Life Enrichment Subcommittee

Good evening and welcome to the Life Enrichment Subcommittee. We will get started with our first item public comment from agenda items. Is there anyone here from the public that would like to comment on anything? Not on the agenda? Moving on. Item number two fiscal year 2023 24 Goals Review for Community Services. Thank you, Colette. So as we've previously discussed, we would be reviewing our goals on a quarterly basis. So this goal is to provide or increase our affordable housing stock by using the permanent local housing allocation grant, which is a grant that we got from CDS. And these funds we do set up funds we have to use by April of 2024. So our first goal, we started actually working on this before the technical start of the following fiscal year. So our our first goal was to get the buy in from C D to allow us to do this, and we wanted to get that authorized for HCB by June 30th. Next slide, please. And we did we actually got that their approval on May 30th. So this is a screenshot of our dashboard that is currently live. So for community services for this goal, we're at 50%. So we put a little checkmark on that goal. The next goal that we had was to go to close session to get authorization to purchase a home. And typically what happens is the process is we identify a property, we would go to process and get authorization from the city council. Once authorization is given, we go out, we reach out to the seller and we say we're interested in the property. Please show us the property. And then we would do a site visit with housing staff, community services, staff and buildings down. By the time you schedule it in closed session to the time that you that you actually do the site visit, it could be 3 to 4 weeks. So initially we went trying to purchase a property on West 10th Street, got authorization for that, I believe it was August 17th. So August 24, August, July 17th. So July 24th, we did a site visit and it was for a ten unit apartment complex. When staff got in there, some of the improvements that were made, there are certain issues with with the way in which those improvements were made. There was a concern with with the foundation and then some of the like the ovens weren't connected properly. Long story short, the improvements that we would need to make would have been quite significant. So we did not make an offer on that property. We called a couple of properties to see if we can do the site visit and we would, you know, from the time that they got there listed before the end of the day, they're pending. So what staff did was in order to speed up that process, we took an item to the City Council on August 21st. Next slide, please. And we we asked city council to give staff authorization to make an offer on the whole assignment falls within these sets of criteria, which is possibly up to a four bedroom home. It has to have a report, a structural and pest inspection report that we have to review, and then we have to do a site visit, and then that the cost of the purchase and any rehab cannot exceed over 650. This allowed us to bypass the closed session process and gave us a little bit of a competitive edge where we were failing before. So we made another attempt at purchasing property. And that property, once we reviewed the report, you know, there were some electrical issues that needed to happen, and so we didn't want to address that. Long story short, we. Yesterday, we toured a property that we made an offer on today. They have until tomorrow to respond to our offer and hopefully we will be taking a purchase and sale agreement to the city council so that we can at least spend those moneys and get a rental housing for our housing authority. So the next two implementation steps the community services has is that we would rehabilitate in preparation for rental we gave ourselves from September through the end of January of next year, depending on how much work needs to be done, and then to have the unit leased in into our affordable housing stock by March 31st. So while we're behind in acquiring, we're still within the range for rehabilitation for a rental. And that concludes the update on this particular goal. Are there any questions? Question of the other property. So the one we made an offer, is that a multi-unit or is it a single? It's a single family residential unit with a four bedroom, two baths, a little over 1300 square feet. There really aren't any properties. Multi all not within our price range. That's what I was thinking when I saw that amount. I said that has to be a single family home or a foreclosure. So yeah, yeah, it's single family. The the ten unit. It wasn't even within our price range, but we would have used other like housing success or agency money to acquire it because it would have given us ten units right off the bat. But to rehab it would have cost a lot more so than that kind of to our budget. Got it. Okay. What happens to the home afterwards? So a whole purposes. So after that, we turn it over to the housing authority and then they would lease it in their rental program. So it's leased to people who are low income. Good. Any other questions? Thank you. Good. All right. Item number three is a sister city program. Next slide. So just a quick overview and recap. And so we've been doing the sister city program. We did that between 2015 and 2019 where we actually sent students to Japan. Prior to that, we had students coming over here for several years, I think more than 20 years that they were coming like continuously. Cobe had actually put a stop to that, and so we weren't able to send or receive, and we still aren't currently ready to receive students and they're not really ready to send. So they reached out to us this year about doing a virtual program. So one of the things about that, obviously is, is the students are really part of the school district. So we worked with the school district to identify students that or at least a group of students that could be qualified to do the program virtually. So it is going to be a virtual exchange of approximately ten students. The students are going to be coming from Rancho Madonnas Junior High School and Pittsburg High School. Possible dates for the exchange will be two that they're looking at right now, which is December 16th and January 13th. But those may flex just a little bit. And then what they're going to share is basically presentations of their communities and cultures through the day to day lives, which is the same thing that they do when they're here. They will get to experience it firsthand, but they will be able to do that through. They're going to do a report and then also a presentation of virtually. So just wanted to give you guys some information on that and any questions? Yes. Yes. Make. So is it just the two is it two days of the week or is it just like a it's just two days because of the time difference. And this isn't necessarily part of curriculum. This is like an after school type program. And what we're really trying to do is really build the program with the school more so then. So it's always been a governmental program, more so when it should really be more housed in the school, because that way you get either a club that's really involved and maybe it can go longer than just the two days, but for this purposes, for this year, they're starting off with just two days. And that was at the recommendation of our our colleagues in Japan. Okay. Okay. When you think of exchange, I think of exchange students how they're here for a semester and that sort of thing. So these are high school students, so they don't come for that long. Even when we did the actual in-person exchange, they came here for five days and then we sent students for five days. Okay. And, I mean, it's jam packed, but it's a really amazing experience. Thank you. Any other questions on that? Okay. Well, I do. How do you think the students do on how the students are chosen previously or currently? Currently don't know, which is that we're not using them at all. It's being done through the school district. So the superintendent identified basically put it out to the teachers and counselors and said, is there someone who wants to take charge on this? And the person who is taking charge, I forget what her name is, but she's in charge of their exchange program that they already do. The global Glympse. So she runs that and said they're going to handle policies because this is going to be on a Saturday. And so, again, it opens it up for a lot more students. But I don't know exactly how they're gonna do the selection of students. Okay. Thanks. Any other questions? You sure? All right. Item number two for My Brother's Keeper initiative. So Sam is going to take this, but this also does align. This is one of our goals. This is goal number three for recreation, which is to launch the My Brother's Keeper program. Pittsburgh School. My brother's Keeper Pittsburgh. And it also literally hits implementation Measure 3.2, which is the certification process. So let's take it all. Yeah. So I think the first time I actually talked to this group was about MBK and I had a short update that was like, I'm Sam and we're going to do this by September. And that was it. And I'm super excited to say that. Well, a little bit of background that with our goal was to be certified by the end of September. You can see some of the requirements. It was a very involved process. There's eight different courses, a whole lot of workbooks, and it was very involved to kind of get all of our data together and submit. So we did that by the end of September and TA the we are officially certified. We heard back from the National Alliance on October 2nd. And in a follow up meeting with our MBK coach, he let us know that ours was actually one of the best of the 27 that they had submitted. So they had a really big push for at the end of September and all sorts of folks were trying to get it in. And to hear that bit of feedback I think was really exciting for us. So now we are one of 28 certified communities nationwide, and that includes their four model communities that they sort of base the whole initiative on. You can see all of the six milestones that are key to the success of the program are the initiatives, and Pittsburgh is focusing in on three of those. So that's to complete post-secondary education or training. All youth out of school are employed and all youth remain safe from violent crime. So now that we're certified, we're kind of into the next steps. You now what? Right away, we want to make sure that we're celebrating success. We met with the steering committee today to share this news as well. We've kind of been sharing the news parade of just kind of letting everybody know that we've done this initial step. So we've got a press release and are getting some talking points together to make sure that everybody understands what certification means, what being a part of the alliance means, and want to share that out. But from here, we'll be meeting with our steering committee and really diving deep into the local action planning. So we've got some guidance from the National Alliance. We have some examples of plans that have been successful and it's now really just kind of jumping into the work. So that is still a pretty quick update for me, but an exciting one nonetheless. Question Yes, we had any local nonprofits approach us wanting to partner or that's what this whole thing is about, is about collaborating with the nonprofits and all of the different organizations and the community, and that's nonprofits for profits, the school district, LMC and anyone else that wants to collaborate in this initiative. What the initiative is, it's basically a collaborative approach, and you're looking at the fact that what it's saying is, is we have young men of color who are facing disparities and they're, you know, those disparities are are not affording them success in life. So as a collaborative group, how do we make sure that they are afforded as much support as possible to get them to the next level to achieve these milestones? When you're looking at that again, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily a program or anything like that, but it's saying how do we all collectively work together? And for our application, specifically, what we looked at is, is we got a lot of great programs in our community for young men and women. And our our our application was specific to young men and women of color. But we have a lot of programs, but we're not all working together. And so there's this disconnect, which is one of the biggest disparities in our community that is basically that that that we started looking for. But that hurdle that that is that a lot of our youth are facing. So that's kind of one of the first steps. So what our next steps is, is to broaden this out and we have to do some larger convenings to bring in those community outreach, community based organizations to the table so we can say, okay, what is being done and how do we collectively work together? And from there, that's where we start putting together those action items, which creates the local action plan that answer your question? Yes. So I guess part of my question was, since we haven't really officially done a press release, do we have most of the local non-profits knowing that that we've become certified? We've only announced the certification at the council meeting, two in the school district, two by two, and here we are kind of we can't go before the Obama Foundation. And so we're basically waiting on them. And because of the deadline, they just literally we just found out yesterday, yesterday that 28. Yeah. So they just made that known internally to all of us of who the 28 are that did make certification, after which point they'll work with us in order to do how they want because they have certain language that we have to use and so forth on how this is done. But they they have said that for the the actual media events and making it, they want it to be big. So would it be like conjoin or each city, each city separately. But there are certain ways that they want. There are certain things that they want to do and make it a big thing to do. So that's pretty cool. So yeah, trust me, Sam had a press release written in 30 minutes after getting excited. So you're sitting on it for 30 days? Yeah, it's literally ready to go, but we have to wait on on Sunday. I wonder how much longer. And there is there's a large convening next week in Chicago that Sam and I are going to with the other several of the other 28, as well as all of our coaches to really go into that next level and just like the last time when we went back in March, that was when we were at the first steps. And so we had literally a three we had a four day crash course on Here's how we do things, here's how this is. And they kind of walk us through the processes. I think there will be a lot of that happening at next week's convening as well. And so hopefully by the time we go on our way back, we should know, all right, here's how we can do this and the parameters we need to be within and so forth. So we'll possibly be at the expectation. And Obama pitstop and Obama like. So hopefully at least someone from the foundation, probably our coach Godfrey, who is on this goes and he handles all of the West Coast. So I have I think I understand how it works. So we get certified and there's a place in here where we talk about courses and is that the work that you did or is that the different courses in the workbook? Is there something that they give us or that that's the application, that's, the certification process? That's yeah, Okay. I just think it's basically like a big thesis paper, but they broke it up into a module, so it's around a module around equity, a module around data, a module around. I mean, I wish I had the list, but it's literally just like doing a grant application, right? Yeah, Yeah. But the way they break it up, they call it workbooks. So you have like maybe a they kind of do a 30 minute course, which is not necessarily a teaching course. It's more like, Here's what we want you to do and how we want you to fill this out. And then you're going in and fill in and that information. Okay? When I saw that, I was like, Oh, are they going to give us curriculum as part of this program? So we get certified and then we there's a project manager or a program manager that kind of pulls together the pieces or there's no program. So MBK is not a program, it's an initiative. It's like northern Waterfront Initiative and other initiatives. So it's not actually a program. Okay, But what you do is our next steps. There's kind of three steps. So our next steps is literally to start bringing folks together so that we can create the convening and really find out more. Okay, here's what we're trying to achieve where do you fit in this puzzle? Okay. Which helps. That's that's the convening portion of that. And out of that, we can then create the document called the Local Action Plan, which is now saying, all right, here's where we're going. Here are the people involved and what they're doing and here's how it's all going to come together with the actual milestones and deliverables and so forth in that process, you hope that there's a champion that comes out of it and is really most of it, most of the just about most of the MBK community certified communities are actually led by nonprofit organizations, not government organizations. And the reason B is sustainability, because they're the ones that are really pushing that work to people. Trust them. Exactly. But you also don't have a change. You don't have that constant change of government shifting focus and so forth. So right now, your lead, this guy right here. But hopefully we get an organization that really believes in what we're doing and is already doing the work, not an organization who's coming saying, Oh, I'll do this, but someone who really is fighting for this change and the systematic changes that are identified that then can become that champion and become that lead back on agency, because then the final steps are then you are looking at, okay, how can we find funding to support these programs and expand these programs? And that's that's not just evidence. So it's just like any other organization. You've got to really fight for that. But the hope is, is that having that stamp on there, that we are an MBK certified community, it's showing that, yes, we are clearly identifying that we are fighting for the systematic changes to help our young men and women of color. And that's great. I, I did I did attend the kingmakers of Oakland conference this week. It wasn't it was amazing. There were about 100 boys of color there from age eight all the way to high school. And then they have some of us, the young men that were in the program and left and they came back and they were mentors, but they covered mental health relationships, led them to high school social media being say they did some animation stuff with some of the kids and like coding and technology. But I got to meet the CEO and executive director Chris Chaplin, and he got certain he has a curriculum that was certified by President Obama. Right. And I'm before you all. Oh, okay. And so he was like, oh, you guys got the MBA certification? I would love to work with you guys and see what we can do for the boys in your communities. So their interested in partnering or learning more about what we're doing. But I met his students not in those settings and I mean, it's life changing what they're doing for youth in Oakland, and he's in other communities too. They're in L.A., I think they're in Chicago and other states and so that's a partner that we could consider. And they have a strong following and lots of partnership. Kaiser was there, so there was a partner organization that was there. So happy to share connect you. Please, please. That would be great. And any other questions on My Brother's Keeper? The comments are, Well, congratulations. Thank you. It was a lot of hard work and it's really a payoff. How many years in the making, honestly? Well, realistically, to from start to finish. I know there were a couple of years before where we had when it when it first came out and folks really wanted to be a part of it, but really not understanding. And there was a huge price point behind it. But as far as because again, there was a lot of misunderstanding as far as I thought it was a program that also involved. They did. And it's it's still evolving and so but we started this journey around this time last year with a consultant doing the initial work, which was very helpful because Sam was able to utilize a lot of the data that was in there to help help with what he was putting together and what we had gathered in the last six months. So it really was less than a two year period from start to finish for us, right? So that's cool. Two, three years ago during COVID, I was in space and still it throws me off. So maybe it did start there, maybe that was great, but somewhere around there. So any other questions on that one? Okay, we'll move on. So far, the Marina Center update, this will be quick. So in the past, guys, since we met last, I just wanted to give you a quick synopsis of some of the things that we've been doing as well as the things that are upcoming. So over the summer we held for summer teen and family fun nights. Those are game nights, outdoor movies, music, inflatable skateboarding, food and more. We gained a partner out of Antioch called Be Exceptional. They do a skateboarding so they build ramps and they bring those out. Yes, they're insured and they also bring out their skateboards and they teach folks how to skateboard from the young to the old and everybody in between. So those have been really, really fun and successful. We did that three times. We even did a spooky skate night on Friday the 13th. So and it was freezing. And we still had probably about 50 or 60 people right at the start. And then it just continued to grow. And next slide in the gymnasium. Currently we have been doing youth and adult, but also that's our current sport right now, our sports league, our youth football League has, I think, 80 kids in there and we're still getting calls every day because some people don't know what the full is, just like I did. But all it is is indoor soccer. We have youth open gym every day, Monday through Friday on school days from 3 to 6. And that's no cost to any junior high and high school student. And they can just drop in. They get membership cards and all kinds of stuff. And that's that's just hilarious. Today there was what I think there was there was like 20. Yeah, there was like 20 yesterday, which is Wednesday, which is normally their big day. There was like nobody. So like we usually expect Wednesdays to be a bigger day. But today they all showed up and yesterday they didn't. So we don't know. We also do pickleball Mondays and Fridays from 9 to 11 and the gymnasium those are pickleball our old games those the one in the middle here in the white T-shirt. He was actually the very first one. His name is Charlie. He was the very, very, very first one to show up when we started on pickleball, literally the first one. So I gave him a t shirt. You know, he's my buddy down in the right. The corner on the right is from our grand opening, which was sponsored by Chick-Fil-A as well as Golden Star Market Goes To our market brought us over 400 beverages for the community and then Chick-Fil-A brought 150 chicken sandwiches for the community. So all that was given away free and donated to us in the far left is our youth fun fitness class. That is for kids ages realistically three to 3 to 7. But the hope is, is that it teaches kids how to exercise, gets them excited about it, and it's something that they can learn and to utilize for the rest of their lives and not be like me. That doesn't know how to use that as well. Try to have it and seeing it, you have to see it in person. It's too day cuteness. Oh, that's that is so cute. Tuesdays and Thursdays we have two sessions. We have a morning session, an afternoon session, and the morning session is 9 to 11, afternoon is 3 to 6. It's a mommy parent and me class and you basically can just drop in. It's $5 for the child and then it's basically 3 to 7. You could be eight of your small, small, you know, there's like a weight requirement on them and then you can do $20 for the whole month. So we've had some childcare providers that have actually reached out. So hopefully they start bringing their kids to. Next is our haunted house, which was this past Saturday. So 40 hours of concept design, construction and building plus 30 hours. I mean, student, 30 high school and junior high school volunteers, plus all of our rec leaders equaled 803 people who actually made it through our haunted house. There were several that did not make it through the doors. Sam was at the end of the haunted house and he counted 803. And I know there was a good 50 that ran away. I wasn't a better there was a 20 minute window when it first opened that I wasn't out there counting. And it's all the tough kids that didn't make it past. But I was very blessed. It's as scared as you want it to be, realistically. So we had like adults that came out and they were like, that was even scary and was like, Yeah, but it wasn't for you. You know? We had parents that literally drug their babies and like little kids and, and, you know, Chanel's little nephew, Kingston, he went there three times. The first time he came out, he was literally like this. And then he went in again and he was fine. And then we had I had this one group of kids, which was the best because they're just like, you know, we're not even scared of like junior high school. We're not scared. And I was like, really? Really? It was like, okay, but I need you in the box. I need you guys get in the box. And then like, all right, now, like, you, okay. And there's Richard in this little box. And I'm like, And they're like, Yeah, saying I'm going to be here. And I was like, Really? So did you ever wonder why you're standing in a box? And they're like, What? I said, one, two, three. And I get the thing. They're like, Oh, rental. They never even made it in the door. So it just it was as scary as you want it to be. It was a lot of jump scares. It was pitch black in there with very little strobe lighting and stuff like that. But for the workers that were there, all of the 30 volunteers, they all, you know, asked to come back for next year and anything else we have, they get community service hours for that. And then for all of our rec leaders, one of our rec leaders in particular goes, she goes miss color. I got bruises and everything, but I had no regrets. She was like, that was the funnest event we ever done. My daughter was in one of the rooms. Her knee was swole when she got home because she had bruises. I said, What did you do? She goes, I don't know. I was jumping on the table. I was sliding down. Just anything. This scare, they were just so into character, like the kids had a ball. And so we're looking forward to next year. And it was only for 2 hours. It was from 7 to 9. And we literally we had Officer Towner was there and I was like, she goes, What do you need to do to us? It at 10 to 9, I need you to go to the end of the line and I'll let nobody else in. And she did. And then today we were looking at the cameras out front and had it on. I got to speed it up and just watching the crowd go through, we had people that waited over an hour to get inside and nobody was upset. They were so happy. Oh, look at that. I mean, it was it was really big there. And to be proven, no, no need for volunteers. We always get them. Yeah. Yeah. I think they'll do that again. The nearest other haunted place would be, what, like Six Flags? No Ambrose at all. And also as well they did there's the week before. So and then Pittsburgh High School has their haunted hallway next week this week for the public role in when is it on our list. I think it's this week it is it's it's for the public they said last year for theirs. The line was like all the way down the street as well. Wow. Yeah. So our community likes to be spared together. Yeah. I feel like they're like, is it really scary in there? Because I was at the front door and and I was like, I don't know. And they were like, What are you mean? I was like, I haven't been in, but guess what? Don't be scared. So if you're there. So it was it was fun. And we haven't done a haunted house and Pittsburgh in at least at that location in 20 plus years so I was excited. I said last year we were going to do this and so we did it. And Austin, as our our rent coordinator for events, pulled this off and did a great job. So let's see. I have pictures. No, but I've been trying to find out. A lot of people went in with their phones and they were like, Can we record? I was like, Yes, just don't post on 930. So we've been looking, we've got pictures of outside, but nothing inside and you can't really see anything. So they were busy being scared and they were they were. I should have been taking pictures of people coming out. Yeah. Amazing voice that you hear from people. I did get a couple of folks in the lobby before they went in and even go on our current offerings. Right now, we've got a weekly gym schedule for the rest of the year. We've got stuff going on every day, pretty much except for Saturdays. And we don't have anything on Saturdays currently because we are running our youth football league. But starting in December we will be doing drop in basketball and then we will also be renting out the batting cage. Sundays we will be launching pickleball and volleyball starting in November and that leads into the middle one. We partnered with a group called REC. They are basically these folks from the tech industry that really believe in recreation and making it available to all understanding that most people don't know to go to a city website when they want to go do something, they won't play basketball. They don't go to a city website. They don't know where to go. So they're creating a platform in order to do so. They've helped Emeryville launch their their gymnasium Emeryville, and there's a couple of others, but we're working with them, so they will be doing programing through them and they have an app. And so it's kind of like Uber, but for recreation activity, well versed sports athletic activities. So you can go on there at REC and sign up for classes, pickleball classes at the Marina Center as well as you'll see what other ones are in the area as well, which means those folks will also come to our building. We also have open gym for adults on Tuesday nights from 7 to 10. So spread the word. Next slide. Coming up, some of the last things that we're working on is the annual State of the City presentation will be November 30th at the Marina Center. We are just trying to finalize the time. It'll be an evening holiday. Tree lighting will be December 7th. The holidays rate is over nine. Senior Center, one of all the summer nights as well. If you haven't been, you should go because it's a lot of fun. They have live music, great food and then coming in the near future probably in 2024, is we're trying to basically build off of our Youth Open gym and provide a study hall peer group tutoring. So we are looking for tutors to help us with that. There's a youth midnight basketball league, which I'll listen talk about a little bit. Youth and government programs, all it sounds like about a little bit our junior NBA basketball and Pittsburgh youth baseball, which is for ages 3 to 6. So if you want to talk about those, too. Yeah. So Jerry, our sports coordinator, and I are going to be teaming up for some midnight basketball. So the plan is to offer it on Friday evening starting in December through an eight week schedule, but it starts at 8:00 and goes through midnight. The catch is that we have workshops for the young people and it's ages, I believe are going 16 to 24. So the catch being in order to participate in the league, you need to come to these workshops. So we'll be infusing leadership. That's where we're going to be engaging a lot of the local nonprofits. So some of the things that they're doing and the hope is to just really lift up other good things going on in the community and ways for young people to connect to them. And also just, you know, it's a competitive league. So hopefully we're then infusing, you know, a little bit more of that teamwork, cooperation. This is their space. You know, it's the Marina center, so please own it, embrace it. And it's your street as well. So that, yeah, we'll be starting in December. We're getting the workshops lined up right now. We're going to be working with police. They'll be providing a workshop. Well, I shouldn't I shouldn't commit them yet we've had a informal conversation about a workshop and obviously having a presence there, hopefully both to help us manage in case there are anything or is anything going on with the competitive nature or and just to have more of a visual presence for them at that. And so that's midnight basketball. Youth and government is a program that is run by the California YMCA. I believe it's connected to the Los Angeles YMCA, but they have a satellite location in the East Bay that we will be connecting with. They have two different programs. One of them is a state assembly. So it's a three day I'm actually sorry, four day conference where they go to the state capitol. And so you're bringing young people from all over California to the Capitol. They actually take over the Capitol. So they are in the legislators and senators seats. They are in courtrooms. And there's a whole bunch of leadership developments. You know, you can actually have a youth governor. They are elected. There's they go through the electoral process. All of that. I am very familiar with the Minnesota program, less familiar with the California one. They have all kinds of crazy stuff, like a board of Education and all these programs. I don't even know about this in California, so I'm excited to I'm excited to see what it is like for young people to participate in these other kinds of governments, institutions and exactly what that looks like to like mock it out. We were a little bit late in and I shouldn't say that we were late, that you basically need to become a group with the YMCA, get all your stuff together, and then you basically go through a training process, the registration. So by the time I finally got in contact with them, they're like, Yeah, registration opens or closes on Monday, and this was like Friday. So they're like, it's really not feasible for you to be ready to participate in the, the, the model state program. So they have they also have a model United Nations program. It's a smaller program. The state one I think is like 1200. It was 2200 kids that came to this conference pre-COVID. So they're kind of working back, but they're not. A United Nations program is actually for middle schoolers, which is a great feeder, then into the state program, which is for high school, but essentially, young people get assigned a country and then they set some issues that they'll basically be trying to. So rather than somebody saying, okay, I've got this issue that I want to write a bill about and go talk about it, they are given an issue and then they have to take the perspective of the country and try to solve it from that country's perspective, if that makes sense. So. QUESTION Yes, quick question, since we're like kind of like in this room have ever done or have ever thought about doing like mock trials for youth, the Chamber of Commerce actually. Well, the trials note they do mock interviews and stuff like that. No, I'm I'm on the high school. The high school? You used to do it. I know that when we were kids, I remember, but I never fun. And what drew me to wanting to go into law, having, like, you know, fake experience and to really look into what the state program does have a trial component and an appeals component. So in the trial component, you're given a case and you actually are given case law. So you can't just have a wide open like a lawyer would like. I'm going to go figure out the best argument. They kind of say you're going to work within these confines so that young people without law degrees aren't trying to figure out how to navigate back. And it is they usually have a resource. So there is a lawyer who is helping run that that arm of the program who can then give them the case law, because usually you need to be able to access that. So there is it's it's a there's like any and everything that has to do with state government. So executive branch legislative branch courts it's they're usually young people and this is where the like ladder kind of happens. You come into the program I think for all ninth graders, they basically do a sampler. They have a name for the program, but you get to go see the House, see the Senate, see what debate is like, see the courts, you know, see what the executive branch does. And then that sort of helps guide where you would then go into the program for the next years. Yeah. So that's the program, right? I I'm sure I'm missing things. Those are all off the top of my head. And again, I'm new to California youth and government. I know a lot about the Minnesota youth and government aspect, but so I'll be learning as well. But I know again the program and ask for volunteers. I'm really hopeful. They have a VIP day in February where they actually open up the Capitol doors. It's on Sunday of their program. If I can get some more information on that, I think it's kind of an open door and bring your community members out and see what it's about. I know that is like the thing that will sell any teacher, any school or something like a school board member. As soon as they just walk into a room and see kids debating and all of the adults are in the back like reading books, they don't have anything to do with the actual like running of the chamber or any of that. So it's like, how did this miracle happen? It's sort of what it looks like. So I'm hopeful that if if I can get any more information from there, they're very focused on their training and getting everybody ready for the program. They don't want to hear from me right now and if I can come does it yet. So but I'm excited about it now. I'm many other questions. No, just a comment or if you need anything, just reach out. Yeah, I think that's having run the program before, you know, as a as an advisor to the program, it's it's usually about the leadership development and building the group dynamics. But the more speakers and folks who have professional experience in that that you can bring in and you know, hearing somebody's story of why they're interested in it or how they even got there, you know, that's the real part of the program, right? Like writing a bill, it's usually after the weekend's over. That's just something they did. But if they know now how to actually contact their representative or, you know, understand the path to getting a law degree, that's that's where it actually makes it. You got a job on a mock trial? Yeah, I was going to tell every since the assembly and I think that any other questions on that Congress item six subcommittee and stuff or votes or remarks are there any. I think you're doing a great job so you can really get really excited about the things that we talked about. And I know there's more coming. So thank you. They have the passion shows. Without it, I think it would be so different. But when you guys, as your end of the year phases light up, so many things are here at that are you feel that I have I've had the opportunity to talk to some parents and how their children are reacting the marina that are good and they feel embraced when they go in. And so I'm more than a center. I feel like we're building a sense of community and and close relationships. So kudos to you by banking. That's exactly what we're aiming for as well, which is how it used to feel. It is so it is so crazy now because now the age of technology, we have student our children actually wanting to go out and, you know, put down their devices. Exactly. And in fact, it was easy because we didn't have these. But now to see such a good turn out and we don't even have banners on the building at all. Right. If there is nothing else, anybody and we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everybody.