Yeah, and then I move that we find extraordinary circumstances allowing Commissioner Cornell to participate remotely. Okay. Is there a second? I got a motion to second Those in favor of motion will by the sign of I those opposed same time motion carries Okay, first item is the approval of the agenda Got a motion in a second. I didn't further discussions. I need public comments to the item is the approval of the agenda. So moved? Second. Yeah, the motion on the second. I didn't even further the discussions. I didn't even public comments to the agenda. Seeing none, those in favor of the motion, what why does it sign a Y? I vote as opposed to same side, motion carries. And I guess we'll turn it over to Ms. Tuck. Good morning Chair, commissioners. Claudia Tuck, Director of Alacio Accounties Community Support Services and the Administatory Days Program Manager. We are here today in response to your motion from December 10th, 2024, where you asked us to discuss the community centers. Bring it back to you as many of them have expressed a concern that they are struggling. So we have reached out to the community centers but first we look at what is a community center because when we started looking there are so many different services provided by different entities across our county so we tried to have some kind of a common definition that we were following. So basically it's a public location where members of the community gather for group activities, social support, public information, and other purposes. So we use that as the basis where we try to identify community centers across the county. We pull together a list and then as you may recall, we sent that list to each of you to review to make sure that we didn't miss any that you wanted to ensure that we touched on. And so from there, Satori reached out and developed a survey and I'm going to turn it to Satori. Good morning. Satori Days, Community Sabilization Program Manager. In front you, you should have an infographic detailing the surveys that were sent out to our 11 Community Resource Centers. We're going to highlight just a few areas of the surveys. Again, these surveys were still for port that was emailed out to them. Overhead, please. All right. So first we'll start off with the city of the Lacha recreation and cultural department the half-cock community center. It serves the areas of La Crosse, Lacha and High springs. Their hours of operation are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, between 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Their target population are senior citizens. And the areas of need are facility repairs, new programs and services, office equipment, more staff, more volunteers and vehicles. And they currently have a RFQ out for a new community center. Will the New Community Center be for the whole community or just for seniors as well? I believe the target is for seniors, but I'm sure it will be open for other citizens as well. And next we have the City of Archer, the Aldi MayorRobinson Community Center, Senior Center. The service areas are the Archer area. Their days of operation are Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Their target population are adults and senior citizens. And their areas of need are facility repair, new programs and services and more staff. Next we have the City of Newberry, the Martin Luther King Community Center. Their service areas are the newberry area. Their hours of operation are Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Their target population are children, senior citizens and adults. Their areas of needs are facility repairs, new programs and services, office equipment, storage. Next we have the City of Waldo Community Center. Their service areas are the Waldo area. Their owls of operation are Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Their target populations are adults, senior citizens, children, infants, veterans, and all citizens, and at this time they do not have needs. Next we have the community impact corporation. Their service areas are East Gainesville and Southwest Tyre Road. Their hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Their target population are children, adults, senior citizens and veterans. And their areas of needs are facility repairs, new programs and services, office equipment, more staff, more volunteers, vehicles, and other, they listed digital, large digital screens and projectors. Next we have the Deeper Parklist Community Church. Their service areas are the high spring area. The days of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Their target population are infants, childrens, adults, senior citizens, and veterans. Their areas of needs are new programs and services, office equipment, more staff, vehicles, permanent facility, and they also mention funding to build and purchase a permanent facility. Next, we have the Hawthorn Area Resource Center. Their areas are the Hawthorn area as well as East Gainesville. Days of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Their target populations are infants, childrens, adults, senior citizens, veterans, and disabled. areas of need are new programs and services, office equipment, more staff, more of others. children's adults, senior citizens, veterans and disabled. The areas of need are new programs and services, office equipment, more staff, more volunteers and vehicles. Next we have the partnership for Strong Families, the Library partnership their service areas are Southwest Tower Road. Their days of operation are Monday Tuesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Their target populations are infants, childrens, and adults. And their areas of knees are more volunteers and new programs and services. Next we have the Pleasant Street Civil Rights and Cultural Art Center, one community family resource center. Their service areas are the East Gainesville. Their hours of operation are Mondays, Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Their target population are adults, senior citizens and veterans, and at this time they do not have areas of need. Next, we have the partnership for strong families. Southwest Advocacy Group, also known as a SWAG Resource Center. Their areas are Southwest Tower Road. Their days of operation are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and on Fridays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Their target populations are infants, childrens, adults, senior citizens, and veterans. And their areas of needs are more staff, more volunteers, and new programs and services. And last, we have the Willie May Stokes Community Center. They listed as they served the entire logical county. Their days of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Their target population are children, adults, senior citizens, and veterans, and their areas of need are more staff vehicles and funding. I'll go back to the PowerPoint. So that's all of our community centers. So primarily they're staffing for as a result of their surveys. They have a total of 27 full-time staff, eight part-time staff, and 89 volunteers that serve the various communities and as throughout Elachua County. And the top four community resource needs are office equipment, more staff, more volunteers, and vehicles. And also and continue support of resources throughout a Lachua County. There are online resources through United Way 211. Find help.org, the rate of the money, find food from sites, as well as a Lachua County housing resource virtual map. So that concludes the presentation and and the city of San Francisco. And the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, and the city of San Francisco, housing resource virtual map. So that concludes the presentation and Cetori did make sure that all the community centers know that we were meeting today and many of them are in the room here. Yes so also throughout as we continue to go out into the community for example through our Forward Focus Initiative's community resource meeting, we also found out that the Monty Alpha Community Center has bi-monthly food giveaways, so that's also another resource out in our rural areas as well. Commissioner Prisya. Thank you for putting this together. I really appreciate it. I know this was a little bit of the lift and it was kind of off the cuff when we were having all those conversations, but I think it's really helpful for us to have this inventory and kind of an understanding of what those service needs are, especially as we're seeing a lot of federal funding potentially either frozen or cut that deals with these issues of food, housing security, those sorts of things. I think leaning on these resource centers is going to become even more important in our community. In addition to all of the surveys you did, I tried to have a conversation with a number of these different resource centers and some of the folks that have been like the partnership for strong families and the children's trust. I see they're here in the room so they could probably share a lot more about what they've been doing to try to support these Community Resource Centers because I think you know they're already providing a lot of funding and a lot of capacity building support for these organizations, some of them. And so I wanted to kind of understand that and I can tell you after having those conversations, I came away feeling inspired one and excited to see how much energy and time our community is putting into this idea of sort of bringing the resources to the people and frontline sort of support for these resource centers that really are the places that people go to because they trust the folks that are running them and they have relationships with those people and so it feels comfortable for them. But I also came away almost a little bit more confused than I started and I think that's because it's clear to me that one, every center is different, right? It's unique to the personality of the organizations that set it up and the people who lead it and it's also unique to the clients that's serving and what their needs are. But what I did, I think what I heard, and I'd be really interested to hear from the Children's Trust and the partnership and any of the resource centers that are here. But I think one of the common denominators that I kind of see based in these areas of need that you're talking about. And also that I heard again and again was, I mean, about, I mean there was the infrastructure side, facilities side that seems to be ubiquitous amongst all of these organizations. And I did hear that but I think the other thing I heard was with regards to staffing and sort of office equipment that kind of piece was that really a lot of these organizations are really good at delivering the programs that they deliver, but they're really challenged with the oversight of all of those programs, right? Trying to do all the reporting that's necessary and thinking about all of the administration of the funds and HR and volunteer coordination and that those pieces really seem to be a really big challenge for them and a heavy lift. And so I mean, I'd be interested to know if when they say you're staffing and things like that, what they were thinking about when they said that. But I did kind of hear a lot and clear that the lift for all of these organizations to basically deliver most of their services through grant funding and then have to report on all of that and collect all that data and also manage all of those contracts and everything can be a real challenge. And that seemed to be an area of need when it came to these organizations. So I just wanted to share that as well, that it seemed like that was a big need. And then the other piece was, most of these are nonprofits, but they're working either through faith-based organizations or through another nonprofit. And so they're just kind of going off almost 100% grant funding or contract funding and understanding how to diversify their fundraising and those sorts of things seem to also be potentially a need. And it seemed like something that maybe there's some opportunities to do similar to what I felt like the Children's Trust is on such an amazing job of with their early learning capacity building, going in and really doing training and support, you know, maybe something like the Community Foundation and the new nonprofit center of excellence leadership over there could help think about how we could support these centers with training, on fundraising, on board development, on staff, you know, structures. It just was one of the things that came up for me in these conversations. So I wanted to share that with everyone. Okay, Commissioner Alfredo and then Commissioner Cornell. Yeah, I had one question. One of the things that I noticed in terms of both the budget and the need areas of need, is there like a gap analysis done? Like, are they meeting their budget or was that question asked or is there, are they getting the funding that they need to do the things that they've got listed basically? Because I know that's a problem for at least one of these organizations. No, we only asked them just what their operational budget was. And then was there an explanation of what the operational budget included? So for instance, Willie May Stokes has listed five full-time employees, but a budget of 150,000. I think some of their full-time employees are being paid from funds like from their church, which isn't included in this budget. But if you're trying to do an apples to apples comparison, it's really difficult to do because there's no consistency in how those budgets are being looked at, if that makes any sense. Chair, it does, but we've let it up to the difference community centers to respond the way they saw it and met their facility. It's hard for us to do an analysis without that background, I guess. But I am concerned about the, sort of I guess the financial gap analysis is where I'm concerned about what we don't know that is here, but this is super helpful. I just don't know. I'm kind of not sure where to go from here. Okay, good Mr. Cornell. Thank you Mr. Chair. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, so Commissioner, thanks for allowing me to participate today and I really appreciate the discussion at the crawl through a great start of gathering information. I'm going to kind of re-inarrate what my two colleagues have already said, which is first and foremost, I think the importance of these community centers can't be understated. They are each unique. They're each unique to their communities. Some are providing critical services to families. Some are providing critical services to seniors. Ultimately though, it is public health safety and welfare out into the communities where people are. I think we should give some direction to continue gathering information. And so I have a couple of questions and then I'll kind of frame out Mary where I think we should go with the next steps. Before I do that though, let me just say that the Children's Trust has kind of gone through a similar exercise, as Commissioner Prisya mentioned, with the Community Foundation, in that every program provider is engaged with and the trust is evaluating both their capacity, their financial wherewithal, kind of where their funding comes from, and is plugging them into the Community Foundation. So I think there's a real opportunity and the trust is providing the community foundation with funding to help facilitate that process. And so we might think of kind of following that similar path or building on top of that path when we meet with the trust in the coming weeks. So a couple of questions to Tori. Are each of these community resource centers that are on the screen there? Are they all 501C nonprofits? A few of them are, and some of them are just mainly volunteers. OK, so I think first and foremost, commissioners, we need to get that information. So we know are we dealing with an entity or are we dealing with a grassroots you know neighborhood and I think from a public funding standpoint you know if that's where we're ultimately getting to they're going to need to be in my opinion a 501c so I would say that's a that's one thing I would put into a motion too do we have their operating budget and do we know their funding sources? They self-reported just their operational budget but not in great detail. Okay, so that would be my second ask for those that are interested in potentially seeking funding in the future that we start to gather that information. and all of this could be gathered through the Community Foundation, but I think that's really critically important. Third, or any of these entities funded by the local municipality? Or are they getting either funding or in-kind support? Yes, there is the city of Alachua, the city of Waldo, and the city of Archer, and the city of Newberry, that are all municipal organizations. Okay, so I would like to know kind of how much they're funded, how they're funded for each of those organizations, because from my perspective, if we can get the cities to join us in this effort and leverage both county and city dollars, I think that's a great way to get grants, to get additional funding from the state and federal, if there is any ever available. But I would like that information. That would be the third part of gathering information. And then the big ask though for stop would be to start to think about once we have all of that information. we're able to kind of report that back in another meeting or in to the commission. How would staff then evaluate the effectiveness of the community resource centers from the standpoint of either putting them into a cap type process or adding some sort of criteria whereby if this commission decided to allocate funding, we could do that in a fair and most effective process. So that would be kind of a fourth thing that I would ask that we push back if we're going to give to you. I think commission has a response about it. Yeah, well's a response. And I conclude, and I'm done. OK, it's actually a question. I guess sort of to you and then also to my fellow commissioners and staff if they want to respond. I think you and me, Mary, so far, that have responded are going in the same direction to some extent. But I guess what I want to say is that what I'm hearing from these organizations loud and clear and actually the entities that are also kind of overseeing these organizations is that they're already overburdened with their ability to do reporting and to provide information and to gather data and to be thinking about the administrative efforts of their organizations. Many of them are mostly volunteer driven. They maybe have some more time staff. They maybe have some full time staff that those staff are primarily program staff that are delivering services, social worker type folks that are out there trying to help on the front lines. So I would like to ask that as we're asking them for data and information that we're asking for data and information that they're already reporting to other entities and organizations, like grant reports that they've had to submit things that they've already submitted to the children's trust or the partnership rather than trying to ask them to develop new sets of information and that we're we could lean as much as we can from those I guess first and foremost and then I think secondarily I'm with you 100% on this idea of sort of like these organizations are sort of the front line pieces and Cap is a really great way that we sort of cast a net and say hey anybody that's doing important social services in the community come to us and tell us what you're doing and we'll give you funding but I think identifying these places where services are being delivered in the community are another another important bucket, and maybe we think about, you know, we've talked about expanding CAC, maybe this is a way we do that rather than expanding the net that we cast. Maybe we have a specific bucket that's for these resource centers, for this frontline type services and communities, for resource delivery and resource navigation, and helping connect the dots to for people. But I would hope that we would also think about what is that suite of services that we want to make sure that those organizations are serving because I think they're all doing different stuff. And do we have some baseline minimum that we would want to see and how many of them are doing those currently and what would it take for them to all be doing those things. Workforce development connections, for example, might be a really important piece of this conversation because that helps lead people towards economic self-sufficiency, those sorts of things, or financial planning, those sorts of things. So that would be another question I would have for staff is sort of like the gap between where they are and where we think those minimum services should be. And then the last piece I guess I would say is, again I heard loud and clear that capacity building support is important. And so I would love, as you mentioned, Ken for them to keep having a conversation with the children's trust and with the partnership for strong families and with the community foundation about how that might be delivered, like what are those real needs and what are the gaps between what the children's trust is already doing and the foundation offers and what would cost for organizations to get that look like. So I think that we're saying the same thing but I just wanted to see if you felt like we were as well. Yeah, Commissioner Wheeler. As I'm looking at this list of the partners, there's only one group here that's using community action agency. And that agency provides housing repairs, it provides help with utility payments. You know, I'm wondering how many of these that are doing the work are even aware that there are other resources in the community that are being unused. And this is what I'm trying to say is that, you know, the equipment that some of these folks are needing, there's really brand new equipment that comes through the Repair Coast project. Those people would give that stuff out to these agencies that need it. I'm just thinking that there are resources in the community that have not been tapped yet, that if we come up with a list of those resources and hand them to these agencies, that would help a lot for their budgeting, you know, their needs. And I see areas of need as none on of these. I'm wondering, you know, what that means. They already are established and have everything they need. They just need an operating budget. So maybe if we give them a list, repurpose project. Their church is the rotary club. You know, there are agencies that have monies that they give out worldwide that if the needs are known in our community and we set up a network of people who are agencies that are the resources that can help with these. And then another list of the people who need these things, you know, perhaps we can marry those together to the point where they would not depend so much on us. And I totally agree that we can certainly support these people that are doing the work in the communities because they know the needs of the community better than we do. But at the same time, there are resources in the communities that somehow we haven't tapped or these groups don't know about. And if we could have bought a list of those and pair up even some of the churches, you know, these bigger churches that have mission programs where they go around the world or they go to Appalachia, you know, that we make those needs known here, because we have our own, you know, our own foreign countries right here. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I have some comments, but I heard what Commissioner Alfred and Commissioner Prisya and Quinell stated, but the major thing I heard was a lot of staff, new staff, office equipment, I think Commissioner Prisya stated that, and then some stated new facilities. And so I wonder how do you accomplish that? I mean, have they outgrown their facilities? I mean, I'm trying to figure out the need. Because some just do seniors and children in France. I think I heard in Jinsom just do seniors only. So I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what the actual needs are. But to me, the needs are new staff. And then I want to know more about the new program and services because that's it that they listed what they were offering but what are the new services that they would like in programs they would like to offer to the community. It's indeed that they need help personally with the staff and probably office equipment because if you don't have the proper equipment, proper staff, it's no way you can keep up with everything. And to do everything you need to do to be a real, great facility to the community. So I think that those are just my comments. I just want to know more about those programs and stuff like that. So those are just my comments in Commissioner Prisya. I don't know if Commissioner Orgonnell has his hand up, but I will say to Commissioner Wheeler, I think that a lot of those organizations, this was just a survey we sent out. They filled it out. They were probably really busy. And in the middle of like, we just sent it and said, hey, if you fill this out of you would, like, it was, I don't think it was exhaustive, so a lot of them may be using other sources of support, but they didn't list it. Or like, this wasn't a very exhaustive survey, and I have the feeling some of them took more time with it than others, depending on how many staff they have. But I agree with you. It's a really good idea and actually the resource center guides that's on one of the slides side 7 is a really important part of this conversation as well. We've had a lot of conversation in the safety net collaborative, which is a group of these kinds of organizations that come together on a regular basis, as well as I think the children's trust. Again, it's been having these conversations about, we need to kind of put our eggs in a basket with regards to resource guides and start thinking about, and to me this is something that the county could do potentially with our community health worker program that we're pushing or in collaboration with the children's trust, but like thinking about how do we staff up the getting these things, especially find help in my opinion because it's tied to all the medical providers now through the charts and everything. How do we get those up to date so that they can find them? Because a lot of those things, it's like unless the organization adopts their listing and fills out their listing and keeps their listing up to date, it's like garbage and garbage out, right? So you go to the resource guide to say, I need office equipment, but repurpose product hasn't even created a listing. And so then they don't know they exist, or if they do know they exist the hours are wrong or whatever. And so really making this more robust so that when the providers and those resource centers are at least trying to connect people with things, they have a really good starting place with good information about what's available where and when and from who is a big piece of this as well that I think is part of this constellation of conversations that you're bringing up a really good point. Yes, Commissioner. Kin, Cornel, Commissioner Cornel? Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me? Commissioner Alfred. Yes, you can hear you. Okay, okay. So I just want to respond to Anna. And then I have a motion when you're all ready. If you'd like me to offer one. And I think you and I are on the exact same page. I'm ready to allocate some funding for the fiscal year 2526 cycle. I want you to bring us back some recommendations. The number I had in my mind, which may be a totally wrong number, but somewhere between two and two 50, I would just like to gather some more information and then have staff get with CTAG and the cap staff to come back with a recommendation amount and a process for how we could evaluate some of these. Once we have the additional information about 501C municipal volunteer and we have information about their operating letters. So that's I'm with you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Alfred. Back to the office equipment. I know that the county has a process for surplus equipment. Do we? Is there a method or mechanism to cook in these organizations with our surplus systems that is maybe separate from what's happening now or do is it pretty well regulated? So nonprofits can, if they're official nonprofits, they can make requests for surplus property, but the clerk manages surplus property and then it eventually was to auction, but I mean it's not, you know, pens and pencils. Right, right. But it's like desks and computers. Yes. Which, you know, if you have money, if you get desks and computers, that gives you more money for pens and pencils. Right. So that's an of equipment. And we've donated things to nonprofits in the past, of Conwork West, when we receive a letter. There's a process that out in the statute about surplus. No, since some of these organizations are affiliated with cities and towns, would they also qualify for getting those donations because they might not be five on one C-3s, they might go to as a local government. I'll let Celia answer that because it's right. Mr. Chair, they fall into the same statue. Okay. It's government or at least it for real estate it does. Or a personal property. Okay. Yeah. School board also has in city. Yeah, it's a good point. One thing I wanted to bring up, I guess I would be, I'm be, I think that moving in that direction is good. I'd hate to put a number on it until staff had a little more time to have those conversations with the foundation, with the children trust, with the other institutional partners, and the resource centers to see what the needs are. But I'm totally down moving forward with us putting this into our next year's budget. The other thing I was thinking about since so many of them said that additional volunteers are a part of their needs. We have that beautiful new volunteer software and I wondered if we might be able to make that available for recruitment of volunteers, for organizations that are a part of connecting the dots with us're I don't know if they need to be like a funded partner through us or through the children's trust or if we could just make that software available for them if they wanted to create a listing. It would also I think get us to get more volunteers out in our rural areas because many of these are in those rural areas so to give folks that are in some of our smaller municipalities in rural areas, you know, places to volunteer. So that's something that I guess maybe we could ask to have to bring back as well. Anyone else? Okay, I think that, I guess I would have some concerns in terms of how you would distribute the 200 to $250,000 $250,000 and what criteria will be used to evaluate them to make sure that it's fair and honest to all of them that applies. And I guess we need more about their budgets. I want to know more about their budgets. So I think that's where I'm at. So I have no, I'm not against giving $250,000, but I just need more information, more criteria, how the staff is going to handle it to make sure it's fair. Commissioner Alfred. I think that maybe the next step, rather than assigning a financial value would be to maybe assign or ask for staff to assist these organizations with getting consistent information back to us, since a lot, you know, constraints in terms of administrative support that maybe that's the best thing we can do is help provide them with some administrative support to allow them to be able to do the report in a consistent way so that we are comparing apples to apples and we can, you know, look at their contributions to the community in a fairer way. Because I look at this and I can see that some places when they list the number of people served, it's very low but I know that they're doing a lot more than that in the community because maybe they're not counting every single person they gave food donation to or something like that. So I feel like there's opportunity there. Commissioner Prisid? Yeah, and I guess I do want to say that I hope that this conversation isn't actually just about a cat process that's just like open to anybody and everybody. I guess for me this conversation is very much about us identifying specific locations in our areas of most need in areas, under-served communities, rural areas, small municipalities, areas where people can't get access to the social services that are more abundant within the city of Gainesville or in affluent areas of our community and making sure that there are touch points in those communities that people can go to that have a minimum set of services with expectations of sort of how those services are delivered with regards to the efficacy of the structural components of that, right? So I think, for example, it's swag, like they've partnered with the partnership. They have like a set of standards for how they deliver and how they report that data and collect it. They have training and support that they give to all their staff to make sure. They have a minimum set of programs that they're delivering. And I think Kappa, he does a good job of having just a wide net for anybody who is an organization who wants to do social services in our community. And I guess for me, that's, I'm not hoping we go down that path with this. I'm hoping we go down a path where we start defining what is a resource center from the county and the, and our all of our institutional partners perspectives, what are our expectations of what those centers look like and deliver and then which of these centers and or others are interested in willing to participate in that process and where there's needs in our community and then kind of bringing them on board to do what you're saying. Like give us those reports, give us that information, or coordinate with the organizations that already have that information and begin to say, how does the county fill some gaps that the children's trust isn't already filling or another one of our institutional partners or local community grants and nonprofits are already filling with their resource support. Okay, my understanding that thought was just dealing with the Monioca and the ones that were listed today. Are there any other community centers out there that we did not approach or ask information for? I'm just asking because I just was really thinking about dealing with these unless there are others out there. Yes. Share not that we know of today. OK. OK. So sort of be limited to any of these. OK. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure Mrs. Tuck, I'm sorry. You had your head up for a while. I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure. Mrs. Tuck, I'm sorry. You had your head up for a while. I'm sorry. Sure. I just wanted to add that we have already done a few of the things that you mentioned. We had a meeting with Community Foundation Center for Nonprofit Excellence. We were planning to bring that back to you during the CAHPSMOL grant initiative in the coming months. We do see that as an opportunity for capacity building for a lot of these organizations. Also as we were reviewing the list, we had a lot of the same thoughts that you did relative to. see that as an opportunity for capacity building for a lot of these organizations. Also as we were reviewing the list, we had a lot of the same thoughts that you did relative to the Repurpose Center, our county surplus, also connecting these organizations with our grant program for the ECIVICS so that they would have some ability to look in and see what is available. So definitely as we did that, we thought about that, but didn't want to take any more steps till you gave us more direction. Do you see how the stuped tails into the conversation that you all are having about the mobile integrated health and community, our idea of a public health outreach? I feel like there's some connectivity there, I'm not not exactly sure what it looks like but it does feel to me that they're connected in some way that like those coming health workers might be located in these resource centers or that these might be the touch points for them to be going out and checking in with people or same thing with our career source like you know are there I feel like there's a lot of county services that we provide that would be ideally located out in the community but we don't have enough to be in all those places so I guess thinking about that too is bringing back I guess for how we partner like could those be outpost for some of the support services and resources that we offer at the county that could be they could be co-trained like I know that children's trust Actually has a training that they do for their centers like could we be all that training where we teach them all the things that we have to offer and do etc etc Chair we've had those discussions with the mobile integrated health team for sure if they have a mobile vehicle that they could be taking out Commissioner Cornel do you have any comments? I do, Chuck. Thank you. So Claudia, on the list that's on the screen, the City of Elatua, the City of Archivist, the City of New York City of Waldo. Those are all run by the local municipalities. Is that right? There is a mix, for example, for the City of Waldo. You have Waldo area nonprofit organizations that may utilize that community center. But for the most part, the City of Elachua, I believe they do have staff and some volunteers. The City of Archer primarily volunteers. And the City of Newberry, just much like the City of Waldo. They also have nonprofit organizations that utilize the community center as well as the City of Newberry has its own programming inside the community center as well. So the City of Alachua and the City of Newberry have provided staff and facilities? Yes. City of Archer and Waldo are just providing facilities with volunteers. Yes. What about the City of Paul Thorne? Paul Thorne's at home. Yes, the City of Paul Thorne has its own center. I mean, excuse me, the Hot Thorne area resource center is operated by volunteers. And is it owned by the City of Paul Thorne, the facility? Yes, it's separate from the City of Paul Thornene. OK, so it's a nonprofit. Yeah. So yeah, so I like the direction everything's going. And I'm happy for you to make a motion, or I can offer one, whatever you all want. You want me to go for it? Yep, go for it. OK, all right. I would I would move that staff Identify for the commission of this list Which of these entities are municipally run Versus run by nonprofits and or volunteers and provide that back to the commission. Email is fine Part two that we request any operating budgets that may or may not exist relating to these entities and provide that back to staff. A back to the commission. Email is fine. And then part three that we refer to our staff to get with the community foundation, the children's trust, and develop recommendations for the commission to consider with regards to both the amount and a method or process or potentially funding in fiscal year 2025, 2026. Second. Got a motion in a second? Are there any further comments to the motion? Oh, and part four that staff, what Mary said that staff be utilized to help these organizations gather that information. Are you Ken, can we also add that we explore, like I guess you're talking about with surplus and our volunteer software and e-sivist that we explore opportunities to utilize government access to software and resources for support of these centers. And also that we have. I'm looking for staff to give us recommendations. I think Mary's point was there may just be one person there. Can we just help them? So, or, you know, a handful of people. But yeah, I think the recommendation staffs heard us. They know what we're looking for. I think staff can bring back a very robust recommendation. It could be phased, you know, it could be in conjunction with the foundation or children's trust. But I want to leave that to staff to kind of develop some ideas about that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is like bring back those ideas too for internal resources that we could provide. And then the last is that they also bring back recommendations for how we could support the development of a community-wide resource guide that works. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean that's that. Children's Trust is having that conversation, I know. There's been a lot of conversations in the community about that. So the safety net collaborative is having that conversation. So I just want to be plugged into that conversation and thinking about how we can support it happening. Commission, I have. And you didn't mention 501C3s as part of the information gathering, but I think that was, I think you implied it. I just thought it was a part of this. No, that was the first part of his first suggestion of the motion that what he made the motion, he talked about only which ones were, had municipal support. So I just want to make sure we had that 501c3 stuff that we have got you. Yeah, and a 501c3 for sure. Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, other than that, I support the motion. I think that this is where we need to start. Okay. Do you want to open it up to here from the community? I mean, I have something to get here the children's house. this is where we need to start. Okay. Do you want to open it up to here from the community? That's exactly what I'm looking to get here. The children's class to the part of the party of the organizations that are here. I would love to hear their comments at this point. Okay. Thank you, sir. We have a motion on the floor and those who like to make comments to the motion, please step forward and give us some information please. Yes. Good morning. Christy Goldwire, Children's Trust of the Autor County Chief Operating Officer. This is Belida James, who's the Director of Program Operations. A lot of discussion, a lot of great discussion and I prepared some notes here and I'll try to run through those and then answer any questions that you all may have. So initially the trust began collaboration with Partnership for Strong Families to support the Family Resource Center Network Model. That Network Model consists of the Family Resource Centers that have been mentioned here today. So I have Family Resource Center as well as Library Partnership Resource Center. In addition to that, we also established with Partnership for Strong Families the Community Resource Navigator Program and with that program we were able to expand the Family Resource Center reach two municipalities that did not have a Family Resource Center. Those initiatives are well received within the communities that do not have easy access to the Family resource centers. And so that was in 2022. Now, or two years later, 2024, we then came back and helped to establish actual family resource centers in those municipalities. So the Willie May Stokes, who you've mentioned earlier today, celebrated their grant opening, I believe, in June of 24, and then one community resource center, celebrated their grant opening in July of 24. It is our goal at the trust to help support the establishment of family resource centers in municipalities to each fiscal year. And so this current year, we are looking at two municipalities that we're hoping to contract with and support them. Our contracts with the family resource centers, it does include staffing, so salary and wages, it includes equipment, not only for the staff, but equipment that the patrons who are coming to the resource centers to use for the support services that they need. It supports some programming, it supports just resources that they may need to thrive to build better relationships within their homes and their children and that sort of thing. What I love about the contract that we have with Partnership for Strong Families, we all know that they have been successful for many years with the Family Resource Center model. What I love is that they're able to take everything that they've learned and support the establishment. They have a menu of services that could consist of hiring, making sure they hire the right people to provide those services in that community, that supports the creation of policies and procedures, and lots more. No, keep going. Keep going, keep going. Keep going, you're fine. Hiring the staff, establishing policies and procedures, assessing the community need, determining what works well, what isn't working, what resources you don't have, and how we can bring that here, and sustainability. We realize that funding is an issue. We may not fund 100% of what you need, but we're funding 75%, 85% of what that is. And then in addition to what we're doing with partnership for Strong Families, you all mentioned earlier the Community Foundation. They have a separate grant where they look at capacity, building boards, funding, granting, and so we are supporting that as well. Yes, ma'am. I know this may be a question for the partnership, but I guess I'm interested to know, like, as you, if you were expanding that family resource center model, you know, you're taking two more on, they get that navigation services. If we wanted that to be more robust services if we're hearing that capacity building as some of the case or that they need heavier lifting with administrative support for reporting, things like that, do we have a sense of what the needs are there for your organization and or the partnerships so that they would be able to do that more robust support system? Because I'm imagining they're probably at some point they're maxing out too in terms of their capacity. So what we've been able to do is support the deed of that if an organization and our mid-gen partnership with strong families and so we have incorporated help me grow within the family resource center model. With help me grow came additional data and reporting collecting that information. And so we understood that capacity was an issue. Well, the trust provided the funding for them to hire the individual needed to do exactly that. And that's something that we do look into. If we are going to fund a model, we really want to set them up for success and be able to not only collect the information, but at the intern around it intervened down. Does that answer your question? Partially. I think maybe in partnership, maybe if they're willing to come up, they can also share like where they where they are stocked you know in terms of capacity and do they have capacity to keep expanding you know if we added if you said we were adding to and we said that's add to more like would that be something they could do can they yeah those kinds of questions so they absolutely would have to answer that question because our funding may stop here yeah but if the county is looking to continue to expand, what I like is that we have a model. We may not necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. More funding is needed because they would have to grow. They would have to grow their capacity to be able to continue to support it and so funding from other sources absolutely would be needed for them to continue what they have in our contract and then expand them. Great, thank you. Well, I don't know if you're right. Yes, yes, go ahead, please. Thank you, Marsha Kiner. Thank you, Christie. The only other piece I wanted to add, you all continue to talk about capacity. And when Christie talked about the fact that we have a relationship, we are giving dollars to the Community Foundation, to the Non-Profit Center for Excellence. But of course, the money is limited. So if you all are thinking about how you can support many of the nonprofits that we are working with, our community centers as well, when we get to the administration piece, there are difficulties. And so we have already begun to look at how we can utilize those resources through the foundation or through the center to bring in an accountant to help with payroll, right? Talking about quick books, all of those kinds of things. So as you all begin to think about how you can support, certainly that is an area I would love for you all to help support us in. So I didn't want to not say that piece. I guess I love that. And that's exactly what I was thinking about. It's like maybe they all share an account and they all share an HR person. They all share an attorney and while they're getting going until they realize they get to the point that they need their own. But have you all exported all with Santa Fe seed about the idea? Santa Fe seed has a incubator program and then they have some of those low cost services and people that offer those services that reduce costs. I don't know if that would work or if we have it. But I believe that the community foundation is working with them in partnering with rent. Yes. Look at us not reinventing the wheel. Yes. I just wanted to add that Thank you. Yes, thank you. We'll ask you a question too, please. I keep pushing the Community Action Agency. I'm chair of that board. And I approve the checks that go out every month. And I see the millions of dollars that come in from the federal agencies and all into the community. Do you all coordinate as big money people? Do you all coordinate with each other agencies, other agencies so that you all have a sense of where the money is coming into the community and where they're going out to? So big money, the community foundation, we certainly have a strong partnership with them. We certainly are having conversations with them about who we all are funding, how much we are funding. Commissioner Cornell has been excellent on our board in terms of asking those questions where are you where is the funding coming from from all of these organizations. So I would say, we have. Now federally no, we haven't. But we began asking about six months ago, all of our funded partners to share with us, you know, how much money's coming into. Right. State and federal, and it just seems to me that, you know, if you all know, you know, what the pot of pot of money looks like that maybe you could at least help guide some of that in the directions that you see need to be guided towards. So the first question for us is how are you funding right how much of your programming your services would we be funding and then if we't fund you, where would you receive that additional support from? So we've begun to ask those questions in an effort to direct them to other resources and to collectively bring some of them together so that what we're understanding is that that ebb and flow of the lifestyle of life cycle of our nonprofit. I understand that there's a whole lot of money coming into a lot of Chua County. It would be just nice to know each other so that you guys could know who's covering what and where so that you're not worried so much about that area if someone else has got it covered. Right. That's all we agree. You know, so that money is not being spent double when it doesn't need to be. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Commissioner Cronell, do you have any comments? Well, I got lots of comments. Um, oh, down with public comment, Chuck? No, no, not yet. No, no. I just thought maybe you had some comments too. I mean, my only, my only comment, and I'll wait till after public comment. Other than you have three amazing superstars and Marsha Christian Benito there. But I'll comment after public comment. Okay. All right. Yes. Any further more public comments? Please. Yeah. Hi, Pebbles. Edelman with partnership for strong families. I'm Stacy Mariett. Director of Resource Centers for Partnership for Strong Families. So really in case there are further questions, but I just want to echo Kristi and Marsha really understand the work that we're doing. At this point, we also have the fact that Kristi did the actual work for a while at the Swag Family Resource Center. So I think we agree with everything that has been said and also Anna your comment about The capacity for us so we you know even so let's take swag for example and they see Around a thousand patrons a month and we have two paid staff there That's all it so when you talk about capacity we're there and what does and I don't want to say it falls off because that's why Stacy and I look so tired but it's it's that that ability to look for that blended and braided funding to write those grants we've had we have to do it it's part of our work to make sure that there's integrity to the data and that we're doing everything that we need to to maintain the funding with the children's trust. All of those things that I know everybody here understands takes so much time. Those are the unfunded pieces and we were, we were so grateful that we were able to build in this last year a data position with the children's trust. Help me grow. It's a lot of data for two people. It is. We're just an any minute the training required and the work around it. So I don't we wouldn't be able to implement that program to the level that I need to to feel good about the work we're doing. And I did want to speak really quick. Commissioner Willer, hello that we utilize and refer families often to community action. And what would be great is if they have capacity, because maybe they're in the same situation, to come on-site and do more outreach with us, we have, you know, that's how we do our programs. It's we use the expertise of the communities. They come in and help with a lot of the programming and it would be great. We get an email from them maybe with things are open and then we're like, whoo, who can we refer? But it would be great to have someone on site even if it's once a week, it would be ideal. But even if it's once a month and patrons can come in and have those maybe sensitive or private or conversations that they need to access the help. And so it was going to mention that. On site at the resource center. Because we're in those communities where folks can walk or ride or take their bike or drive if they have that kind of transportation that's the whole reason we are where we're at. At presented that at's at our last board meeting. Okay, that's fantastic. Because I knew we were going to be having this meeting with you all this time. But it really is a capacity issue in terms of the leadership, the oversight, and that integrity piece of making sure we're doing a good job. I know that, just please. I was just going to add that it is the on-site outreach is something that we have done in the past and it worked well. So I think it's kind of something that maybe has stopped somewhere along the way. And I will say is someone who completed one of the surveys that I can almost guarantee that there are a lot more partners not listed. I think we probably responded with something like we have more than 80 community partners and we listed maybe five or six. So there are a lot of community partners that we work with and then part of our consulting is also sharing about those partners with other municipalities or other rural areas and making sure if we need to to help make those connections so that we can bring some of those partners outside of games though So that's definitely something we're always working on and then I know if we're gonna be asking for operating budgets I guess in my mind one thing I would say is you can do the work with With the staff and what we have I mean we're doing're doing the work, but to really do it well, I think it's looking outside of the current operating budget. I'm saying, okay, this is what you're able to do it with. What do you need to do it well? And, you know, because some of the sites, we, you know, we could definitely use the additional staff, but right now it may not appear that way if we just have an operating budget. that's very well balanced. So I was just going to mention that as well. My love is to say just one more thing. And as you know you're deciding how to do this and there's so many deserving small centers out there, I think I would make sure that you're thinking of what what what is the outcome you want, what is the framework and how do you know if you are helping? That's what kind of guides me is how do I know it feels good at the time and I know it helps people leave with groceries for the week and that's helpful especially these days. It's so helpful. But for us because we are part of partnership and our overall mention is to decrease the, you know, strengthen families, decrease child abuse and neglect. And so my job is to make sure over the long term, are we helping? Are we moving that needle? And that is a tough thing to measure when it comes to prevention. We were really lucky. And now I'm sure that wouldn't be happening, but we just wrapped up a federal grant that that's exactly what they it allowed us to look at and have some really exciting outcomes related to that. But without that federal grant for that period of time, there's absolutely no way we could have spent that given the attention that that question in terms of the, you know, just simple things, data analysis. You have to have a PhD, that that's exactly what he did was look at those things and community resource navigators and all of those things. So I guess I would just say, you know, have a, what are the questions you want answered and how do you know the money is going to actually make a difference and help some of these families kind of change their trajectory if that's what's needed. Take care of the families because that's what they want to do and how can we provide things that will do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Brenda and I'm from the Montyoka community. Thank you all for coming to our community to have the focus meeting that we have. I'm not sure why we're not listed on the board here, but I did fill out the application. So at this point, we don't have anything. So I'm here to get the Madioka Community Center started and up and running to get funding. would like like to model the Winni-Mate Stokes Center. I see Pastor Bishop Stokes here. So we're in need of funding. We need everything. I don't know if anyone's familiar with our Community Center. I think Commissioner Chestnut should be. Yes, we need a lot help. We haven't had any type of services. We would love to provide more for our community. Right now we have volunteer. Jack, if you want to stand she's here. We do have the food bank that comes out and we do the food giveaway. But at that time, that's the only thing that we have and the only staff that we have is volunteers and we don't have any money and we're not getting any funding. And we do have a 501. See, so we have all of that in place. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I just I had a comment about sorry. Yeah, I'm in the first time. Sorry about that. Jeannie necessary. And I just had a comment regarding the resources and for people to reach out to the community areas like the repurposed Project. I kind of see it too as like a two-way street and I just wanted to also encourage, you know, I'm hearing that staff is a big challenge and capacity is a challenge. So when you ask a nonprofit that's already at its capacity to then go and search for things, it might be challenging for them. So but also just encourage and I know maybe this isn't necessarily something relevant to the application process for this but also to encourage the repurpose project which is also a 501C3 to reach out to the resource centers to start engaging with them to see what they need as well, to kind of do the opposite. Because I do see there is that gap, right? But that they can go both ways, that the resource centers can be engaged by the repurposed project as well to have them kind of see what do you need, you know, and build a better partnership in that way as well. That's all I had to say. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I again would like to thank you all for convening this meeting. I wanted to say a couple of things that our program would not be as successful as we have been, had it not been for children's trust. Children's trust has been a very strong supporter of the Willemay Stokes Community Center along with partnership for the opening of our community center and our community center, it may be resource center, excuse me, and the resource center has really been received will as far as our community. Our situation is somewhat a little different. We've had these series of little zetbacks that have created our situation and our financial situation and also our need for transportation. When you look at the Wilomew Stokes Community Center and the Family Resource Center as it relates to the the MikaikaNope area. Our community center, our program we serve people from all over a lot of counties, not just specific to MikaNope, but we are one of the few programs that have transportation and as you may or may not know someone stole our vehicles, stole them and then stole our equipment out of them and all of that. So we currently have 60 kids that are in our program that on certain days if the weather is permitted, we have to walk them back to the center because we don't really have a means to transport them. We also have a collaboration with YMCA where we provide transportation for their camps. I just got a call the other day from someone from the Boys Club also wanting to collaborate with us as far as transportation. And so that's where our kind of situation is. We're walking that type rope now. But again, I look forward to seeing what comes out of this. And I thank you all for having this. Thank you. One, everyone. I asked to join from high springs. I came you guys several months ago, advocating for funding for high for funding for high springs and I think that's what sparked the conversation today from if I fault correctly. I just want to say how much we appreciate you guys taking this seriously not just for high springs but for all of the communities in Elantra County. I'm a bit emotional at the moment because I got an email just while sitting over there. We have, this is just one case in high springs, a mother with six children in the home, single mother with six children in the home who her lights have been off for a month, her water has been off for a month, her water bill is so far behind it's almost $2,000. Her light bill is $1800. And that she's reached out to the community action and other agencies and gangs will. There is absolutely nothing that is available to help her. And I just want to say that that instance is what happens every week with the people in high springs. They don't have access to or the knowledge of the resources that are in Gainesville. A lot of times we see the applications open up for community action agency that says, hey, we're now helping with the electric. The Gainesville people eat that up quick because some of them will say hey you know which out and I think the applications are capped and it's like they're gone just like that and our church I hate to say this many times we have and we'll continue to do it because sometimes there's nothing else you can do we don't pay our own bills we will pay will pay our own like bill late. We'll pay our own work bill late because we're helping other people pay their like bill, help them help them out people pay their work bill because the need is there. So I just wanna say that high springs is important to me. Like Bishop Stokes, we don't deserve high springs. That's where our home is, our headquarters. But anybody that comes, The things that doorbell calls us, our phone is ringing all day long. My phone is going off all day long. Our emails are coming in all day long because people really need help, and they need help more in the rural areas of the high springs a lot, which we even have some families that come from Newberry. So I just want to say that it is important. I thank you guys for taking it seriously. We will continue to do what we've always done for years and what we can do. But should we be approved for any funding from you all as we've asked, that would greatly help us to do a lot, a lot more than what we have. My final thing that I want to say is that I know Commissioner Cornell, well you all he mentioned the 501C3 requirement. Our church deep burps community church incorporated is not a 501C3. We used to be but in our S told us that a church is not supposed to be a 501C3 at the same time as long as you are already operating as a 501 C3. So I do want to point that out. And I just ask that with the possible funding, as long as you guys set your requirements of reporting and what you would like to see in here back, I think that every organization will do exactly what you ask them to do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Morning. I made it. Morning. Yes. Yes. Do any of you know what that means? I look like F.E. But okay. My name is Tamar Robbins and I feel like this is a really important opportunity right now. What that means is it's a hand signal for unendangered. And I'm going to reach you something about child trafficking, which the United States is number one in the world for sex trafficking. And I'm going to get to Mr. Chair bear with me because I believe this involves community centers. So child trafficking refers to the recruitment, harboring transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a minor for the purpose of involuntary labor, commercial sex, or forced criminal activity. The most prevalent type of child trafficking in the United States is sex trafficking. If a child discloses exchanging sex acts for basic survival needs, this is also exploitation. I'm here to ask this county commission to establish a policy that requires in all public facilities and any facilities that are receiving public money that in your restrooms you display information about safe kids, what this symbol means, so that it's an education outreach wherever families, people, children might be. I mean, I'd love to see it in the rest stops along I-75. I mean, every place should have in its bathroom stalls information about if this person is in danger or they know they are in danger, they know someone who might be in danger, how to identify the signs of child trafficking, be aware, be alert. Honestly, some of the biggest events that a sex trafficking are like the Super Bowl, the World Cup. And you guys are really all about tourism now in a Lachua County. You're bringing in lots of new people, lots of traffic. You're on an interstate, 441, 301. It cannot be emphasized enough. This is really, really important. And it's one level to feed people. I get it. It's one level to provide community outsources for the elderly. I'm one of them. And the disabled veterans. This is about the children. And this is real. And it's happening everywhere around us. And the best way they get away with it is by going about business as usual. So that step van, this drive and buy, oh, just happened to pull into a garage with a door and who knows what's going on in there, but it's really happening. So I'm pleading with you to direct your staff to get more information. This is adults. It's AACT, adults against child trafficking, and I can leave one of these with you. I only have two of them. There is training available through an organization called the Knights Templar and talking to someone who went through that training. I can tell you that he could not even describe to me what he had learned because it was so shockingly horrific of what is happening to the children in our world. Okay, so please take this seriously. I'm going to leave this with the clerk so that it will be referenced in the minutes of the meeting and then if you all want copies of it or whatever you want, please take it seriously and move forward. All public facilities at the very minimum should have this information in their restrooms. Thank you. What was the signal that you gave? It goes, it's this. It's the thumb in, and then it's close. So somebody could do it behind their back, right? They're walking away from you, and they do this thing, right? And that symbol is for, it's a two step hand signal for I'm in danger. Okay, so it doesn't mean just children, adults can use it. They're in a situation or being Harvard against their will. Please take this seriously and expand the county's awareness and interest in this. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Hello, chair. Hello. My name is Erin Isha Hamilton. I'm here with my coworker, Jarelle Whitehead. And we're here representing Pleasant Street Civil Rights and Cultural Arts Center, as well as one community family resource center. We're located over in East Gainesville. And the thing I love about our center is that we are a community health worker led resource center. So our programs are led by CHWs, which me and Jorrel are. So it gives us this really personal connection with the community and just feels like home over there in that space. So the people that come in that were able to serve them very grateful for that work. And just to give a reflection of last year we were able to serve 13,256 people. And then based off some of the information that they completed when coming into the space, We know we served 457 veterans, we served 2,717 adults and 2,646 seniors. And that's just based off the people that completed that part of the information. And then I was hoping to have quarterly reports for you today, but we're still wrapping up March. And I can answer any questions that you may have, but I'll go ahead now and just pass it over to Gerrero. Speak more about one community family resource center. Good morning, how y'all doing? I'm Gerrero Whitehead, as my co-worker, and you should say, I'm at one family community resource center, a community health worker over there, I'm at the resource center, And some of the things that we do have monthly is some of my activities that we do have. I'm not an activity. We also help with utilities rent. We also seem to be able to help families with the mater. at the Resource Center. And some of the things that we do have monthly is some of my activities that we do have. Monthly activity, we also help with utilities rent. We also seem to be able to help families with the Maternity Health Program, my dad's program. We've been getting a lot of great turnouts from that. Just helping the community in the 326-01, the 326-01 area code that we've mostly been targeting on. How do we do help anybody that coming to the building that's in the law should be counted. Yeah, and we share space. So we love that of our facility. And over on his side, he's able to offer well-rounded services. And then for Pleasant Street Civil Rights and Cultural Arts Center, we more so focus on the Food Is Medicine program. So we host the Food Pharmacy, where with our partners, we're able to not only offer emergency food support, but I'm able to lead a class, food is medicine to talk about cardiovascular health, what's happening internally with our body by what we're putting into it, being able to address things like diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and then provide some more healthy food options to eliminate a cost barrier. And the results that we're seeing from there with lipid blood panel tests before and after is showing us that it's working and that people are having a great experience and we do have a health fair tomorrow as well for the community. Yes, me. Well, I'll wait. I'll wait till the public comment is over. Thank you. Thank you. Any further public comment? Hi. Good morning. Thank you for having this meeting. My name is Amy Mobley. I'm a faculty member at University of Florida. I'm a dietician by profession. In my passion is child nutrition and food security. And I'm actually leading a project in a lateral county at the moment to address early childhood food security. And it actually was gracious enough to come to our committee meeting last week where we convened about 20 some individuals across the county and state who have a vested interest in early childhood security. And I know that food is a core component of community resource centers. And food pantries are located throughout our county. But what we're seeing or finding after talking to the food pantries and talking to parents and talking to stakeholders is that they don't always have the foods or options that families with very young children need or that are very expensive for them to obtain especially when they have limited resources. So we are tasked to look for solutions and put our resources together. I have a grant from the USDA at the moment. Hopefully not losing those funds, but to really put together this information to look at strategies that we can put in our county. And so some of the things that we've heard and I've heard today is that something like a community resource guide is absolutely critical. Being able to access something that is up to date, easily accessed online, on an app, whatever that may look like, has been a lot. Even for our own project purposes, as we were looking to connect with food pantries, it was difficult to find where they were located when they were open, just to talk to them about what they were offering to the communities. We heard over and over accessibility is a concern. We've heard transportation I heard it today. The need for delivery, mobile distributions. The hours for families to access food and resources is difficult. And then, as I've already mentioned, the options that are available. Community collaborations, there's a lot of folks in the room that I know I've connected with, would like to connect with about this issue, is also obviously a need. So what we're looking to do in the next stage, within this next year, is to develop some sort of tool kit with strategies to connect with folks within the county and within the state to leverage whatever resources we already currently have which I've heard is something we need to focus on but we also have some funds in our grant that we can put forth to enhance some of the services that are being provided or need to be provided in the community. So I just wanted to mention that, get that word out and let you know what we're doing. Thank you. I don't have any. Do you have any questions? Commissioner Cornell? Really appreciate you being there. No questions. Thank you. Okay. I just have a quick comment. It's really nice to see you face is coming and to help with solve problems. Thanks to Anna She lost her. She's like, come on out next week and I was like, I'll be there. It's great to see you here. Great. Thank you. Any further comments? Okay, we're back to the board. Commissioner Cornell, I know you had some comments. I think Commissioner Prisya. I don't know. Yeah, I'll just very briefly, Chuck Chuck thank you. I want to just thank every I'm really sorry I can't be there. There are community heroes in the room that I would like to put my arms around and thank you know Saturday, Marsha, and Christie, Belida, Pastor Stokes was so instrumental in what was going on at the trust in getting and announcing the opening of the Children's Trust Building. Commissioner Wheeler was there. It's just a really amazing event with the community and it's so nice to see all of you here today. You know, my only comment really Chuck is, I think partnership kind of nailed it Really what is our long-term outcome that we are hoping to measure and I know that's a kind of a big question. Anna's talked a lot about you know the Harness versus the Safety Net and when staff brings back that recommendation if they can really put some of that thought into what has currently been done and what can the county's resources do and they are immense and they're not just financial that you know we have immense resources to supercharge those that are doing amazing work to fund those that with a little bit of funding can really expand their services and to, you know, for the folks out in Monioca to help stand up those that are ready to help us do the work. You know, Mary Helen always says we need to find those heroes in the community and help them because that's how we really get it done and so that's what as I reflect on what I just heard and the meeting today, those are my only comments. So thank you so. Can we start with you? Yeah, I guess I echo that a little bit. I mean, I think that for me that is the the goal. Like, we, we, we want to create trusted places where people can go when they are already experiencing crisis or challenges in their lives to be able to lift them towards the resources that are going to get them out of those situations. But as Commissioner Cornel just quoted, like, I want to see us ultimately like anywhere place where we're putting a harness on people so that they're not falling into that safety net ever to begin with. They go to those places enough that they begin to realize that there's all these other opportunities for them and that we can help them get there. So we're lifting people out of poverty, we're providing them with the help to become self-sufficient and to thrive and lead really quality lives. I think one of the things that I hope we do, and this is, I guess, I'll say a long-term goal is that we, like, the one one I just want to say thank you to the one community center because I think there are great examples of like not just delivering services but realizing that the the the way that those services are delivered matter like it's a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie when it comes to emergency food assistance and like giving giving people salt, fat and sugar so they continue to be addicted to salt, fat and sugar and processed foods through emergency food assistance isn't giving anybody a lift up, right? It's just perpetuating chronic health diseases and problems of obesity and in our communities rather than thinking about the fact that we could be providing healthy, nutritious food and moving and but also them support in the community that they need to act to be able to use that food Right doesn't help you give a bunch of food there Aren't used to cooking but having cooking classes and walking challenges and coordinating with people and education So I just really applaud that effort to do things in a way that's holistic And I hope that as we go down this path of family resources, I know that the family resources have been on that way too, thinking about the whole family and the things that they need to be supported. And what are those not just tangible, give people some food immediately? But what are those bigger picture things that they need, like hope and strategies for coping stress relievers, things that are going to actually help that family to go back into their households and be able to take the resources we give them and actually implement them, right? Because if you're so stressed out, you can't even think straight then you're not going to be able to use the resources that we're giving. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who's here and that I hope that's where we're going, right? When we're thinking about these resource centers and that we connect with what we're already spending. Like we already have an energy grant to do rental assistance and upgrade people's rent and utilities. I know we're doing that kind of generally, but maybe we connect them with this woman. Like if these resource centers are finding people that have really crazy utility bills, we should be able to take those folks and connect them directly with Rebuild tomorrow so that they can work with the CWC to get that person's house weatherized like immediately, right? So how do we connect those dots? Our local food initiative is working really hard to think about how do they expand access to nutritious food. We've got this faculty member who came today who has grants. So I just love the idea of us having these places be catalyst for us to better utilize the money we're already investing by finding the places where it's needed most. And I guess last I want to say I heard it a bunch in this. I heard it again from Pastor Stokes and it came up in the access center. I'm in an access network which is about maternal health network. I'm in this one for maternal, I mean for early childhood nutrition. I'm in an access network, which is about maternal health network. I'm in this one for maternal. I mean, for early childhood nutrition. I'm in a couple others. I'm in the safety net collaborative. So I go to a lot of the places where people are having these conversations. And transportation comes up every single time. So it's a separate conversation a little bit. But I think that in this dialogue, we really need to be looking at Where are bus routes? Where do they go? Where what are we doing for those outlying areas? How are we dealing with transportation because it does seem to be a really critical issue that comes up again and again and again in every meeting that I'm in? This resource guide piece comes up what's available? Where's it available, when is it available, and transportation comes up every single meeting I'm in. So I just wanted to highlight those two things and say thank you to everyone for coming out today and thanks to my fellow commissioners for caring so much about this issue. Okay, we should help. I can't say anything any more than Commissioner Persia did, but I did also wanna thank everyone for coming out. This is our, the health and safety and happiness of our community is what I consider my function here and what we're doing here today is critical to all of that because it's every citizen that we care about, every single one. Thank you. Thank you. I'm so really happy to hear that. We you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. available. It's a perfect opportunity for somebody, some young entrepreneur, to get a hold of a bus and then set it around. I've seen it done up. And I think it was Somani County. Some young men got together and had a bought a fleet of buses and actually ran something like that. So it doesn't have to necessarily be a civic thing. It could be a private opportunity for somebody to set up a route for transportation too. OK, before we vote, I just want to say, I want to thank everyone for coming and sharing with us, because it's very educational to us, also, to hear from you and understand your issues and your concerns and the things that prevent you from doing your job. Excellent. So thank you all for coming. At this time we move to a vote. Those in favor of the motion vote by the sign of aye. Aye. Those opposed. Same sign. Motion carries. Okay, next item on our agenda is the general public comment. Any general public comments? Okay, seeing none, are there any commissioner comments? I just wanted to ask if we could get. I don't, I don't, I mean I heard the child trafficking thing loud and clear and I just don't know what policies exist. I do see that child trafficking information in public questions. I don't know if it's something that we are doing. We have an active effort to go in. So I was just wondering if stuff could kind of send us an email. I just know what we policies we do have in place and what efforts are being done to get information out about the child trafficking issue as a start to the conversation. Thanks. Okay, you need to read. I just want to say that that MTPO meeting is this Friday at three o'clock. It's okay. It's not committing meeting those. No, that's our regular. It's our regular meeting. So if anyone has, you know, it's right. We have to come talk about transportation that gives us the idea is it's going to be and it's here in the and Jack during to where it's in here. It's going to be in here so that we can talk about. It's in. No, it's in. It's in. It's across the hall but it's here at 3 p.m. on Friday. Okay. All right. If there aren't any further Commissioner comments, we are adjourned. Again, thank you all.