reimagining Public Safety summer Grants awarded earlier this year I am council member Emanuel Rey chair of the Public Safety Committee I would also like to thank and acknowledge my co-chair for this public hearing council president Shannon Harden um acknowledge my colleagues council member Bankston and council member favor as they join us this evening um council president would you like to share your opening remarks at this time thank you chair Remy just wanted to want to add my appreciation to uh you for your leadership and calling hearing uh it's really important that we come back together um it's kind of crazy that it's been almost two years since this Council started the reimagining safety process Pro and um that centered on um making sure that we're using every tool in the tool box and thinking outside the box and being creative and calling on all of our residents all of our communi all of our organizations to be a part of uh seeing themselves and making Columbus safer and so over the last several months what we worked on as a council and partnership with the administration is making sure that qualified organizations with a track record of working with our young people in our community had the resources that they said they needed to do the work in our community uh to keep our kids safe and so I'm excited to be here this evening to hear about the the progress um to learn what worked maybe and hear things that maybe didn't work and then understand where we can go from here acknowledging that we know that there is not one simple solution when we're talking about safety and violence um I think that a week like this week where we lost lovely Kendrick um is just another reminder that it's going to take all of us um and that there aren't The Simple Solutions but I truly believe that um the work that has been done with folks in this chamber tonight have saved lives and like I said earlier today it is easy to quantify the violent incidents that have happened what is harder to quantify are the incidents that organizations that we have funded over the last several months stopped from happening um but I think that we will hear tonight and we will try to put color to that conversation um so that um we can so that it will inform how this Council moves forward in terms of support so again chair Remy I'm very grateful to be here tonight thank you very much council president I I do want to say it takes all of us to stack hands and to really dig in and dive deep in this as we see more and more youth involved in criminal activity and being victims of crime and so you know unfortunately events like the other night and on ree Avenue earlier in the week and the others where we're going after suspects that are 12 years old old I mean it's it's it is something that we need to come together as a community we need to work very judiciously together to make sure that we are um covering all the bases and taking examples like you've created with your summer youth programs and carrying them out throughout the year because our youth deserve this and as I said last night on on one interview we will do what it takes to make sure that this community feels safe period Dot explanation point And we need all of you as partners to do that so we thank you for being here this evening I would like to um open it up to my colleagues for any opening remarks do either of you have anything that you'd like to say council member Bankston sure uh thank you chair Remy and president Harden uh and to all of you for being here I think uh what I'm most excited about with this round of funding and the names that I see on here is everything from establish organizations to Grassroots organizations and to your point council member it's going to take all of us uh working together and so I'm really excited to hear uh what has worked and and I think more importantly and why we do these types of exercises is that when something doesn't work that's an opportunity right for us to figure out how we get it right and that's I think our job is to unapologetically invest in our youth and make sure that we do get it right so I'm excited about uh the conversation that we will have have today unfortunately I do have to leave early so I apologize in advance um but thank you all for the tireless um sometimes thankless um hard and many in some cases even dangerous work uh that you all do um for our community um and for the city U but looking forward to working with you uh together to continue uh to move our city forward and to make sure that it is a safe place uh for everyone but especially uh that it's a safe place for our Next Generation uh and that they have an opportunity to grow up uh in a city that values and cares about them and has opportunities available to them so thank you so much Council Mar for your leadership uh and looking forward to tonight's discussion thank you very much councilman bankson I turn it over now to council mayor favor uh thank you chair Remy and my remarks are just an expression of gratitude I have worked and had the opportunity to work with many of you um Provide support in any way that I can and I just want to say thank you for the work that you continue to do uh in our community on behalf of our young folks um on behalf of uh our parents and Guardians uh that may not uh be in a place where they can support uh their young folks it truly does take a village and you all are a part of our village and so we appreciate the accountability uh we appreciate the push uh when we need that push uh and and so we cannot do this work without you we will continue uh this work around reimagining uh safety it is not uh words that just have no meaning um and so from the policy and legislative perspective you can continue to see uh Progressive ideas around how we can address uh the the youth violence in our community but thank you thank you thank you thank you uh for dedicating your lives uh to our young people thank you very much council member favor I also want to acknowledge my colleague uh council member Barosa DEA Who's online um want to open up the opportunity for her to speak if she has anything to say before we begin the proceedings thank you uh council member can y'all hear me okay yep we hear you um I uh just want to join in my colleagues and saying thank you I think um know as folks who work with young people and if you are a parent if you were once a young person as many of us had the benefit of being um uh there's always it's always a critical time I think and I think especially now our young people have um faced so much at through a pandemic and after a pandemic and facing a new world that has increasing challenges for our young people and um you know I I've never uh liked that term at risk because I think every young person is is at risk because a young person is bombarded with choices and options and opportunities and it's about steering them in the right direction to make the right choices for themselves for their families for their community and so um there's no greater time for us to come together for us to be creative for us to um think uh intentionally about the work that we do to support our young people and to support our community and so um like I said I I echo my um colleagues in there thank you for your work for the folks who have dedicated um you know their time their talent their treasure their lives to this work um because it is um it is soul work and it is Passion work and it is hard and um it's hard to stay in this fight but as we all know it is worth it because it is the future of our community so um thank you and looking forward to hearing um from all of our speakers this evening thank you thank you very much council member Barosa deadia this is a challenging um Hearing in the sense that we're going to hear all the great things that you've done over the over the summer but it's somewhat hard to quantify the crimes that were not committed because of your work but any rational person would know that if we don't invest in this and if we don't take the time to support your programming that crime could be exponentially worse than it is today with our youth and so again we appreciate all you and we look forward to your testimony a reminder to everyone that this hearing is currently live on YouTube and Facebook and is also being live and recorded to for rebroadcast on CTV Columbus's government television channel the broadcast rebroadcast schedule is available at www.c columbus.gov before we begin I want to thank and welcome each of you that are our presenters this evening we have Pastor Norman Brown from J G Development Corporation barar de Davis from Urban lacrosse Academy Melissa Thomas St Clair from the mothers of murdered children Dominic Davis and Keith Massie from Legacy Youth Sports Erica Golick and Heaven Angel and Nia brandham from the cheer Institute Shannon Amos and Scott Neely from children's hunger Alliance Scott Sean Stevenson the in the violence founder zurka Abid from my project USA John Dawson Community for New Direction Miguel Gino Tucker from remember us Urban Scouts and Jenna wojack from uh Planned Parenthood I'm going to ask everybody to keep it as close to three minutes as possible we have a lot of people to get through and we want to make sure that we give everybody uh an equal amount of time to get through this hearing I just want to level set and say that Columbus city council and the City of Columbus are committed to supporting our youth and ending violence throughout our community one method was through the support of Youth antiviolence programming earlier this year the city invested roughly 16 million into summer youth programming this evening we will hear from several of our partners that we supported to engage our youth they will provide a quick overview of the program and program programming successes without further Ado I will turn the floor over to each of you as a reminder everything uh to our presenters please keep your Pres presentations of 3 minutes are as close to that as possible so I will call up Pastor Norman Brown as our first Speaker up next beyond that is bear Davis Pastor Council Remy we appreciate the opportunity to share uh we realized I'm a preacher so I'll do the best I can sir um my mother taught me many years ago my upbringing to make sure we give thanks to those people who've been gracious and kind to me and to my brother so this evening I want to say thank you councilman Remy and all the city Camp council members for your support in the work that we're doing in the near East Side Community J jar Development Corporation is a faith-based nonprofit organization where we work with youth veterans and restored citizens uh for the last five years we've been working with a charter school where we have established a construction trades program because uh I have my own architectural firm and construction management company and so we were able to work with your support uh to enable 15 young people from a charter school to get employment during the summer uh and we had a uh and all these were students from this particular Charter School uh at Afrocentric um at Academy for all Academy for all Scholars uh we will also because we do Urban farming uh we have three sites and that we work with and we were able to get 15 young people from two high schools that we Tau them how to do Urban farming to grow fresh produce so through the construction trades program all 15 youth that we taught they got employment five of them were graduate two of them them were working permanently for Jess Howard Electric and three other of those are working permanently for other construction companies and some of those were Juniors where they're coming back for more training and more opportunity and employment through the urban farming program we were able to teach our young people to grow fresh produce to give back to the community and get their hands dirty and learn the culture of of developing their Community as a whole and we were able to do that working with the 15 young people and it was extremely successful uh word got to uh Lindon McKinley High School which is an a school they heard about what we've been doing in the community and because of your support and because of our track record now we're having a conversation on how we can bring the same program of urban farming to extend their teaching and their learning regarding agriculture Urban farming and and fresh produce giving to their own communities and so councilman Harding you know I have a youth program called Simba and simsa for African-American males and females and we're also talking to Linda McKinley about bringing that program into the school as well so again we thank you for your support and it reminds me of a young man who was a senator in Illinois the name was Barack Obama where he shared with the United States stating that we are the change that we're looking for if we want to see the change in our community and our city we're the ones who got to make it happen thank you again for your support thank you so much Pastor we know how important uh your program is uh especially as it relates to farming and and getting kids acclimated to um providing greater food resources are there any comments uh p uh president uh president shanard um thank you chair this is not one thank you to Pastor Norman um it's not a question uh more of a comment generally I as Pastor Norman was saying thank you to council uh we would be remissed if we didn't uh acknowledge where a majority of these resources came from these are uh out of the $6 million that we put forward uh that's an historic investment uh in uh community- based uh programming and it would not have been possible without the American Rescue dollars and so I want to say thank you to congresswoman Joyce batty who worked extremely hard to get these dollars to senator shered Brown who worked extremely hard to get these dollars um that is what allowed us to have these do to to do these this type of programming so um if we're saying thank you for to where um the resources came from um it was through the American Rescue dollars uh and the money that Council set aside a year ago for reimagining Public Safety but I just wanted to make that uh acknowledgement thank you very much president Harden appreciate you Pastor Brown our next speaker is bear Davis and and after that is Melissa Thomas Sinclair welcome Mr Davis I think I don't know where the slide show up on here is it just in front of me does everybody see that okay oh perfect okay thank you well um president Harden and Council thank you for inviting me up here to to represent uh Urban lacrosse Academy the last time I stood up here was 2017 representing the uh the 2017 Major League lacrosse Champions Ohio Machine uh as the general manager head coach and I would say since that day uh this has been a true passion is what can I do as as Muhammad Ali once said an interview uh when you're all said and done at this what what what are you going to do and he goes if I don't take my experiences and my talents and my connections and do something good with it what what am I here for and and that's how I I took that to heart uh and became the executive director of urban lacrosse Academy these are the pillars that we we stand on uh these are the things as as I was given a stick many of us were given opportunities outside of the classroom that helped us that we're our drivers you know to be where we are you know be successful uh people and I we we took these these respect determination goal setting and integrity and these are things that we Implement in all of our practice settings this summer uh with your gracious grants and and the money that we had uh to work with we serviced over 400 we put sticks in every 400 kids hands we worked with 12 different uh sites uh one of the things that we do is we don't just um go out and do things for a pitcher it's more sustainable lacrosse and I think what has happened in the past some people have had good intentions with introducing this game which I think if you're not familiar with lacrosse is generally a Suburban uh game that is played in our suburbs and has a lot of cost to it and with uh with this grant we were able to break down those costs get quality coaching and build sustainable opportunities our children this year uh were able to participate at a recreational level where we go into the camps once a week uh they got to if they liked it we were able to offer them a competitive level where they then were able to go to our Academy programing where we served uh this past spring we had 25 second through fifth grade graders on our Academy team where they were able to compete against the likes of the Bexley the Pickerington the new albanes and so on um now what we have uh done with since that spring those kids are now competing in a Box league which is indor lacrosse they are competing at a very high level where we're getting feedback from people uh that are are telling us that these these kids can play lacrosse I was like absolutely they can they just couldn't before they didn't know how to or where to get their equipment and you guys obviously have helped us break down that barrier um our off field focus is also really uh we're looking at um we're looking at attendance you know we're looking at literacy we we're looking at ways to build enrichment programs where we can also uh make Lacrosse a driver to help in those areas one of the things that we've done is we've added Mr Tyreek par to our board um and he's he's currently in Columbus City School and he's in charge of attendance there something to help us how we can figure out how sport can help our attendance behaviors and then also uh our meetings a lot of our meetings will take place at our public libraries where our Academy players will get their public uh you they'll get their library cards and we'll work in those areas off the field as well um but we are very pleased to to announce that we're moving forward I will show there's a lot of numbers on here so I'm not I don't make sure I these are some of the students that we I I can send this impact report to anybody that's interest I know we have limited time but probably one of the things I wanted to make sure that we people that we've been able to serve this year uh with with your Grant has been anywhere from Columbus City Schools and I'm not going to read all through those but you can see we've have some incredible groups so I'm excited about that and it's going to keep growing thank you again for this opportunity thank you very much we appreciate your uh support and the work that you've done in this regard like to hear about the attendance piece of it although a lot of this was over the summer some concerns that I know that I've had is is notification of attendance at school uh to both parents and to organizations like yourselves um I think there's a little bit of work to be done to ensure that that there is notification that students are skipping school or or you know there's issues there so appreciate you bringing that point up thank you very much our NE next uh person is Melissa um from mothers of murdered children we appreciate you and all the support that you give in this regard I told you on Friday love to support you but I wish I didn't have to um but we definitely definitely definitely um thank you for the work that you do and appreciate your um testimony tonight thank you council president Harden and to all of the council members we appreciate the awesome opportunity to be here yet again the legacy of our children and I had to bring my sisters up because this is not something that is a solo act I want to give an odd to um my co-founder who is not here as well Carla Harris who works very deeply with our youth program if we could go ahead and play the two-minute video and then I'll just summarize very quickly [Music] after iow I bow to love my neighbor to love my neighbor I vow I vow to treat them as I want to be treated to treat them as [Music] I I vow I vow to love and not hate to love and not hate I vow I vow to spread the seed to spread the seed of positiv [Music] [Applause] [Music] postivity I promise I promise I will not I will not be a part of be a part of any violence any violence I will be an upstander I will be an upstander and if anyone and anyone I know I know hold the gun hold the gun I'm going to tell I'm going to tell to save their life to save their life [Music] this today this today on 911 on 911 I do vow I [Applause] [Music] do our purpose our per our purpose is so those children that you see in our videos we don't see diminished from us as an ed educator for the Columbus City Schools I'm seeing way too many of my students former students being lost to violence whether it's through them being murdered or being the suspect of a murder or the offender of a murder somehow when they leave Middle School something's lost even when they go to high school if the support services aren't in place on a consistent basis and now we're evening even younger in Middle School we want to make sure that we utilize our Legacy of our children to support youth first by healing ourselves through our own loss so we can pour into the mothers of the children that are still living we just supported the mother who lost two of her sons at one time on October 4th in the king Lincoln District we have to make sure that we are pulling together as organizations that are behind me as well as working closely with our communities Community engagement is our foundation all of the events that you see here is through making sure youth know they're supported and I think we all know that if we continue to support youth on a consistent basis through Community engagement mentorship and love that we can make a difference we just have to M remain diligent and consistent I had a whole speech but every time I see this and every time I see them it goes out the window so I do apologize well we we certainly thank you for the work that you're doing and appreciate all of it so again I wish we didn't need you but we're very very happy that you're there and you're feeling that that need so thank you thank you and with all due respect because there is an organization called mothers of murdered children I want to respect them we're mothers of murdered Columbus Children and I just want to give them that respect thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Dominic Jones and Keith Massie and then up next is Erica goik and of Heaven Angel Heaven Angel and the randoms excuse me uh good evening everyone um I'd be remissed if I didn't show gratitude love and appreciation for uh Melissa and her her entire team um we had a chance to um March together this summer an effort just to try to bring awareness to all the gun violence youth violence um we shut down livon Avenue with all of our kids Junction with them another Youth Organization so um no words for the work that you guys do we appreciate it um Legacy youth uh Academy this summer um it was a successful summer for us um I'll start off with our 2022 lead Inspire summer uh youth enrichment program we serve 60 uh young men uh all young men of color um in that program um I also note that out of those 60 young men that we serve um we know we had a over 340 applicants in like 48 hours and so um you know due due to capacity and and and and other things you know facilities Etc you know U we had to stick with that point but uh I think just to note that you know within 48 Hours you know we had a lot of interest a lot of kids that we had to push to other programs too um and then uh you know during that summer program uh we focused on Tech real estate um financial literacy black entrepreneurship um and more um you know one of our favorite weeks some of our kids favorite weeks from last summer and into this summer was HBCU week um HBCU week is something that you know a lot of kids and parents are super interested in um and last year we capped the trip off with going to Howard University um and this year we capped the trip off with taking all the 60 of those kids to Atlanta Georgia where we visited um morous university um in Clark Atlanta um during our summer camp um it was important for us this year to make sure that we partner with other um organizations around our community that were minority owned and blackowned businesses so pretty much all of our services that we outsourced for our program um from food uh to guest speakers Etc on down the line um we all minority of blackowned businesses every Wednesday we had um a minority own or black owned food truck come and feed our kids um food truck Wednesday so our kids look forward to that and so we'll look to continue to uh pour into that as well as we build um over the summer we also partner with the Metropolitan Library um our first time ever partner with them U on a summer reading challenge if we understand um the literacy numbers and how it relates to incarceration um of our youth um we felt it was appropriate for us to take um a deep stab at literacy if you look at CCs is you know Tri and tribulation that they have with kids with literacy it's a huge issue in our community and we serve about 96% of CCS kids um and we had about 340 students um that were able to complete um reading logs this summer and and and and receive various prizes so uh we'll look to grow that number next year as well um this summer we also hosted our second annual dream big event we hosted that at coai that event focuses on uh young men young women of color um grade 6 through eth and during that time we focused on conflict resolution with CPD that were awesome um with sending officers over and it was some real uh tough and and and you know honest conversation with CPD that happened with our young people and giving them the platform to really Express themselves um so that was great and the officers that they sent was great as well um we also was able to create vision boards for our kids and participated in breakout session and rooms that talked about various things from uh you know mental health you know Etc um of those 311 kids uh 6th through eighth graders all 300 those 11 kids are still actively participating in our youth sports program right now so I think that's also important to note that you know we're touching them obviously in June and July um but here it is uh you know in October and going into November um these kids are still actively participants um within our program um and then obviously you know one of the things that we have under our umbrella is our you sports program which we're currently serving over 2,600 kids in our you sports program um and and again that ranges from ages 5 to 12 I mean 5 through 14 um we started June 1st with that and we'll continue that through November um and that's been a huge succcess um you know we'll accommodate that with uh some championship games at historic crew this year so that would be exciting for the kids first time and a lot of parents first time being inside of that building um we also finish out the year um with one of our um things we just started this year grades for Fades and grades for braids essentially just encouraging uh young men and young women uh to do great in the classroom we understand how looking appearance can be challenging for some kids and so we partner with a lot of Barbers with the help of nbk and their team as well um just to get the proper Barbers and and braiders that we needed for our kids so I'm excited for that um and then we also have our this weekend coming up our second annual youth award show which is probably one of my favorite um events throughout the the entire year so um so you're so you're continuing on so so yes so this will be continue on but I think obviously it started this summer and um you know all the work that we've been able to do obviously wouldn't be able to do without you guys I think we made a assertive effort this year to partner with a lot of different people um as we continue to grow and expand as well you so app very necessary for us too so yeah thank you so much we appreciate the opportunity to hear from you tonight uh yeah council president we're on a road too I have to applaud the way we're moving through this um but uh Dominic what does expansion look like what is next I mean I'm assuming that this is not a one-off in terms of your request for support from this Council from the city what what would be next what what how would you I mean hearing that you were able to serve 60 young people but because of capacity you know you had to turn away another 200 or so what what does um what what is next what did expansion look like uh how how what worked with didn't absolutely um I think for us it's um facilities as always adequate facilities I think is one thing um you know getting that stuff locked in a lot earlier you know and a lot sooner I think sometimes when you come into the summer you know it's kind of a Sprint so to speak you kind of don't know what's really ahead you know so it's kind of hard to really plan but I think that we've gained a lot of interest from teachers lately and people who are off on the summertime because they're job like hey how can we be involved you know with the organization so I think that if and wi had the opportunity to expand um I would love to be on the north side of Columbus um you know and uh right now we're specifically on the Southside area um but I think that um obviously um you know being able to get the you know the budget to hire more staff to be able to put you know different sides of town btim would be awesome um I think that too from a capacity stand Point um you know a lot of our kids are jointly you know doing in our summer programs and actively play sports so I'm always think this year more than ever I'm thinking about Safety and Security you know how do we provide um you know at at large events like we've had this year more than ever it's kind of like you know we probably got a sec heing better you know next year you know and so um but yeah I think I think there's there there's a huge appetite U for this um we've also been um approach many times about why don't we serve young ladies in the same capacity that that that we've been focused on young men a lot of our young men come with sisters a lot of parents say hey well if I drop my kid off to you in the morning I would love to drop his sister off but I got to find somewhere for her to go so we've also trying to intertwine that aspect next year as well and you know figure out how we do both I think it's a good Point um you know I think part of our role and our job is you know we we have Columbus City Schools we have our Rex and Parks I mean facilities should not be a a prohibitive problem you know for any any organization out there and we need to Advocate you know that our public resources including our schools are included in this conversation so in the summer especially when they're not being utilized um you know so I'm more than willing to take up that fight and and to work with collaboratively with with our school board to ensure that that happens but um there are a lot of buildings uh that are sitting empty over the summer that need that could be utilized and so I'm just I'm saying it publicly right now all right thank you guys appreciate it thank you very much Dominic appreciate it next speaker is Miss Miss gulik and uh Miss Angel for the chair Institute oh sorry uh council member bon no I just wanted to make a comment as they were you guys coming up um and just underscore something before I left in that you we're having this hearing to talk about outcomes and everything and that's and that's great and I think a lot of times when we fund these things we get lost in the application and the metrics and what the outcomes are but what I've heard from everyone here and I'm sure it's a continuous theme is that investing in community investing in showing our young folks that we love them and that they're cared about is just as important uh and those outcomes can't be measured um and I think that I want everyone to understand that the work that you're doing is so critical um and so needed uh another thing that I heard here tonight is partnership um and so I hope that if folks are watching uh we talk about this all the time the Columbus way public private Partnerships we need our private Partners to come along with us to make this sustainable to make sure that we continue to invest it is not just the city's responsibility it's all of us to create a sense of community and I truly believe that how we are going to combat our violent crime is not going to be about policing our way out of it is not going to be about programming our way out of it it is going to be about creating a culture in Columbus where we are in community again with one another where we know who we our neighbor is where we trust one another where we engage with one another and you all are doing that ground workor so I just wanted to make sure that I underscored not just the outcomes and metrics that you all have uh worked so hard on and continue to work so hard on but also that underlying uh theme of community uh and love for the Next Generation so thank you so much for all you guys guys are doing thank you very much council member banks and Miss gake thank you to president Harden and all the council members thank you so much um again we're going to continue to say thank you because um we were given this opportunity and you guys are seeing the hard work that we are putting in I brought with me Miss Heaven Angel she is one of our U senior participants it was important for me to bring Heaven because she's been with us since the beginning um she is a product of what we have been doing and what we've been working so hard for so I invited her here with me today I am the um owner of the cheer Institute and we are a um Premier competitive cheer um and Training Facility here in Columbus Ohio um I make it a point to um say that I was an athlete of color who didn't have a lot of resources and I felt it was really important to come back and train athletes of color um but it has expanded beyond that it's the inexperienced athlete that also needs the training um we serve athletes from walking um with Mommy and Me classes all the way up to the age of 18 through our programming um and this year we um due to co we had to get creative and so we had to start in on Zoom um we started some hybrid programs with your Grant um we were able to expand those programs into um parks and recs we started um Atlanta Community Center and has since gone to the Southside the goal is to continue on the east and west um one of the programs that we were able to start up and is cheer up Columbus so obviously we are cheerleaders and normally you would expect cheerleaders to cheer for sports but we found it very important um to start cheering up Columbus as a whole and so we took that spin on it and we partnered with parks and recx and planed our hybrid programs right into um the uh neighborhoods that needed it the most um these were programs that not only were they able to um take part in the grant that the parks and wck was going to give them but also the grants that we were able to provide so for little to nothing for longer weeks they were able to participate in programming we have prek program as well as beginner and intermediate advance I also make to a note to say that some of these athlet have gone on to switch over to the competitive side so we're finding those athletes who were um you know underserved and they're able to now get the programming and um go out and represent themselves as well as their Community um we also were able to do in July Cap City Nights we um uh started the cheer up Columbus initiative where uh we joined in with them we provided t-shirts um they had a lot of games it was just a celebrating the community it was a safe event um there were over 300 attendees 100 shirts given out and then more importantly our performers the um athletes that we were able to serve in our hybrid programs got to perform and so they got to Showcase their skills at the event so we were super excited about being able to do that and we're going to continue to host these throughout the year it's not just about the summertime but people need cheer all throughout the year so we're going to continue to host many programs in order to cheer up Columbus we were also able to enhance our um internship and mentorship programs um we sent one of our male um leaders to join the Columbus young professionals impact Academy and he was able to bring back what he um learned and create a class for the inverse Norm which is 10 Young gentlemen um they were able to participate in seminars roundtables and networking events to continue to build them up um so that was super exciting we're going to be graduating our first mini class in um winter and then just like heaven we were able to enhance our jcoach program this is a Junior coach program where they are able to not only gain community service hours but they're learning techniques how to um effectively spot they're showing interest in curriculum development when it comes to um tumbling and classes and gymnastics they participate and assist us in our mobile programming so that way um the athletes that are in the community centers can see um athletes that look like them that have gone through the program so they have something to look forward to um we were able to bring on two young adults ages 20 through um 24 we were able to add a full-time gym coordinator and also seven youth staff members ages 12 to 17 so as young as 12 they are leading a classroom they are participating they are helping to interact with parents in a professional manner um our vit summer program was something we were excited about we usually just do um summer break program I mean um school break programs we were able to create a full day camp where again our J coaches were the leaders we served 50 athletes ages 5 through 14 they got to participate in a lot of um different activities um parents felt safe dropping their kids off they knew that they were in a simulating environment um and then we also took advantage of Columbus library their culture passes a lot of people didn't know about these but they were able to attend many places like the Museum of Arts Ohio Historical Center at no call so again we were using our resources to continue to expand that lastly we were able to create specific um summer trainings um for athletes we did drills built skills over 78 athletes ages 5 through 17 we were bringing in people that would help us effectively train them a big thing in sports is making sure you are progressing correctly making sure you're safe um and so we made it a point to bring in these people to help them um learn how to prevent energies learn injuries learned how to um land correctly learn how to perform skills correctly we also uh did a college prep camp where members of um of uh former high school cheerleaders former coaches um at universities and current coaches came in and talked to our athletes about compliance that's a big thing um about being safe about being a scholar athlete as well as the skills that we're learned and then we culminated with um Angel rice if you don't know her she's big to us she's a a 2018 USA Gymnastics power tumble they actually came and um chose our site for their clinic and over 35 athletes got to not only participate um in getting training from her um they had a meet and greet and was able to attend a cheer live event um I know my time is almost up hopefully you got to see a little bit um on the video um but we are working we wrap around our services all all year so we start in June and we continue to follow the athletes all the way through May of the following year we always travel over a 100 athletes they are going across the country competing for Columbus when they step on the floor they are representing their Community they are ages three all the way up to 18 so yes three year olds go and they represent Columbus um we find it a point and feel like it's important to not just see them for a little bit of time we need to see them all the way around we're supporting them and not just activities we're supporting them in mental health we're supporting them in education we're supporting them in life so I think it's again we're just cheerleaders for them all the way around so I thank you for your time I thank you for your efforts thank you so much and we appreciate the work that you did you know with 78 participants is impressive I like the fact that you brought up the cultural pass that is a great program for everyone that's entitled to go in and check these passes out to get to to visit Franklin Park Conservatory to visit the um the Zoo even um and these are all available at the Columbus Metropolitan Library so thank you for highlighting that Absolut um oh council member favor it it's more of a comment than a question but you know I think to um Mr Jones uh comment that was uh made earlier in response to uh councilman uh president Harton's uh question around what expansion looks like you know I I we've have heard from five speakers and the diversity in the programming uh that has been offered we we have talked about gardening uh we've talked about football we've talked about lacrosse we've talked about cheerleading and three of those activities have not traditionally uh been connected to communities of color and so I think about the power um around this reimagining safety summer Grant opportunity and how we are exposing um individuals who may not have had the opportunity in any other capacity uh to work with someone like you or to work with um Mr Jones or to learn how to be a gardener and we're not even halfway through uh the speeches at this point and so I just want to say thank you uh for living in your purpose for living in your Truth for taking what you do and committing um committing yourself uh and and and providing the opportunity for other young women or folks who identify as women and I think you all even work with young men as well um to to gain this experience and to understand that cheerleading is a a it's a sport I was a cheerleader so I'm a I'm a ride for cheerleaders um my daughters are cheerleaders yeah but with that being said I just say thank you right and I I just I am excited by the diversity of the programming that we are Prov providing for our youth in the city of Columbus so thank you thank you council member favor Miss Angel where do you go to school what grade are you in um I am a senior at Fort Hayes and I'm obviously 12 years old not 12 in the 12th grade I am 17 years though um I'm also in the career center for welding so yeah excellent thank you so much we just wanted to make sure you got a moment thank you so much we appreciate your testimony this evening Shannon Amos and Scott Neely you're up Sean Stevenson you're up next uh president Harden and council members we thank you for inviting us to share uh and present this evening on um how we used our reimagining safety summer grant funding this year my name is Shannon Amos I'm the vice president of programs children's hunger Alliance and with me is Scott Ney our senior director of government fairs so this summer uh we primarily used funding from the council to support the distribution of food to Children and Youth this summer ensuring that more children and families had access to healthy meals and many of the partners here and many of the partners that they worked with are those that we provide food too so um we are a support system for many of the youth programs here in Columbus in Franklin County we know that over 60,000 Children and Youth are at risk for food experiencing food insecurity and the summer months can be an additional hardship for for children and their families when school breakfast and lunch are not available only 10% of children or students who are eligible for the free and reduced priced meal program access meals through the USDA summer food service program during the summer months children's hunger Alliance is one of several sponsors of the summer food service program in Franklin County which provides healthy meals and children to Children throughout the summer but despite efforts uh to expand the program and maximize participation we know that gaps in that program still exist and that there are limitations to the the um access that we can provide during the last two years of the um pandemic we know that USDA provided some waivers uh that allowed us to provide uh food distribution with greater flexibility and chief among these was the ability to provide non- congregant meals so meaning that children did not have to sit and eat together um obviously we did not want that to happen with during covid um but that children could uh take those meals with them and consume them offsite and take multiple meals uh and meal types with them uh back home the USDA waivers um as this graph shows made an enormous impact on the access and availability of summer food during the Summers of 2020 and 2021 uh in Ohio um alone this graph shows um National Data but in Ohio the number of meals distributed pre pandemic in the summer of 2019 was 1.8 million and in 2021 or I'm sorry in 2019 was 1.8 million and in 2021 uh that road to 5.8 million so more than 4 million meals more meals were distributed given the flexibilities of the program and during this time cha was better able to meet food access needs um we were able to do mobile feeding um through um multiple van stops where we distributed food in the community with multi-day meal packs um including food that was available to Children over the weekends which we know is also um uh where kids experience more food insecurity um something that's not real that's not really available under the summer food service program um the weekend meals um despite advocacy efforts for this summer Congress did not reauthorize USDA to extend the waivers prior to the start of summer food service and we knew that this would have a significant impact on our ability to distribute food um the funding that we received from Columbus city council allowed us to continue the flexibilities and the additional food distributions above and beyond the summer food service program that we provided in 2019 and 2020 uh we provided weekend meal boxes for all Columbus City school students um to take home who were attending summer school um and we also partnered with many other faith and Community Based organizations who were not able to support congregate feeding but still had food access needs in their Community um to allow for food to go home so again we just want to take the time to thank you for um allowing us to continue the additional food access that we've been able to do and we know that that's such a um a hardship for families in the summertime yeah and there's not a lot of can add to what Shannon said but uh I just want to extend my thanks as well president Harden and chair Remy and council member favor you've all been to our sites you've all passed out food to the kids anytime we've needed your help you've been there and we've said I know our CEO Judy has said to you that we only come to ask for funding when we need it and that's true in this past summer we really did need it so uh just thank you so much for your help and your support and uh we really appreciate it I think the other thing to point out is is that despite you know besides handing out meals I mean when you are in full program mode there's a lot of activities that occur as well it's not just you know it's not just handing a meal out there are activities to engage the kids and make sure that they're playing together and that sort of thing yes and that's that's the nice thing about coming out of covid is you know we can bring some of those inperson Programming type of things back and attract participants to come so not only you know are they getting food access but they're also getting the enrichment programming and the activities during the summer as well thank you so much so much for all that you do appreciate it Sean Stevenson and up beyond that is Zira beid how you doing how you doing city council first I want to thank you all for having us my team is in the violence and what we do we influence the influencers to work with the youth I heard a lot of conversation up here tonight about people working with children but the children are influenced by the adults in order for the children to get the right influence they need to have the right influencer with them and my job is to influence the influencer to teach the children why not go down that path these people that you see standing here with me have backgrounds that are unlike by people in the community but they're part of the community they are the community they make the difference in the community and this group of people right here some have murdered some have been called all types of things but they've changed their life you know I sat here and listen to these conversations it hurts me so much because y'all do not have an idea what's going on in these communities and how these young kids are affected they're affected because they mimic things but we don't have the right lead leaders out there working with them and this is what the leaders look like and they from every race we employ Mexicans we employ white people we employ black people but what we do is change a person's heart and what they've been living and you can't do that without the support of the community and y'all and I thank y'all and I try to work with different organizations but a lot of organizations can't tolerate and take what really comes with that it's a lot of diversity a lot of strong words strong actions More's principles and values what we stand on we starting here today so y'all can see what it looks like some of these people like I said right here got pending charges for M they've changed their life old charges for murder they changed their life and I thank y'all because y'all putting money behind us is creating jobs for them because they can't even go get a job because they got a pending case or old case they can't even get an apartment because they had a prior so the funding that we get ensures that these people are employed so they don't react and do the same thing you understand thank you all for having us any questions thank you very much we appreciate the work that you do in the community council president Harden well well uh I think he want to say something of course I want to say something hi my name is Lloyd Jefferson I have a extensive bad bad criminal background man and I'm ashamed of it I got over 46 years in prison I been called everything and I probably was there that's the sad part I came home almost two years ago not knowing what I really was going to do because what they call re-entry out here it don't exist man they steing money man I'm telling you I don't have no teeth in my mouth cuz I couldn't afford teeth 46 years in prison they wouldn't give me a foood stamp when I came home if it don't be for this man here standing his hand out me said man come over here with me man you ain't got to go back to prison to feed your family cuz that's what I'm going to do I'm going to feed my family he works with me I work with over 60 kids I promote train boxing I used to box so I said I want to utilize my skills the man here helped support the gym the man helped support me I'm going to do my part I'm not going to let my family down no more I'm not going I don't even know y'all man but I respect y'all I got all respect in the world for taking your time out to hear what we got to say what some people consider you understand is people on touchable H you know they thought I couldn't be touched they didn't think that I could change man I got a heart man I put my pants on just like you my heart beat just like yours do man yes and I got compassion I love kids and I love y'all man thank you please get this money some money to help us man please thank you for sharing your story thank you Mr Stevenson I have a question question for you though one I want to say say thank you for the work that you're doing I was kind of following up from it was I think council member favor did a good setup for this because tonight has been about diversity and programming we see the whole Spectrum from cheerleading to what you're doing and for a couple of council members who've been able to come out and and see your work in action um it's not clean it's not pretty but it's meeting people where they are and serving the community and so these grants when we talk about the resources that we put out in the streets we have to understand it's the entire spectrum and to know that we have folks out doing work that we know other folks can't do or aren't doing um that has to be acknowledged and recognized and and this council is appreciative I'll ask you the same question I asked DJ though what would expansion look like if there were more resources or you know you had the ability what would more look like more people who are coming out into society having a second chance stand out here remember our prisons are full our jails are full they're coming home if we don't have something in place one takes another okay in order for this to expand we need jaws's assistant the mayor's assistant and everybody else's thank you uh Council Council favor say yeah um so hi uh I had a background a while back but a couple of months ago I came and started working with Sean I'm a certified life coach and initially I was one of those people that judged these people I was like this is a little scary but what I realized is that everybody needs to be rehabilitated in some way but it takes transformation from the inside out and a lot of these people don't even before you start speaking to their passion they don't even know that it exists within them so I started talking to him about you guys remember the Dare program that we had in school I was like what if we had a program and there's so many of us who have been through violence bullying starts in school so being able to go into a community or into a school and showing them skits of what I went to school and I have a background in broadcasting what would it look like to have a scenario of kids that are show people that have backgrounds that are showing what kids start off as bullying what it what it exceeds to because at the end of the day that's where it starts at it starts in the school and so if we come up with programs and things like that and I've been working with him to do that to come up with things that transform the mindset of the children because they see this is what you could be versus this is where you are right now you know so that's kind of what we've been working on and um a lot of these people have a really good heart and they just need somebody to see that and to be able to put in a place of leadership where they can actually expand on that thank you thank you so much Council mayor favor so Mr stevensson you know uh we met long before I was ever thinking about sitting in this seat and your passion and your commitment uh to our community has never wavered uh you have dedicated your life to this work and it has never been the Sha Stevenson show you continue to bring people into the fold you continue to think outside the box and that's what it's going to take to reach the heart and minds of people in our community I don't believe anyone is too far gone ever we are a product of our environment but when we love on each other when we see each other for who we really are things change and it may not look like change as people want to see but we know that things are moving that's def things are shifting yeah but they cannot shift without you all so I tell this gentleman thank you all the time but real talk I'm saying thank you to each and every one of you because you are healing through your own trauma you are reaching out to our young folks as you are continuing to work on yourself and you don't have to do that but you recognize that our people are on the line that Our Generations that are on the line and that this work extends far beyond just us individually this is about the collective so thank you thank you thank you thank you so much Council mayor favor thank you Sean and all of you for the the work that you're doing uh next we have zurka B John do Dawson you're you're up next good afternoon this is very hard to follow this I am very emotional and your remarks were profound thank you so much for saying what you just said thank you so much con president Harden chair Remy council member favor and all of my colleagues here um Z AB from my project USA um I am um very emotional but I would love to uh first of all congratulate city council for investing in so many youth in so many different ways um without your support um my youth could not be where they are right now my organization wouldn't be where we are right now so I really will always say that columus city council has made a major difference on the west side of Columbus and htop area this summer um unfortunately we had to deal with some very serious um matter but still we were able to serve 130 youth who participated in our summer program um especially in the soccer program that was the main investment we received from city council uh our U6 team went in Fourth of July weekend they went to Kentucky and they won International uh Championship there uh our ut10 team just recently has also won our Barcelona United uh tournament just recently uh girls soccer and basketball uh girls basketball program also started this Summer that we are very excited about on the academic side we had a greater support from OD that we combined our counil money with the OD uh Grant and we were able to provide uh a thorough programming we were able to hire about um 30 staff members who were given uh 3D printing Community gardening morale art projects drones robots our our students learn coding they were able to do Apex programming they were able to participate in Heroes League in which they were actually learning coding but they didn't know they were playing games uh so a lot of work was being done during summer even though we were not able to get um additional spaces we were just able to use our uh Youth Center into three different time zones we divided it and we were able to use the space to multiply the for um unfortunately as you know on July 26 uh 22nd we lost Issa gilani to gun violence our 16-year-old Champion uh that really disrupted a lot it our my youth my soccer team many of us went into trauma and uh lot of disruption in our programming we can can our uh Youth League that we do in summer and last year we were able to engage 500 children but we cancel it we couldn't do it we have hired security guards for the field now uh that's additional expense but we had to do it our parents were very nervous now um we have provided support to all youth the mental health support money that was additional recently that we received from city council is also going to help us we are hiring a social worker case manager to support that um we took the families to State Fair uh and that really helped because the families needed some kind of break and some some positivity so we did that in summer on the leadership side we were also we received Grant from y to Y youth to youth Adam H and women's fund of Central Ohio so 32 youth participated in leadership pilot program in which they did community service and they also did leadership trainings uh they organized a community Festival they were part kind of organizer first time many of them uh they received stipers from the money that we were able to receive from Adam AG we were able to give them a stipers one thing that we learned this year and we want I wanted to bring to city council is that many of our high school youth do not participate will not participate in programming unless there is some kind of money attached because their parents are extremely poor and they want their children to work and get some money back so even though I had this awesome programming I did not put Stiers in the grant applications it was very hard for me in the first part of Summer and then adamh I was able to talk to them and they provided me that internship dollars that I could use and then I I was able to bring 32 youth in the program which was very helpful and now today is the first day that some of my youth are attending in youth to youth Franklin County meeting in which they will be participating with more youth um the last thing that is very important is that we have signed 2-year contract with five close friends of Issa galani they are all 16 17 or 15 year old um one of them used to be in um in juv for two years he has been out now he is one of the best uh U6 Central Ohio uh player for soccer the other one was at the verge of joining a gang and he's also a champion so these five Young young men will be supported with this uh investment of about 20,000 per dollar per year uh per per student and we are able to combine resources from youth to youth um the uh OD Grant from other and and the money from city council to put them into different programmingsoftware project USA this summer well thank you so much we appreciate the work that you're doing on the west side we were just out there for the mural DED dedication it's a it's a good point about the stiens and and you know expecting that especially high school children will just you know get involved in an activity and not getting paid when they need it at home so we're we're hearing you um we want to talk further with that with other organizations as well and and make sure that we're acknowledging that that is an issue um appreciate your time this evening and thank you for all that you do zura thank you thank you very much Mr Dawson and then we have Jean Tucker after that Gino Tucker excuse me good evening want to start with uh thanking you president president Harden uh Council chair reming uh council member favor uh I'm thanking you for not only the support of CND but the support of the community in which you all uh each uh focus on different areas uh collectively are necessary uh this time last year we talked about uh broadening uh youth's abilities to realize that there's more um to life than what's in their communities and I talked about uh exposing them to different activities that they normally wouldn't be able to experience in the course of a a day a week uh month or lifetime in some cases uh and we did that and what we realized was the more we kept kids busy the more we interacted with them on a daily basis um the better they were the more excited about life they were um I was in a meeting earlier today where where uh the word hope kept coming up and and we we see hope when when we're interacting with these youth um again in ways that I would call normal but they're abnormal in their societies so CN introduced youth to social emotional recreational activities this summer The Summer began with engaging trips to C Point Kings Island group then began weekly incentive activities such as bowling and skating once we got the youth to working and participating in summer engagement activities our staff began to work with youth on personal hygiene grooming and even pampering for our ladies the young men received haircuts young ladies got their hair braided young ladies also received P pampering activities such as manicures and pedicures during and after each activity the staff of CND would do checkins with each youth that generated discussions the staff would have prepared topics for discussions if youth did not provide something but what we really want it is to know where you're at what's going on with you and how we can help you this summer we observed that if a youth is engaged with positive older adults and this is from the search institutes 40 developmental assets older adults activities and peers who share the same value they will stay out of trouble we monitor each youth that participated for maladaptive social behavior and we did not have one youth get in trouble this summer Community from the direction employed 18 youth during the summer break we currently have youth that are still employed and we're seeking other employment opportunities for other youth all youth are participating in an evidence-based 14-week job Readiness program so they come into the shop uh weekly and learn new uh or or become better prepared to be an employee somewhere we introduced youth to college life and taking them to OSU uh versus the University of Toledo game shortly followed by an OSU camp tool so uh not just to have fun watching a game but then also understand that you too can go to college as you can see from the employment various activities and time spent with old adults outside of the home we met the goal of keeping youth engaged this summer and we hit all three social emotional and recreational learning um our goal or or the name of this year's program was CND summer engagement um I see it uh from almost 30 years of of working in the field we develop habits and the more we work with children in positive and expose them to positive activities even if they can't afford afford it or their families can't to keep keep it going it's something that they Thrive for they now have knowledge of something that they didn't before we take kids just a couple weeks ago they went to Polaris and we had a child say I've never been to Polaris um and there's many stories like that the following were employment work sites this year uh our own summer summer Day Camp Friendship Baptist Missionary Church Tatum Landscaping Bub's Clubhouse daycare we also took them to museums Buckeye Raceway Scene75 they did a overnight um to talk about coping skills um they did a cooking class uh everyone needs to be self-sufficient in the kitchen absolutely candle making multiple dining experiences um so we looked at the whole person and we continue to do that uh the council I believe knows that uh our agency has been in business for 33 years uh and we started in a two-bedroom apartment in Selvin Gardens so we've grown tremendously and youth has always been our Focus so we consider ourselves professionals uh we appreciate your help and I won't keep you any longer thank you so much Mr Dawson we know how much you've meant to this community over the past 33 years and certainly continue to do so with this work and so we thank you so very much for this work but thank you uh next we have Gino Tucker and then Jenna WJ I see director Stapleton out there there and the and thank you for coming tonight um I know we have lots of people here from rexin Park too um listening in and and all the wonderful work that you do with these organizations and throughout for our youth we appreciate you being here this evening thank you city council uh first off y'all have been one of my major supporters since I started this I always want to come here and say thank you uh what you have in front of you is a handout of the PowerPoint as well as a SP report for our summer uh Urban Scouts summer 22 so uh our program objectives was really to offer a 8-week comprehensive program to 40 youth uh we met that go we served 37 that stayed and retained uh really to teach them on the job training in cosmetology intro to braiding as well as landscape and these are two trades that are uh Loosely regulated to say the least uh at the age of 16 young ladies can get certified and work inside of hair salance and there's really no regulations on what age a young man or a woman can start Landscaping so we wanted to make sure that we provided them with the skills needed the curriculum and a hands-on experience to be able to learn how to do it in the field do it in the field and see how it feels to them uh they also developed soft skills where we taught them how to engage with the customers that worked out of a hair salon and we provided provided free landscaping services in Milo uh for them to just build understand how to work and engage with the customers and how to uh respect your community uh we wanted to make sure that uh we put a heavy emphasis on mental health and urban Scouts uh we do weekly support groups where we hire counselors to come talk to our young people about the eight dominant traits and factors of trauma and how to better cope with that inside your neighborhood inside your house inside your school um and really build a sense of Pride uh Urban Scouts has always been taking care of the community we make sure we clean up our streets I tell the people all the time if you want to say it's your hood take care of your hood so we make sure that we the kids out there cleaning up and they get to see the benefits of that so some of our program accomplishments 20 young men 20 young women enrolled we uh kept 37 uh young people 65% of our young young men and women attended Columbia City Schools 100% of the participants increase their social emotional understanding so we did on a scale of 0 to 10 this time we did evaluations every session just to see how they took it and every student increased their social emotional understanding and intelligence by a minimum of 1.5 points um they all completed 50 hours of on-site training either at the H Salon or in landscaping which uh turned around and we provided free uh Landscaping to 10 residents for the last four weeks uh the program and the residents loved it the kids loved it they was excited they was like yes um what else on here we collected over 50 bags of trash so this was the kids's least favorite day and I told him like I love y'all but if y'all don't come back if y'all don't come on Thursdays don't come back because taking care of your community is part of what we do so the first Thursday I'm like man ain't nobody going to show us up every kid showed up after they did it I'm like the second Thursday they not going to show up every kid showed up they complained but they went out there and picked up the trash and by the end of the program we realized and my brother Manny back there uh we as Nick uh council member Nick talked about we did uh Partnerships with Milo recx Center to uh host our program and by the end of that time the 50 bags we collected when we went out for the last day we had to look and find trash the kids was like oh my God the neighbors was coming out giving them free pop free Waters giving them snacks you know giving them money and the young people appreciated the opportunity to see their Community show that Pride to them so for landscaping they basically learned the basics of landscaping how to do a proper land maintenance I mean Landscaping Maintenance how to weed how to mow how to pull weeds really the business of Landscaping the safety around it a lot of times people just get out there and think they can cut grass I didn't know until I started this you supposed to cut the yard a different way every time so teaching the young people the curriculum and then putting in practice for the last two weeks they loved it they learned how to uh take a lawnmower out the box put it together so that way when they do start their own business and relatively cheap for about $500 they know how to do everything braiding as you seen this is our braiding class this is Major to me this our second year doing it and as you see them kids are getting chartered out in a nice bus thank to y'all uh but they uh really got to gain the experience I wanted to the see last year so they got to learn how to add hair how to make their own oils understanding uh how and what shampoos to use to keep people from hair from being uh damaged or the diseases that could potentially be in their hair different brain uh techniques they all walked away with mannequins they all walked away feeling confident that they know now know how to braid and can make money braiding they talked about shop etiquette how to behave inside of a shop how to uh change the stigma of a being gossipy and just really be real professional to where your customers want to come back and how to do income projections it's very important to know how much money you want to make how long it's going to take to get there and what you need to get it actually and as my son said so everyone this is Lil Gino uh as he said some of them actually start braiding hair and making money off of it created their own Instagram pages to promote their themselves and it really took off for some of them uh the community uh cleanups it was a quick picture up there but I went over we did 50 bags uh Community really enjoyed it the kids didn't so much but they they they benefited from it community events we uh uh we blessed to be invited to the groundbreaking of Hudson Street uh and we rode bikes up there we took that time to do a bike ride with our young people and we had 15 young people ride up there it was a great experience they I don't think I ever seen uh that many young black people at a ground breaking uh actually breaking the dirt with the city council with the mayor that was a just phenomenal experience for our young people they loved it and some of them got interviewed he was one of them I don't know why and then we uh uh president H Harden you said that you wanted to see us work with the fashion Alliance so we made sure we connected with them and went today merch giveaway we brought 40 young people out there to get free merch and we're now working with them to see how they can help design some of our clothes for next year I think I think you know the the impact that you're making and the vast amount of I mean there's a lot of different things there um really impressive and we appreciate the work that you're doing in that regard I wanted to point out a little bit about um the the cleanup piece of it because you know as an environmental chair um I think people dread the idea potentially of going out and you know that picking up the trash and and everything but when you're there and you're in the moment um it's better than you think it's it is a lot better and the community aspect of it and then the accomplishments that you achieve when you see the results at at the end of the day after you got those big all those bags piled up it makes a big big difference and so kids they they didn't like it but they love the feeling that they had afterwards yeah yeah well we we definitely appreciate you and thank you for the work that you've been doing we we look forward to talking with you about continuing you have a good any questions not a question shair if you don't mind yeah go ahead presid I I just um I'm always Blown Away by Gino because um we've been around long enough where I've seen where you started at and where you're at now um and just your your impact is real your passion is obvious um and I mean the golf again from where you started to where you are right now I know you didn't do it by yourself you had there a lot of other organizations and folks who have mentored you so that you can have this type of impact but it it it really is mind-boggling to me just to to see um see this impact and it really gets me excited because I think about Columbus 10 years from now and 15 years from now and who are going to be those trusted leaders that are out there we see Mr Dawson now um and he talks about 33 years of History this is what I mean this is the Legacy that you're you're you're starting this is the track this is the this is what you are doing this is who you will be for an entire sight of town um maybe for the entire city uh but it is next year uh oh well there you go coming out there there you go I appreciate the support and and I'm glad you got to see it from day one to you ain't going nowhere you'll see it in foolish and as far as we go thank you appreciate thank you so much I agree with you council president we watch you grow and it's it's really impressive so thank you so much chair member chair member Rey I did w to Sure council member roast apia come in H I know I wanted to well it's hard in the virtual space I'm finding out now um but I'm glad I got to listen to this I just also wanted to um comment on on um Gino's program because I you know as you all know I got my start um as a city or core member where we did lots of fiscal service projects and I think that um there's an there's a gratification that comes even when you're doing a community cleanup like you see the impact you see the difference when you're working out in the community and you can start on a project and you can see the progress that you're making and I think you know you said something that that um really resonated and I think is important to just Elevate as we think about the different programming as council member um favor said I think that you have to find your the thing that moves you right young people whether it's sports or whether it's gardening or whether it's service right but the thing that you said around um if you're going to call it your hood then you need to invest in that and I think giving young people that opportunity to have that real ownership over the place that they live the fact that that you had young people out at the Hudson Street ground opening or groundbreaking that this is a main thoroughfare in their neighborhood that connects two sides of the neighborhood and that they are part of that and that they could be part of it that literally breaking ground on a project that will connect the neighborhood and that they're there and that they're seen and that they're heard and that the news is talking to them all those things are so important to um elevating our young people and elevating their efficacy and their love of community so I just wanted to commend you on um the breath of opportunities that you're giving our young people and how you're thinking about elevating them and really truly putting them out in their neighborhood in their hood and having them have ownership over it thank you for them words I appreciate you too councilwoman thank you so much council member of Ros pedia Jen Jack you're up next I did want to acknowledge Manny Clark our director of apps program thank you so much for being here this evening we appreciate the work that you've you've been doing in our community good evening hi tonight has been good for my heart uh it's been fantastic to be here thank you so much for the opportunity to speak about our program um I promise Miss Frank I'd keep it tight congratulations on your stamina um I do believe that you have a onepage about the program so I'm happy to talk about any questions that might come up but uh my name is Jenna voot my pronouns are she her and I'm the director of education for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio our department is called the Ohio Center for sex education so that's what you're going to probably hear over and over and um generous funding from the city allowed us to lift up a program called uh yes the Youth Empowerment skills program uh a unique collaboration between celebrate One Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Ohio Center for sex education for eight weeks 44 hours Franklin County Youth ages 14 to 19 received training in talk about diversity sexual health education and life skills and employment skills so uh it seems sort of a hard connect for a lot of people but it's not um 25 years into sexual health and I can make a connection in every way shape and form for you and so what we're talking about is uh talking about reproductive life planning and how that impacts your goals and um job prospects and where you want to go and where you're hoping to take this the generous city funding allowed us to create the summer program that actually continues and enhances our year-long programming throughout the schools we're able to stay consistent with youth uh and we see siblings and siblings and uh years in the same family of kids that are engaging in these programs we talk about communication healthy relationships empathy talking about staying healthy and making the best choices that we can for ourselves and give talking with respect to youth about their own autonomy that's that's where we come from when we are reimagining Community safety we're talking about Community Care and it's allowing young people to know that they have a stake in it that they're responsible for participating in Community Care in every way they can one of the most important points in our program is that incentive piece this funding has allowed us to incentivize participation in this program and what we see is the pride of earning of of ownership in their of their time one of my favorite things that happened this past summer was um a text I got from a mom saying my 15-year-old just took me out on a date uh with the incentive money that they earned in our program and it was just it's it's those things that matter to us we had over 160 app ANS we are limited to a capacity of 50 participants we would love to continue and grow that one of the unique things about our program is that it was offered virtually because what we know from our youth are uh barriers about Transportation uh all summer long and so with the funding we were able to meet sort of digital divide concerns and provide folks with the technology that they needed to engage uh and then we were also there were a couple of um efforts at in-person engagement uh one of our deliverables which was love ly foed Upon Us by um the director uh was a uh a public speaking opportunity and so we had youth uh we gave them a scaffold for a sexual health uh presentation they worked on it in small groups in participation with or in um collaboration with C1 we looked for other summer youth programming and had audiences and our kids got up there and uh did their little public speaking for many of them for the first time time and uh they they glowed they loved it uh it's hard and they know it can change their trajectory and we're just so grateful for your commitment um for us that's what reimagining safety is thank you so much we appreciate the work that you do thanks you we have no public speakers or test or written testimony this evening so we will uh move into closing remarks do any of my colleagues have anything council member favor council president would you like to say a few words yeah uh man director Clark would you like to come up and talk a little bit about the apps program since you're here put you on the spot about putting on the spot I have to say that on Friday nights we take my kids to one of the rec centers and your apps people have been phenomenal and work you know just entertaining basically I would say yeah doing bracelets uh playing PS4 like you know just a variety of different things and it's just impressive to see you know them being involved with the youth in our community so I thank you for that um we appreciate that um I would like to introduce Dawn Turnage she is the new assistant director over Youth Development and apps so um she brings a wealth and knowledge from the city of Youngstown where she was the director of recreation in Parks so um as she comes she's given us um a wealth of knowledge and information because they did have a lot of the similar services in terms of intervention in terms of um the uh the academy that she did for um our our swim our Swim Academy that was created for young youth um Academy for swimming and we were one of the few in Youngstown area um to have lifeguards with no problems we had 17 old staff and even shared our lifeguards through that Academy and that's one of the that's one of the areas that we suffered this this past summer that she's going to help us grow in so um in terms of Youth Development just G to give you guys a few things I don't want to take up your time um what was known as Weare where we gave totes out into communities over the past several years this past summer we distributed 355 totes um with essential items and resources two homes and we changed that because we're not in Co anymore we were going to neighborhoods and um actually dropping those totes off to families this year we did do a couple of Tours but we found it more necessary that we found parents and families through community centers as they were coming in they needed the information and they were're picking up totes so now we distribute totes through community centers through community centers and through small businesses to make sure that um the people who are out here looking for them and those we may not identify their neighborhoods can get the same access um in those totes we gave over 3,500 items um that were contained and that was school supplies sports supplies hygiene and um similar items so uh we did a backpack giveaway um we partner with Columbus City Schools on August 20th to um on their on their back to school resource fair and at that event we gave over 50 um backpacks away filled with school supp suppes plus we gave information about some of the things that we're doing to change the um the already popular apps program we are actually um fostering a program with um Miss Turnage called preschool to professional where we identifi gaps that currently were um identified in in the whole department of Recreation and Parks so in in past history we started with capitol city kids um W and it was a few other um like daycare programs like what used to be in Lyon and Mary and Franklin and we would carry those young people up to age 12 after that we didn't have anything similar or serviceable until they came to the apps program age 14 so that 12 to 14 age group really was not targeted and as other people have said um and council person Remy talked about earlier to today that's that age group that's the crime is Raising in so um we've reidentified that with um city leaders um sew team programming and counselors and training the the second half was ages 16 to 18 which was a group in terms of teenss pretty much age where young people started to ask certain questions and they they wanted a certain level of of uh freedom that wasn't identified in community centers so with the same preschool the professional program we're actually reaching out to um businesses um the trades unions um Columbus State Ohio State to um continue to have programs so we don't lose those young people so we're actually um going to have the ability to actually keep families with young people interest from age six all the way to age 24 thank you you thank you so much um is there any questions I got I got a I know you can go on and on we appreciate information um but just to let you guys know we are doing some rebranding we are doing some um some recreating of of of services um not to lose anything that's been popular that we've had throughout the years um however going back to what we said we want to close some of the gaps that have been historic throughout um wck and park history and we thank you for that I I need to speak with you because we are meeting at the end of the month with uh Red Cross to um work on a program with with a with a stipend or a whatever you know for lifeguards for next year and so uh we we will work collaboratively with you to come up with a Rob robust program so we don't have what we had this last summer yes do I say one other thing please sure through Milo Grogan and you were you were part of this when you saw some of our teens go through our our uh our uh new as of the last two years golf program that golf program actually turned out to have seven young people which we brought into the apps job Readiness program and they actually are pretty much creating a program that we'll be able to duplicate for her program and any other sports program whereas we're identifying jobs in terms of different sports where you don't actually have to be able to play the sport mhm other jobs in that area that these young people can move towards in the future thank you so much yes sir uh I I do want to acknowledge or just make sure that my council member Barosa D does you have any further comments you'd like to make before we close out nope all right thank you thank you guys both see you okay I'd like to end this hearing by thanking each of our presenters this evening we all know that our youth uh are our future leaders and it's critical that we come together to give them all options resources and the redirection they may need thank you to each of you for your work and preparing for this hearing um I I do have to say it was not intentional that we had such a wide diversity of presenters this evening but it really shows how deep the stretch or how stretched we were in so many different facets in our community and I think it's very important to acknowledge that because it does take us digging deep like that and focusing on many different areas in order to make a difference and so we will continue to do this we will continue to look for ways that we can expand these Pro this type of programming throughout our community we know that our youth deserve this and they deserve it on an ongoing basis so thank you once again I also want to thank Zack Davidson Chris maitlin Jason Jenkins director Carla Williams Scott and countless others who help uh navigate these grants and get the funding into the hands of our partners thank you to John oswal our legislative research office uh my team Jeffrey Carter Lucy Frank and our wonderful interns Zada Jenkins uh Nia harston and Communications Mark Carter with technology and the CTV team for their assistance in prep preparing for this hearing tonight I also want to thank the community for their support and for T tuning in to tonight's hearing stay safe and have a great evening and everyone that concludes our hearing this evening thank you for