicycle company. we sell bikes made here for people that ride here. essentially, we sell city bikes made for riding in urban environments. our core business really is to build bikes specifically for each individual. we care a lot about craftsmanship, we care a lot about quality, we care about good design, and people like that. when people come in, we spend a lot of time going to the design wall, and we can talk about handle bars, we can see the

riding position, and we take notes all over the wall. it's a pretty fun shopping experience. paragraph. >> for me as a designer, i love the control. i can see what's going on, talk to my cutter, my pattern maker, looking at the designs. going through the suing room, i'm looking at it, everyone on the team is kind of getting involved, is this what that drape look? is this what she's expecting, maybe if we've made a customization to a dress, which we can do because we're making everything here locally. over the last few years, we've been more technical. it's a great place to be, but you know, you have to concentrate and focus on where things are going and what the right

decisions are as a small business owner. >> sometimes it's appropriate to bring in an expert to offer suggestions and guidance in coaching and counseling, and other times, we just need to talk to each other. we need to talk to other manufacturers that are facing similar problems, other people that are in the trenches, just like us, so that i can share with them a solution that we came up with to manage our inventory, and they can share with me an idea that they had about how to overcome another problem. >> moving forward, where we see ourselves down the road, maybe five and ten years, is really looking at a business from a little bit more of a ready to wear perspective and making things that are really thoughtful and mindful, mindful of the end user, how they're going to use it, whether it's the end piece or a he hwedding gown, are they going to use it

again, and incorporating that into the end collection, and so that's the direction i hear at this point. >> the reason we are so enamored with the work we do is we really do see it as a platform for changing and making the city something that it has always been and making sure that we're sharing the opportunities that we've been blessed with economically and socially as possible, broadening that as a society we've basically failed big portion of our

population if you think about the basics of food, shelter safety a lot of people don't have any of those i'm mr. cookie can't speak for all the things but i know say, i have ideas how we can address the food issue. >> open the door and walk through that don't just stand looking out. >> as they grew up in in a how would that had access to good food and our parent cooked this is how you feed yours this is not happening in our country this is a huge pleasure i'm david one of the co-founder so about four year ago we worked with the serviced and got to know the kid one of the things

we figured out was that they didn't know how to cook. >> i heard about the cooking school through the larkin academy a. >> their noting no way to feed themselves so they're eating a lot of fast food and i usually eat whatever safeway is near my home a lot of hot food i was excited that i was eating lunch enough instead of what and eat. >> as i was inviting them over teaching them basic ways to fix good food they were so existed. >> particle learning the skills and the food they were really go it it turned into the is charity foundation i ran into my friend we were talking about this this do you want to run this charity

foundations and she said, yes. >> i'm a co-found and executive director for the cooking project our best classes participation for 10 students are monday they're really fun their chief driven classes we have a different guest around the city they're our stand alone cola's we had a series or series still city of attorney's office style of classes our final are night life diners. >> santa barbara shall comes in and helps us show us things and this is one the owners they help us to socialize and i've been here about a year. >> we want to be sure to serve as many as we can.

>> the san francisco cooking school is an amazing amazing partner. >> it is doing that in that space really elevates the space for the kids special for the chief that make it easy for them to come and it really makes the experience pretty special. >> i'm sutro sue set i'm a chief 2, 3, 4 san francisco. >> that's what those classes afford me the opportunity it breakdown the barriers and is this is not scary this is our choice about you many times this is a feel good what it is that you give them is an opportunity you have to make it seem like it's there for them for the taking show them it is their and they can do that. >> hi, i'm antonio the chief in san francisco.

>> the majority of kids at that age in order to get them into food they need to see something simple and the evidence will show and easy to produce i want to make sure that people can do it with a bowl and spoon and burner and one pan. >> i like is the receipts that are simple and not feel like it's a burden to make foods the cohesives show something eased. >> i go for vera toilet so someone can't do it or its way out of their range we only use 6 ingredients i can afford 6 ingredient what good is showing you them something they can't use but the sovereignties what are you going

to do more me you're not successful. >> we made a vegetable stir-fry indicators he'd ginger and onion that is really affordable how to balance it was easy to make the food we present i loved it if i having had access to a kitchen i'd cook more. >> some of us have never had a kitchen not taught how to cookie wasn't taught how to cook. >> i have a great appreciation for programs that teach kids food and cooking it is one of the healthiest positive things you can communicate to people that are very young. >> the more programs like the cooking project in general that

can have a positive impact how our kids eat is really, really important i believe that everybody should venting to utilize the kitchen and meet other kids their age to identify they're not alone and their ways in which to pick yours up and move forward that. >> it is really important to me the opportunity exists and so i do everything in my power to keep it that. >> we'll have our new headquarters in the heart of the tenderloin at taylor and kushlg at the end of this summer 2014 we're really excited. >> a lot of the of the conditions in san francisco they have in the rest of the country so our goal to 257bd or expand out of the san francisco in los

angeles and then after that who know. >> we'd never want to tell people want to do or eat only provide the skills and the tools in case that's something people are 2rrd in doing. >> you can't buy a box of psyche you have to put them in the right vein and direction with the right kids with a right place address time those kids don't have this you have to instill they can do it they're good enough now to finding out figure out and find the future for >> 5, 4, 3, 2 , 1. cut.

>> we are here to celebrate the opening of this community garden. a place that used to look a lot darker and today is sun is shining and it's beautiful and it's been completely redone and been a gathering place for this community. >> i have been waiting for this garden for 3 decades. that is not a joke. i live in an apartment building three floors up and i have potted plants and have dreamt the whole time i have lived there to have some ability to build this dirt. >> let me tell you handout you -- how to build a community garden. you start with a really good idea and add community support from echo media and levis and take management and water and sun

and this is what we have. this is great. it's about environment and stewardship. it's also for the -- we implemented several practices in our successes of the site. that is made up of the pockets like wool but they are made of recycled plastic bottles. i don't know how they do it. >> there is acres and acres of parkland throughout golden gate park, but not necessarily through golden community garden. we have it right in the middle of

>> thanks. okay. this is the recreation and park commission meeting of april 19th. if everyone could please turn off any sound producing devices that may go off during the meeting, just as a quick announcement, you will have three minutes on each item to speak under general public comment. if you do want to speak