 Columbia and welcome to City of You, where we give you an inside view of the City of Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Utsy. Recently, leaders from across the Midlands gathered to discuss rail elimination and alignment in Columbia and surrounding communities. The state has made an incredible investment in the port and an inland port, and the result of that is a huge increase of containerized trains coming through our community, and we're feeling negative impact. This is an opportunity for the Midlands as a whole, both at the federal, state, and local level to come together to make a difference for our community, and we're extremely excited about this opportunity. In another press conference, Midlands leaders also gathered with South Carolina 7 to make a special announcement about a special event this summer. We have an opportunity to draw people here on July 18th. We're going to have a hike two and a half miles, and I hope everybody in the Midlands joins us. We just don't want a few people. We want thousands of people to join this. As the Midlands takes part in SC7, which stretches across our beautiful state, we're very excited about the opportunity, not only about supporting this effort, but also understanding that our natural resources are not only our greatest asset, but also our ability to use those to leverage and bring people here to our community and to grow businesses. May is the month where we celebrate National Small Business Week, and Columbia did it in a big way with a special kickoff at the beginning of Small Business Week. So lifeblood of our community is the backbone, and we've talked about that for a long time, but it's important that we recognize them. It's important that we value them and spend time, money with these small businesses in this community. And so as we as we look to continue to grow, as the mayor said, and we're thrilled that we're open for business, in South Carolina, small businesses, we've seen an increase of over 30% over the last two decades. That's the largest increase anywhere in the country. So South Carolina is a great place to do business. Columbia is a fantastic place to work, live, and play. In addition to the kickoff event, a special Small Business Week celebration was also held to recognize additional business owners. I think it just shows that there is still a need from our business community for resources, for information, and for those connections, connections to each other, connection to those resources, and connections to the city, so that people are aware of what we have to offer. We have so many different services and partnerships and collaborations, and we also have a leadership that know the business community because many of them are small business owners. As we continue our business highlights in our We Are Open business series, we're definitely open to business owners who invest in our community. That is the story of the owner of Revont, who recently celebrated 30 years of business in Columbia. It's great as we celebrate openings all the time in Columbia over the last couple of weeks celebrating an anniversary, especially a three decade anniversary is a really special thing. And excited that they continue to grow and expand and have really been part of the heartbeat in five points. May is also Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we were able to celebrate in a special way with a special recognition of one of our own, Councilwoman Adelie Bussells. She was recognized by those at the South Carolina State House. As someone who made history as the first South Asian woman on City Council in Columbia, it was especially important for me to ensure that this was a platform that we recognize the growing diversity in Columbia. And so over the next month, I'm very excited to share a lot more about the diversity even within the Asian American community. You know, what are some of the customs and traditions that they bring with them here? And really the history of how Asian Americans came to this country. And following that special recognition, the City of Columbia also recognized Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month at the City Council meeting. Well, that wraps up another city view. Thank you for watching and stay tuned for more information right here on City TV. Make sure you continue to catch us on Spectrum Channel 1301 and also on Roku and Amazon Fire TV. You can also get information from our website, columnsc.gov, and make sure you follow us on social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel so you can see on-demand programming from the City of Columbia. Thank you again for watching and remember, we are Columbia.