 moving item to 3.3 presentation of the American Muslim appreciation awareness month proclamation. So the city council, we will present the American Muslim appreciation and awareness month that we were going to present it earlier last month. But I know that we wanted to make sure you guys were included and you guys were able to visit. And so we would love to present this certificate to you. And I will read a couple of the first few sentence. Whereas freedom of religion holds distinction as a cherished right and fundamental value upon which the law and ethics of the United States are based. And the city of Dublin takes great pride in supporting individual religions, freedoms and strengthened by contributions of its diverse population, including those Americans who practice Islam and the earliest Muslim immigrants most mostly worked on farms and made significant contributions to early agricultural efforts and approximately 1 million Muslim Americans currently reside in communities throughout California, the highest numbers in the United States and the citizens of the city of Dublin benefit from Muslim religion, education and empowerment organizations that operate within our city. And we welcome Ahmad, please come forward. Good evening and I wanted to thank our esteemed city council. And I'd love to be able to come here every year and thank you guys for all your support and for your recognizing the Muslim community and of Dublin as an integral and welcome part of our larger Dublin community. Assembly member Bill Quirk introduced this resolution in 2016 at a time of great turbulence and uncertainty, but Dublin and California have always stood for inclusion and have always been a welcome sanctuary for all. We're very happy to be here in 2022 in person with the community here in person to be able to celebrate the recognition of our community. Last year at this time, the city of Dublin pledged itself to partner with the community and welcoming refugees from Afghanistan. In this last year, we were able to help hundreds of Afghans relocate to the area and find a home and community here in Dublin and the local surrounding cities. Twice every month, our local community hosts a bizarre for newly resettled families to receive household goods, clothing, bagpacks, books and more for little to no cost. For the Muslim community center that many from Muslims from Dublin attend, Muneer Safi, the director and Sabine Asifali, our board member have worked hard in a residence here in Dublin to constantly have an open door policy at the mosque that makes everyone feel welcome, whether it's their first time or their regular attendee. They've expanded their services to make the eat celebrations, family events and regular prayer services multilingual, environmentally friendly and disability certified. Through a partnership with the Alameda County Food Pantry, MCC's sister Amina selflessly runs the food pantry where weekly thousands of pounds of food are given out to hundreds of families from all faiths throughout the tri-valley. I was fortunate to be able to volunteer there with my sons to help deliver food on a number of occasions. I would like to particularly mention Shazia Kajani and her son Zayan who are residents here of Dublin and were featured in the Dublin patch for their hard work with the refugee bazaar and for raising money to purchase laptops, computers so that resettled families can have internet access for school, job hunting and pretty much everything else that we do these days. So their hard work makes us all proud to be Dubliners. These stories are just the tip of the iceberg for the ways that our local Muslim community regularly invests in our Dublin community. We're taught that civic service is a fundamental tenet of our faith. Those who are best at creation, those who are most compassionate with creation are the ones who attain an ultimate compassion, mercy and closeness to the Creator. I wanted to highlight these efforts because it's these stories of the human spirit rising above challenges that we all need to sustain us. I would also like to thank Samina Usman and Sima Bother from the Council of American Islamic Relations who are constantly advocating for civil rights on behalf of all Americans and to particularly mention Sima's efforts because she's running for the DSRD, a local water district, and in the upcoming elections, Kashif Qadri will be running for Dublin City Council. It's not just what's good for a few but about what's good for everyone and most importantly about what's most, for those of us that are most in need, that drives them to serve and to serve here in Dublin. We're proud of their willingness to serve and look forward to celebrating their elections. Muslims and Muslim-run community organizations throughout the local area, particularly in Dublin, constantly strive for the greater good. There's Maristan that's focused on low to no cost mental health services for our local community along with Zakat Foundation and our local resident Minara Rahman who coordinates food distribution throughout Alameda County and necessities for those most in need. I would also like to highlight some international organizations that are run by residents here in Dublin. I personally work on an international economic development project supported by the United Nations Development Program, not only for its economic impact but for the international conflict resolution promoting equity, environmental sustainability, and fair and livable wages for economies across the developing world. Muslims in Dublin have a strong and global impact that we can all be proud of. However, there are many who are focused right here in Dublin. Sameer Qureshi who serves not only to politically organize our communities and advocate for our use of our First Amendment rights but also serves as a chairperson for the Dublin Senior Centres Advisory Board and Solbia Qureshi who spent many, many years working on PFCs and PFSOs and on the Dublin Partners in Education. And then of course I have to do my shout out for DPI because they're doing registration right now. It's open and I'm going to get a message from Rich later that did you mention that? So I did my shout out for DPI. How much did Rich pay you? Like them, there are many others, Shazia Nomani, Shaheen Parker, Rabia Adil, Nida Ahmed, and Moir who work year after year to make Dublin students their primary and central concern. Participating in these efforts is essential work of being part of a community. Last and far from least, I want to thank Elisa Shahab and Kaif Jalani who are two high school students who recently graduated from DHS. Elisa was active in the Dublin Inclusion Project and was the president of the Muslim Students Association at DHS and gave a powerful speech at DHS's last graduation ceremony. Kaif was honored as a national merit scholar and started a nonprofit organization called Youth Coding Workshop that organizes high school students to teach their younger counterparts how to code. And they've had chapters at every middle school in the area and are expanding to elementary schools as well. Their dedication to inclusion and service as young people has propelled from active service in high school to now attending esteemed universities. Both are an inspiration to students coming up the ranks and to those of us who have already graduated as well. These students remind us to be proud of who we are, to always respectfully expect to be seen for our Muslim identities but to actively serve all members of our community. This is a lesson that I would like to take forward into the next year and to thank you all again for the time and recognition of our Muslim community. Thank you very much. Honestly, thank you for naming all the individuals that you did because they are part of our community and people like Sameer and his wife, they give up so much of their volunteer time, you know, the students at Dublin High School and they just want to be able to be part of the community and also show that, you know, being involved and making your community even better. And so it's all about all of us Pachina and I know during these difficult times, you know, Congressman Swalwell was there, even Supervisor Halber was doing funding and bringing families to be able to help them. So I think we just live in a great area where we can all come together and it's the key role players that help but also the community. And we just keep doing that over and over again because it's very contagious to keep doing positive things like that. Absolutely. I want to actually give Councilman Rukuma Guy a couple minutes to speak because I know that he wanted, he also wanted to say something last time and he's, he assumed this afternoon or evening. Yeah, so great to see everyone here and I'm glad we were able to do this where the community could come and I wish I could be there in person to see you and to be part of the photo. You know, we've been doing this now for several years. I think it's a great tradition and I love in the proclamation how it says towards the end that it is, it is appropriate for us to promote awareness of American Muslims and Dublin and across the nation and to extend to them the respect every American deserves. And I think that's, that's so important that we are reminded of that. There are still, there are still challenges around perceptions and lack of awareness in our country and we should daylight that but here in Dublin all are welcome and we make concerted efforts to ensure that our residents understand that. So thank you for being here tonight and really happy that we are able to do this. Thank you, did you guys want to say something? I want to echo my colleagues' thanks but also talk about, you know, we highlighted the fact that you named an awful lot of people and the communicate the contributions that they have made to our community and you mentioned a couple of tiny little things that you do but you glossed over your own contribution to the city of Dublin. You don't just work for the food bank and for international and national foundations but you do an awful lot for the city of Dublin and certainly the Koreshi's do and Shazi Nomanie and just so many other people and Samina and everybody else but you do a lot for the city of Dublin as well at Cottonwood Creek and with other committees at Dublin schools and all of those things and so I just want to make sure that we are all taking a moment to thank you for your commitment to the city of Dublin and the residents here in Dublin as well as to the greater Muslim community and the Greater Tri Valley community and so that needs to be said as well so I'm really pleased that you come every year and you highlight the contributions that the Muslim community as a whole makes to the city of Dublin but the contribution that you make to the city of Dublin too does not go unnoticed by those of us that live here so thank you very much. Thank you. Please come forward and we can present the certificate too but also would love to take a picture.