 I'm the director of senior services and I think we'll start about 30 seconds early because if there's one thing I've learned in my year of working with older adults is that they're very often early so I think it would be most fitting for us to start a little early and I see all my friends giggling in the crowd so first I'm gonna introduce city administrator Todd Wolf who's gonna say a few words thank you Emily a few words you said I could talk for like the half an hour right what a beautiful day right it's amazing we had what kind of snow this morning it's like 32 degrees right now and we're standing outside this great event today and about a two years ago in March nobody would have thought that this would be happening that we would have had COVID-19 and we would have had the changes that we are standing here in front of today so I just wanted to kind of talk about a couple of things real quickly because we want to keep things moving but as I said it was two years ago so we think about March March seems to be my name is Anne Kraft and I'm an interrupter thank you Anne you're doing a great job sure thank you so much how's that thank you so anyway back in March we actually had obviously COVID-19 come come through and then in March of 2019 we had a new director of the senior center prior to that right so we we saw some changes coming through we had Vicki Schneider come in and Wendy was moving on and then we had COVID and was unfortunate because I made a lot of people very upset during that time and many of you are out there right now and I hope you forgive me but I had to close the senior center because of health and safety right so basically in 20 in March of 2020 our senior director actually took took on a position with the as HR director within the city which was a great thing for the city but unfortunately was a unfortunate situation for the seniors for this then called senior center then great things happen to Christmas present as I call it December 22nd 2020 Emily comes on board becomes part of our director for for the senior center at that time which is now marketed as uptown social again clubhouse right so because of failures with the facility I actually had to again upset a lot of people and we had to close the senior center at that time and then we tried to reopen it in 2020 but unfortunately because of the failure with the roof and leaking and you know HVAC and things like that we had some significant structural problems within it and for health and safety it really didn't mean that we wanted people to go in there and have fun on a daily basis so it really meant that we needed to look at it as a city what are we going to do about that so from my perspective I like to look at the DMEAC so define measure analyze improve and control which is through lean so we looked at it and said what how do we define the problem we really need a senior center or an uptown social or a clubhouse right then we look at the measure and we measure it the old facility was old 14,000 15,000 square feet parking was really really you know bad right can't really expand that that that location so then we looked at analyzing what options do we have and then we looked at improving so how do we improve it we the city purchased this facility using ARPA and HUD dollars and we obviously are now looking at upwards of 30,000 so that's a huge improvement for us so again it gives us that growth for the future then we look at controls so pursuing perfection and that's where we bring in our our JH contractors and they're gonna help us to take it to the next level maybe not all at once I know we'd all really like to see the whole thing done at one time but it'll be phased as we've always been saying phased but we're gonna have some great great things coming so in 2021 new beginnings for our for important assets as I call it our experienced constituents so I just want to thank everyone yes I said experienced I just want to thank everyone and thank the council think our our government officials that are here think our contractors we're doing so much as quickly as we can supply chain doesn't help but we're really trying to get everybody back in this building where we really want to be so thank you thank you thank you Emily thank you everybody for coming out on this wonderful cold Wisconsin Monday afternoon I wouldn't want it any other way with the few flurries coming down but this is truly an exciting project we're building a new community center right here in the heart of our community and I appreciate all the active seniors that we have in the vision moving forward under Emily's leadership for for this organization the senior center is gonna be bigger and better than ever it's gonna be offering more services not only for seniors but for everybody in this community so I'm excited to be a part of this journey new mayor new administrator and new senior services director we're moving this community forward so thank you so much Emily and I just want to do some quick recognitions because teamwork is always done in a collaborative endeavor so nobody does this alone so I want to think our contractors guys just give a wave for all the hard work and dedication that you're putting on you guys are the ones in the trenches getting this work done too our DPW crews kind of sprinkled throughout the crowd here as well thanks DPW for moving this project forward as well we have our council members here we have council president Barb Felde vice president Roberta Flicky Pineski, Alder Dean Decker, Alder Andre Walton, Alder Grazia Pirella thank you all the council for your support to make sure that we build this community center moving forward we have some county board supervisors here we have vice chairman Bob Ziggabauer Bob just give a wave we have Wendy Schoberts here and county board supervisor Marilyn Montemayor as well everyone knows Marilyn I know we have some friends on the friends of the senior center board and the friends board senior center commission just give a wave and friends of Uptown Social just give a wave if you're on any of those boards so thank you so much additionally we have Jen Garner from Senator Baldwin's office here and Chris from Senator or excuse me Congressman Glenn growthman so we appreciate their support as well some other community partners are here we have Deidre from the Chamber of Commerce and Brian from the SEDC so we appreciate the communities involved in on that now I'm gonna call up our friend and state representative Terry Katzma Terry has a special present to share with everybody today so representative good afternoon and thank you Ryan and Emily and Todd needs some help here I have a proclamation here from Senator Devin Lenio and representative Tyler Vopago that states citation from the state Senate whereas on March 7, 2022 Uptown Social will be breaking ground on the new building for the center located at 1817 North 8th Street and whereas the original Sheboygan Center first opened in 1970 and was housed in a number of different buildings until the city of Sheboygan purchased this new location for Uptown Social and whereas the new facility will provide a place for the Sheboygan community to engage with one another and stay active through community fitness, recreation, arts and crafts and other programs and whereas Uptown Social's mission is to promote wellness, learning, socialization and recreation for the community now therefore the members of the Wisconsin State Senate, a motion of Senator Devin Lenio and representatives Terry Katzma and Todd Vopago, all hereby congratulate the city of Sheboygan and Uptown Social for their achievement on this ground breaking for the new community center congratulations. Well thank you Terry and thank you Mayor Sorenson and Administrator Wolfe. I will tell you my feet are freezing so we will make this very quick but there are a few more people that I want to thank. Well first I'll start so we woke up this morning and Mayor Sorenson did text me at about 6 30 a.m. and said it'll be fine it'll be fine and I said my first thought was we finally got some snow so that our program and wellness coordinator can take our group out snowshoeing today so congratulations Josh on a successful snowshoeing adventure earlier today at Maywood but I want to thank everyone for being here I want to recognize Terry from AARP who made the drive-up today I want to thank my colleague Chad Pellecek our director of planning and development because he certainly did a ton of work on this project before I joined the team on securing this location and securing the funding for this first round of construction through a CityBG grant loan and working very closely with the team at HUD so major thanks to them and I see lots and lots of our very engaged active seniors thank you everyone for being here I promise everyone that you see up here is trying to make this happen as fast as we can and our team over here are busting their butts to get you in as soon as they can and it's so exciting I got here early and I picked my eyes and I promised them I would not go in the building without prior permission so I did not break the rules but I did pick in and every time I'm here it's so different there are walls in there there are walls in there they're gonna put drywall up so it's so exciting and so I know the wait has been long I know the wait has been frustrating but I promise you when we are inside you're gonna you're gonna forget all about this tough time in the pandemic and everything going on in the world and not having your clubhouse and I know I speak for everyone up here when I say how excited we are to deliver the building that ship wagons older adults really deserve and I know I speak for everyone here when I say that we're trying to design a facility that will serve this population not just now not just next year but 10 20 30 years from now so thank you everyone for coming we're gonna take a couple quick pictures with some shovels thank you to the friends of uptown social thank you to some of our major donors that are here supporting us Bader Philanthropies is doing a building gift of $50,000 to help us with our second phase of construction that's going to be in 2023. Sheboygan senior community and Pine Hill and Christian communities are also here if they want to give a wave thank you for supporting this project and also big thanks to Polar Company for meeting with a major sponsorship at this venture we'll still have lots more money to raise but we will take some quick pictures and then I want to invite everyone back over to City Hall the idea is that this building is very much under construction it's really ugly right it's hard to see what it's gonna look like you know City Hall was renovated not that long ago and it is beautiful so I want everyone to come there see how lovely it is eat some cake drink some hot coffee I have regular and decaf for folks who can't drink the loaded stuff after a certain hour I'm looking at my mom and I want you to come enjoy yourselves at City Hall we have some pictures of what the space is gonna look like over there so if you want to start making your way over if you want to join us for some pictures I just insist that if anyone wants to hold a shovel you have to borrow my hard hat thank you all for coming