and the person that we are honoring today is john osaki. now you know, when you meet john, you might think he is privileged. the japanese youth counsel was a grass roots organization in japan town created by jeff mory. john was actually a participant in the program. he came up and i got his first summer job? gcyc. he has worked in early childhood development. substance abuse prevention. they have expanded the range to include college access. substance abuse. youth employment and youth leadership. just to give you a sense of how many people are served there are over 8 thousand children from all /*eugt ethnic backgrounds. they help over 3 thousand youth to be the first to go to college. they put over 2 thousand youth a year to work through employment programs. we have to increase that to 20 thousand. his program as in many ways, revolutionized the way youth are employed in san francisco. the organization is often called upon by leaders and city government to implement now programs. they are established by governor mayor gavin newsom. but beyo

. >> give it up for john osaki. >> this is at community award for serving san francisco youth. and now we have a special award. this is a surprise. i am not going to ruin it. >> good afternoon everybody. i am mernella woods. i am a social worker from the juvenile admission. today, well, as we all know, those of us who have anything to do with the juvenile justice system. there is a lot of bad news that we hear a lot of time. there's a lot of heart ache and a lot of tragedy. before we get to the good news part, which we're going to do today. i would like us to take a moment of silence to honor and remember the youth who were unfortunately succumb to live styles. let's take a moment and remember our loved one. thank you. so today, there's also some good news. it does happen and it's important we acknowledge it. in 2003. the george, the young man we will acknowledge today. george became my client. the district attorney's office wanted to charge him as an adult. he did go to the youth authority, which is unusual in this county. the reason we with want to honor george today. he made

i think john osaki mentioned it before. getting people to come together for the betterment of the community not for their department or organization >> one thing cheryl brings up. what i like to tell people. we have the very difficult task the balancing the public's expectation of today. they don't want to hear about the long-term strategies to make sure this isn't popping up next summer. it allows us to front load. we have turf issues. they are not in the western edition. they are among cv o. check the egoes at the door. they are costing us the lives of the young people. it requires us to have the will to come together to say enough is enough. >> i am on is this gun buy back. anything, any sense in your organization of any plans for any future coordination efforts? >> there are discussions about the gun buy backs. we have to deal with the issue of access to firearms. while i think that particular program is important, i think we need to go back to ernie's point. what are we doing about the overwhelming access to the guns.