 Please welcome the Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives, Sheena Wright. And Grace, she mentioned, welcome, and thank you. New York City speaks really was born out of the campaign for Mayor Eric Adams. It was a grassroots campaign. It was led and driven by everyday New Yorkers who wanted to make a difference. And who sat in the seat of the mayoralty of the city of New York. And as a result of that activation and investment, the mayor tells the story that he went to mayor school. And he was learning every day and hearing from people, what are your concerns? What are your ideas on how to solve these concerns? And really activating and engaging all of New York. Not the typical people who might respond to a poll, but the everyday people. And so when a group of organizations came to us and said, what would it be like if we could launch a campaign, essentially, is what New York City speaks is. But really a survey to really hear from New Yorkers, tabulate that data, and turn the data into action. And that was, I guess it was August, maybe August, September, we got started. Wonderful funders joined us along the way. And here we are, about 13 months later, with a phenomenal action plan. So thank you. You're going to hear from some of those phenomenal people today, and just so much thanks and appreciation. But the biggest thanks and appreciation really is for Mayor Eric Adams. This is his vision that we have to stay connected to the community, that we have to provide opportunity to really, really be engaged, to really hear from, be in dialogue, and problem solve together. So New York City speaks is here to stay in the Adams administration. And that is due to the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you. Thank you so, so much. And just really want to thank the team and Sheena's vision is one thing to lay out a plan. It's another thing to execute that plan and move it forward. And the sponsors, some of them are listed over here. Oftentimes, you will see folks like Robin Hood, Good Nation, Open Society Foundation, the New York Community Trust, GalaxyGives, FWD.us, the New York Women's Foundation City Bridge, Trinity Church, Wall Street, and Carnegie Corporation, these boards, as Rich Burry stated when I said, feel like money in the room, he said, yes, not our money. You know? The donors, the donors are just so important. And that is what must happen in the city. And I really want us to lean into this space of that. You know, my early years as a car mechanic, it didn't matter how good an engine was that if it was operating on, if it was four cylinders and it was operating on three cylinders, it would not operate. We have been a city where we have not operated on all of our cylinders. And the cylinders is those philanthropic organizations, like the one we have here, who go out and raise money. It is our corporate community that's crucial to assist and have good community corporate partnerships. It's government, and the role we must play in government. But the most crucial part of that last cylinder is in this room. It's you. It's you. And we wanted to say to you that is one thing for us to say, you speak. If we don't listen, what's the purpose of you speaking? And so New York City speaks means that the mayor is listening. And you may not be old enough to remember, but to me, you are EF Hutton. When you speak, everyone listens. And by speaking and listening doesn't mean that we're always going to agree. We must get into a space where we are deep listeners, where we seek to understand so we can be understood. And we get in the room and figure out the common denominators. And you're going to see that there may be 10 items on the agenda. Two of them are the most challenging. Eight of them we all agree on. 8.8 million people in the city. We have 35 million opinions. But we were blown away when we did the analysis and we noticed how housing was coming up across the board, public safety across the board, mental health for young people across the board, employment across the board. So there was some common denominators, no matter how complex the city is, no matter the various languages, over 62,000 people who contribute, I think, close to 16,000 or 18,000, young people responded. So no matter how complex our city is, no matter if you arguing about if you like the Nets or the Nicks or the Jets or the Giants, if you like the Rangers or the Islanders, there are some things that we have foundational understandings about. So if we look at those items that are important, that we analyze from you, and then we take those items and then all cylinders are moving in unison to move us forward, we can accomplish the task we're looking for. That's how we do it. We come together as one and we speak in a common voice even in multiple languages. This is a great moment for us as a city. And I know daily we're told about what is wrong about the city. As the person that sat down for a portrait told the artist, I know you see my scar, but remember I have a face. Don't let people look at your scar and take away your face. We have a face. The city is a vibrant place and we're not coming back, New York, we're back. We're back and we're coming back together. It's not about leaving anyone behind. It's about how do we do it together with the dignity and respect that we all deserve as New Yorkers. An amazing team, an amazing accomplishment. Hearing your voice allowed us to speak, to produce the product that we were looking for. You exceeded our expectation. You exceeded it. When we asked people to respond, we were happy. We thought we'd get about five or 10,000. Once we cracked 60,000, we said, you know what, we're on to something. It was as though you were saying, I can't wait until people ask me something so I could tell them what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. So thank you so much. We're gonna bring on the brother who was the co-person at the top, my good friend, Dr. Blake. I wanna thank Mayor Eric Adams for a couple of things. One, he led a grassroots movement, People's Campaign. And he led this campaign and in that campaign, he said, I am you. That campaign led to a People's Bottom-Up Civic Engagement Strategy. And we wanna thank the mayor for continuing to show New Yorkers that you are us and that our voice matters. We wanna thank the first Deputy Mayor, Sheena Wright, for protecting the vision of a People's-led movement. We truly appreciate your support. And we appreciate the support of your team, Betsy McLean, Artie Colty. Yeah. We wanna thank all of the deputy mayors and commissioners who rallied behind Sheena to support this vision of NYC Speaks. And we wanna thank our philanthropic organizations. You know, they didn't just give the money. They actually participated in community conversation and action planning. They were involved in the process, deeply invested, not just financially, but through their actions. But you know, we gotta thank a few others before I get to that. I wanna thank my co-executive director, Jose Serrano-McLean. It's been wonderful walking this journey with you and being up late at night, crunching the data, trying to figure out the next steps forward. We wanna thank your team, Christina Peccarelli, Hannah Glosser, Adina Jean, Alejandra Cabrales, and the entire HRNA team. And now, I wanna, you know, I'm from Jamaica, Queens, so we say shout out. I wanna give a shout out to all of the civic, policy, chairs, and members. We did it. All the community-based organizations and community data partners, thank you. We did it. To all of the young people ages 14 to 17 who participated in NYC Youth Speaks, right, Melissa? We did it. Well, what did we do? What did we do? 62,000 respondents. Across every residential neighborhood, 18,400 youth responded, ages 14 to 17. And as a result, we collected 3 million points of data. We went into 300 residential zip codes. This is during COVID, y'all. We had 150 ground canvases. We touched 33 neighborhoods that often are neglected, priority neighborhoods, black, brown, Asian neighborhoods that are often not consulted and often feel disenfranchised and not heard from. So we did it. We created a survey that was the fooboo of research. For us, by us. 80 members of the Civic Policy Council. We tackled education and youth development, housing and neighborhoods, health and wellness, art and culture, economic vitality, and work development, racial justice and equity, public safety, climate and infrastructure. We did that. 50 community conversations, 35 NYC youth ambassadors putting their stories behind the data, the people giving their experience. And so I wanna thank again our mayor and his administration who were fully present and collaborated with New Yorkers in these action plans that we'll now see unfold. We came to consensus on these actions. We have introduced a new way of civic engagement. We have been restoring the trust of people in the process and restoring the relationship between government and the people. Thank you. Now, I have the great honor of introducing a young person who participates as a youth ambassador, Imasafe. She has a beautiful story to tell about her involvement as a youth ambassador, how NYC speaks and her working with people within this city has now led to wonderful opportunities for her. So let's give her a round of applause. Good evening, everyone. And a special thank you to Mayor Adams, Deputy Mayor Wright, Dr. Blake and Ms. Coley for inviting me to this wonderful event. On April 29th, 2022, I was invited to participate in a community conversation facilitated by Melissa Cisco and George Patterson from the NYC Department of Education. The topics discussed were equity and racial justice and education and youth development. I joined the former discussion at what my fellow borough student advisory council or B-stack representatives, I analyzed racial equity challenges across the city. I recall Ms. Cisco who helped me launch NYC Youth Speaks move the discussion along while Chancellor Banks notified her that my hand was raised and signaled her to allow me to speak. After speaking, I became an NYC Youth Speaks ambassador and participated in numerous community conversations. I believe my high school community and experiences fostered my passion for activism and NYC Speak showed me how to realize said passion. I became familiar with my voice as a freshman in high school. I remember the CRP high school, the valedictorian and the salutatorian of the class of 2022, 2020 were two black girls. So they were two black girls like myself and they were also on student government like how I am now. This motivated me to do my best in school because I realized my potential is limitless. It's not confined to the boxes cultivated on the basis of my skin color or my ethnic background. This shows the importance of not only minority representation but youth representation. Thank you. What matters is seeing others like me and my peers in these rooms that weren't traditionally made for us. It's about making it for us, making it for us, making sure every voice is represented. It's using our city's youth and inspiring them to break boundaries through collective activism and a fervent seat to educate ourselves. In June of 2022, I was invited to have a community conversation with the mayor and deputy mayor right. During this meeting, I presented my program of promote minority education, PME, that day to Mayor Adams. This was due to the lack of educational resources for students of color, which were discussed at numerous NYC youth speaks community conversations. The mayor then asked me about any progress PME has made and I was honest with him. I told him that it's a student-led initiative meant to bridge the gap between high achieving yet underrepresented high schoolers and underrepresented middle schoolers in need of tutoring and mentorship. However, being only 16 and developing the idea of this program at 15 years old, it was hard to get anything done. Mayor Adams said to me, this is the city of yes and offered to support PME and he wanted to see the program offered at NYC schools. As a result, PME Success Network, LLC, plans to mentor underserved middle schoolers on Staten Island's North Shore and to hopefully expand to the rest of the city. This is all thanks help from Ms. Cisco, who helped me incorporate PME and Superintendent Wilson, who for helping me get the program into Staten Island schools. I couldn't have come this far without NYC youth speaks. It connected me with additional opportunities and although I'm still into STEM, it shifted me towards political activism. Recently, I just attended Yale's Model Congress and presented a bill on providing additional grants to Title I schools for financial literacy classes. My bill passed unanimously. All of this is because politics isn't restricted to an area of knowledge. It seeps through all of our different ways of life. With programs like NYC youth speaks and my company PME Success Network, we're creating a web of outspoken and ambitious students. We are the present and we are the future. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll pass in the back to Deputy Mayor Wright. Doesn't that sound like a future mayor of the city of New York? Closing out, right? This is our finale, this drum roll. We're closing out with Betsy MacLean. But yes, can we get her? Betsy is one of those very special people who has an unlimited number of skills and attributes, brilliance, passion, fashion sense and commitment. This was just a germ of an idea. And I really have to say that Betsy is the mother of New York City Speaks. Not only is she the mother of New York City Speaks and she really made it come into fruition, bringing together all of the partners, really leading the vision for this work over this year and some months. But she also is the newly appointed Chief Engagement Officer for the City of New York. Engagement is a cornerstone of this administration. We have wonderful, wonderful leaders who are in the administration and Betsy will be making sure that it's coordinated, aligned, focused and have a multiplying effect. We could not be more lucky and just grateful to have her leadership and her vision. Betsy MacLean. So good to see you all. This is like the most beautiful room I think I've ever seen. It's a beautiful night and we have so much to celebrate. One of my favorite sayings of all time is that work is love made visible. And if that's true, I know that NYC Speaks was an epic endeavor and when we set out to engage as many tens of thousands of New Yorkers as humanly possible, we knew what we were getting ourselves into. Our eyes were wide open, but everyone threw in, many people in this room threw in with so much love. So much love for our city, so much love for our neighbors, it's for our neighborhoods, for our families. And that's what I spent a lot of my career working with communities across New York City, really thinking about how we make neighborhoods and schools and health clinics and parks and places where we really feel like we belong. And part of belonging is having a say over how that stuff works. So that's one of the most exciting things I feel like of my professional career is that we're making this so that this is one of the greatest outcomes of NYC Speaks is that we are actually restructuring government so that community engagement is a central component of every single thing we do. We'll be coordinating with every single agency across the city to ensure that communities are engaged in a way that's inclusive, that's accessible, that's innovative, that's accountable, all the things that community engagement needs to be and hasn't been for way, way too long. So I am super excited to be partners with all of you in this journey. I have like a million thank yous, but one very, very, very special thank you. I'm gonna get her out here, is the spark, the joy of NYC Speaks, Arthi Kohli. Thank you for staying at City Hall and I'm telling you it is the best meeting, the best, most strategic, most fun, most inspirational meeting that I've had since. And so I feel super lucky to be partners with Arthi in all of this stuff. Beautiful. I also really wanna thank the tremendous leaders of all the engagement agencies who are in the room, who've been reappointed and newly appointed, our Chief Democracy Officer Kathleen Daniel is in the house. Great to have her, the Commissioner of the Community Affairs Unit, Fred Kreitzman is in the house, I believe, somewhere. Adrian Lever, the Executive Director of the Public Engagement Unit. Doug, our Chief Service Officer of NYC Service. And Dr. Sarah Said, the Head Chair and Executive Director of the Civic Engagement Commission. I am so excited to see what will be made possible by joining those forces together and really working both with focus but also with support from City Hall to really make our impact felt across the city. Super quickly, there are some folks in the room who are part of the transition, the Civic Engagement Committee of the transition team. This is where the foundations of the Chief Engagement Office were created. So really so thankful to folks who've been participating from day one. I'm looking at my list because I just wanna make sure I don't leave anybody out. I also really, really, really wanna thank Jose, Tina, Hannah, Dr. Blake. There are partners in all things epic. And then to a quick final thank yous, big thank you to Mayor Adams. I didn't think I would ever say this, but I actually think Mayor Adams might never think we're doing enough engagement. Which is an amazing gift for folks who know how important that is to our democracy, to our city, to equity, to justice. And then my final very, very special thank you to my partner in crime, Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. And I know you all know this because you're all friends first, but she is a woman for whom impossible does not exist. And for someone like me, that's all I could ever want in a partner, in a leader in our city. So thank you all so much. I hope everyone gets to go have some good treats and drinks and enjoy the evening. And we have so much to feel proud of and we have a lot more work to do. So you'll be hearing from us. Thank you. Thank you.