 All right, I think we're ready to begin now. If I can get everyone's attention, please. Good afternoon, everyone. And first of all, before we start, I want to say, Viva Fiesta! My name is Scott Makinich. I'm the Executive Director of the San Antonio Nonprofit Council. And I want to thank everyone for being here for this very important announcement today. It's about San Antonio's very first The Big Give Essay on May 6th. I'd like to begin by recognizing our distinguished elected officials who are showing their public support of this great event. Marahulian Castro, Councilman Diego Bernal, Councilwoman Rebecca Villagran, Councilman Ray Saldana, Councilwoman Shirley Gonzalez, Councilman Ray Lopez, Councilman Chris Medina, and Councilman Ron Nirenberg. Have I missed anyone in the crowd who is from City Hall? All right, well, thank you all very much. Next, I'd like to give thanks to a couple of foundations who have helped the Nonprofit Council bring this event to San Antonio, the Genevieve and Ward Orsinger Foundation, and the San Antonio Area Foundation, and also Tesoro Corporation for supporting the Nonprofit Council's budget on this event. And the dozens of local companies and foundations in San Antonio who have supported this event. So what is The Big Give Essay? It's a 24-hour online giving event where citizens, businesses, and the public sector will collaborate to raise a goal of $1 million online in a 24-hour period for the nonprofits who do the great work in San Antonio and Bear County. Making a difference is easy and fun. All you have to do is go to the website thebiggivesay.org on May 6th, starting at midnight, check out the nonprofits that are on the pages listed on the website, make your donation, minimum donation of $10, maximum is open, and choose your favorite organization and click send. As a community-wide giving challenge, The Big Give Essay increases public awareness of the impact local nonprofits make in addressing our community and social challenges. It brings nonprofits, donors together, expands the idea of online giving and social media, connects people to causes that make them move and make their giving more fun and enjoyable. By turning giving into a shared city-wide experience, we can significantly impact the San Antonio area and collectively move our city and our county forward. The Big Give Essay is part of a national day called Give Local America. Communities across the country are all coming together on May 6th to hold these giving days. Today, I am pleased to announce the total number of nonprofits in San Antonio who are participating in this huge event. 467 nonprofits. And let me tell you what, let me tell you what, that means that we as a city have more organizations registered than most cities who are participating on May 6th or in their first year of a giving day. That's huge. Let's give them all a hand for coming down. So we have another big piece of news, but before I do that and make that announcement, I would first like to introduce Mayor Julian Castro to say a few words. Thank you very much, Scott, to you and to the nonprofit council. I also want to give a huge San Antonio thank you to all of our wonderful nonprofits who are here today with us. You can feel their energy and the passion that they bring to their work. The fact is that one of the most beautiful things about our city is its heart. That there is a deep reservoir of caring and of compassion for others that is on display 365 days a year throughout the work that our nonprofits do in San Antonio and in this region. And May 6th, the big give essay is our day as residents of this city to say thank you by helping them do their work even better in the future by giving online at least $10. Hopefully you'll get some of those unlimited contributions that we've talked about. I know one thing, if folks can give to politicians, they can certainly give to good nonprofits that are getting. And today our nonprofits need your support more than ever. They do a range of work from ensuring that our families have what they need to put food on their table to helping make sure that our young people get a great education to putting on some wonderful performances throughout our city, our nonprofits and live in San Antonio and our city simply wouldn't be the same without their work. So I want to issue a challenge to San Antonians to be part of the big give essay whether you give at 6 o'clock at night or 6 o'clock in the morning, give something on May 6th. Let's make the big give essay the most successful give in all of the United States. Thank you. I second that. Next I'd like to introduce Councilman Diego Bernal. Thank you very much. I always hate speaking after the mayor. It's Michael Jackson and then you know Justin Bieber comes afterwards and ruins everything. I wanted to thank all of you for being here in a beautiful downtown and I believe that downtown is everyone's neighborhood and it makes complete sense that you would choose here to gather to put on display the very best of who we are echoing the mayor's sentiments and his statements it says a lot about our city that we can support such a giant ecosystem of nonprofits that we can put on display the way that we care for another and the environment and pets as I don't know if you've noticed but when you said my name the dog started barking. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad sign but more than anything you know we say that we're a city on the rise and we are but it's not because necessarily we're building things it's not necessarily just because of the new businesses that we're bringing but we're sitting on the rise because we're becoming the best version of ourselves and in many ways this day the big of SA will be a testament to that it'll be our opportunity to show the world what we've known on along and that is that we're a very generous and thoughtful city and that not only are we a people who care about other people and animals and the environment but also that the nonprofits we have are an example of the manifestation of that caring now give to whoever you want I have to be very careful my girlfriend is tucked in here somewhere but we've got something for everyone give to your favorite or discover one you've never heard of before discover their mission and become a new contributor and new supporter but more than anything thank you so much I think although I echo the mayor's challenge I believe that at the end of the giving period we will not be surprised it'll confirm we've already known about our city thank you guys so much thank you very much and I'd like to invite any other city council members who would like to speak at this time if you'd like to come up before I introduce well good afternoon my name is councilwoman Rebecca Villagran and I represent the south and the southeast side of San Antonio but you all here yes absolutely and when I look at this crowd here today you we have friends we have neighbors we have partners in our community and I want to thank you all for stepping up to the plate not just being concerned but doing something about it and being part of the solution and that's what we're all here to do today is to be a part of the solution and just like the mayor I invite I will do my part and I invite all of you to do your part to be a part of the solution because having worked in nonprofit before I understand the hours the time and everything that we bring to this so I want to thank all of you for all the hard work and I invite everyone to be a part of the solution workable solutions together thank you all right now I'd like to introduce councilman Ron Nirenberg city of San Antonio good afternoon as has been mentioned already nonprofit giving and nonprofit community service in San Antonio covers a wide array of what we do in San Antonio in fact it reaches every sector in every industry in every district in every corner of our city in fact the big give essay is sort of like crowdsourcing our entire community quality of life in San Antonio so I want to thank everyone who's shown up here in my former career I used to put together pledge drives and I see a lot of my public radio compatriots out here the fact is public media for instance survives because people just like you decide that they want that information or they want that music or they want that programming and they want it driven by the community and not by other interests and so the public media spectrum relies on people and just one percent less than one percent of listeners to public radio actually tune in and give to public radio but they remain on the air and they remain strong because of support from people just like you so you can imagine just how much and how important some of these missions that you represent are and how few people actually get involved but you have an opportunity today we have an opportunity in a couple of weeks through big give essay as the mayor said to make this the most successful and biggest show of support in the United States about how we do business in San Antonio, Texas so I want to encourage you also to get involved over 467 of your organizations that care deeply about how your quality of life is in San Antonio have signed up for this occasion and with just $10 you can make a huge impact 88% of households in the United States at one point or another have decided to give to charity have decided to support a charitable organization that they care about so we want you to be one of those 9 out of 10 who decide in the next two weeks to support their organization we give so much to this community and we are supported by those non-profits so thank you so much for being involved and now I want to introduce to you one of those organizations who relies on your support one of the crowning achievements of the park system in San Antonio is the Phil Hartberger park and district 8 and district 9 and they are one of those members of the conservancy the Phil Hartberger park conservancy told me one time it's not about the lands it's about the people who come to the park and the people come to the park because of the conservancy and that is one of those non-profits on this leader board for the big give essay so I want to invite Denise up here to share some thoughts about the conservancy thank you and we are really excited to be here and be a part of the big give essay you know like the radio station you spoke of, Hartberger park is something that the public can enjoy without paying anything and like so many other groups represented here today who provide services at no cost but the big of essay provides a vehicle for the public to give back and to support these things that they believe in and we're really excited once we started talking about it on Facebook and in the park and greeting people in the dog park one of our most popular features we found out just how excited people are to give back and be a part of building their community and I think we're all going to benefit from this effort and as I said our dog park is one of our most popular features and a lot of the people bringing their dogs out have adopted them from rescue nonprofits and from other groups and from the streets and I think all of those groups are going to benefit from the big give essay so we really encourage everyone on May 6th to go to the website and donate and support all of the things that you believe in thank you the mayor reminded me because he's so socially media minded we do have a hashtag for the day of we're also on Twitter and Facebook and we're also of course online at thebiggivesa.com so sorry alright so next I'd like to at this time tell you about some of the companies who have stepped up who have stepped up to support the big give essay and I mean in a big way from Fortune 500 to small local businesses to the pivotal support in this event through sponsorships and prize money from as little as $500 to $25,000 it's the local businesses that are important to this community event as well as our local foundations next I'd like to invite a couple of members of the business community our local businesses and the education community to join us I want to recognize Annie Vu from Choose to Succeed Chris Carmona from Shriver Carmona and Mr. Rodney Gray of Wave Healthcare kind of have y'all step up through the work of these companies and many more we have already raised a substantial sum of money that goes to prizes and matching funds for the nonprofits that day to give them a sense of really kind of a contest to try and win additional dollars in addition to what they're raising online so Annie if you could unveil our total amount that we have raised this year for cash prizes $124,000 so as I said this money is going to help the nonprofits leverage their donations they have a chance every hour to win $1,000 by getting the most donors in that hour we have $150,000 of that we'll go to three charter schools including Kip San Antonio Basis Texas and Idea Public Schools and those are coming from Choose to Succeed and the George W. Brackenrich Foundation $150,000 so the remaining $74,000 is available as cash prizes to the nonprofits and there's a variety of ways for them to win we've made it fun we've made it challenging so if you go to thebiggivesa.org click on leaderboard you will see all the prizes and what the listing is, who gave what and how the nonprofits can win so you when you're donating can drive the donations into a particular hour of the nonprofit you're supporting to help them win additional money the prizes we have been made possible through many businesses who are sponsoring the Big Give as I mentioned and we didn't have room for all of our sponsors we had probably over 45 local businesses and foundations but I did want to ask Chris and Rodney who are members of the San Antonio nonprofit council business members to speak about their gift to the nonprofits through the Big Give and I'll start with Chris Carmon a little shorter so I have to pull this down to talk about why is it important for our firm, Shriver, Carmon and Carrera CPAs to give back to the community well we have been blessed and fortunate to work with a lot of the nonprofits that are here to do a lot of our friends are here today so glad to see you here and glad to see that you're participating but we also want to set the tone and the culture of our organization that it's important to give back not only at the company level but also as individuals our team members whether it's through monetary means or whether it's through way of volunteering so that is why we feel it's very important to be a part of this and to give back what do I hope happens today of the Big Give well first and foremost that we exceed the one million dollars that are expected to be raised in this 24 hour period and I think that can be exceeded the other thing is the awareness as we are, as I mentioned we're fortunate to work with a lot of these nonprofits and be a part of their teams we have learned a lot about what they do for our community to make this a better community our San Antonio so that is what I hope to accomplish that day is the awareness factor as well so I thank you again, thank you for all being here and Scott thank you for all that you've done Rodney Gray from Wave Healthcare Well you know San Antonio is my home and I call it home I take it very seriously I decided to start my business here and the more I get out into this community the more I realize what a very very special place we live and so just to be able to have this many non-for-profit organizations in one city all coming together for the Big Give is just fantastic I like to kind of challenge the business owners out there I know maybe budgets have already been done for the year and you've already maybe set some money aside I need you to go to the website and I need you to look on there and find one charity two if you can pull in that pocket and make a commitment here to San Antonio we as the business leaders are certainly the fabric of this community but these folks are there and so I encourage you on the six to step up to the plate and give and get big thank you thank you all again for your support before we wrap up I do want to invite the media you can see we have quite a few non-profits who are represented here they're available for interviews one on one afterwards many of you probably brought your fiesta medals because we are right in the middle of fiesta please start doing the exchange and I also want to remind everyone on May 6 between 5.30 in midnight we are having a huge run-up home stretch party at the Briscoe Western Art Museum the Jack Gunther Pavilion so I encourage everyone to come down we will watch the leaderboard until midnight and we will know exactly what was drawn in that day on midnight on the 6th again thank you all for coming and for supporting this event for coming out today and thank the media for all of your support in every station and I do want to say every media outlet in the city has stepped up to help support this event through their news coverage through our PSA spots and everything and that is huge this is a community event that we can be proud of and we appreciate the media for supporting that thank y'all very much