 Thanks for coming. My name is Rob, and for those of you who don't know, I'm the former mayor here in the city. I've been liberated for just about a year now, and great. And I'm really glad to be here with you. I mean, this is an exciting day. There are days that we need to smile in anticipation of what's coming, and this is clearly one of them. I know it's warm, but we want to hear a little bit about this project together so that you can get excited a little bit more and take it back and talk to your community about it, because that's what it's really about. So, you know, I think traditionally we like to recognize the folks that are here who are in positions of, you know, elected officials and others, and I've been given a lift, but I'll go through it, and if I miss someone, don't worry, we'll still recognize you. So, you're all super important, but, you know, there's something really key about getting elected, apparently. I've never really figured it out. So we have Supervisor Don Saylor. I mean, it's up to you. If you want to clap after each one, we'll be here longer. So, councilmember Dan Carson. Yeah, no, hold it, and then we'll do a big one at the end. Yeah, no, I know you will. Board member of Sutter-Davis Foundation and partner, okay, sorry, that's someone I'm going to... Oh, is Darren here? Darren Pytel, chief of police. All right, hanging out there in the back. Okay, are there any... I'm going to come to a few other dignitaries in a moment, so just hang in there, but are there any other elected officials? Is Gloria here? Oh, hi, Gloria. Gloria Portita, Mayor Pro Tem, City of Davis, standing behind Bill Pride. That doesn't usually work out very well for me. Any other electeds? Any other... Any other City of Davis... I know there's City of Davis staff. I see our homeless outreach coordinator also from the from the Police Department, but that's all I'm going to say. Now, we also have Helen Thompson, former assembly member from here, lives here, just rode by her house, and she's the chair of the Assembly Health, was the chair of the Assembly Health Committee, and is now, I understand, is on the board of Sutter-Davis Foundation. Is that correct? Okay, say someone wrote this wrong. I'm going to blame someone else for that. Could you say it correctly, Sutter? Health Valley Area. She's our board chair. Board chair. Got it, right. Thanks for being here. For all you've done concerning people who are vulnerable. And then finally, we have James Conforti, Chief Operating Officer at Sutter Health. Got that right. So welcome. Welcome to Davis. And welcome to everybody from the communities here. Behind me, which you can't really see, is why we're here. It's served our region for decades, and yes, it's showing its where. Every day, 75 to 100 people come to this building to access important resources to keep them going and to change their lives. It's where people who are forgotten, sometimes disdained, come and can engage in genuine relationship with people who value them and care about their well-being. You know, some of you know, but most of you probably don't. Before I was elected to City Council, I served here for four years as a overnight staff member. Those were the years around the recession and saw in those times a real shift and flux in the kinds of people who were coming for assistance. And then it changed when the recession started easing. We were always full. I know this place, and when I would spend nights here, I would often think of how we could do so much more if we had a bigger space and a better space. Talked to Bill sometime about clearing out clogged toilets in dealing with rats and breaking sinks and things that just with much use still need to be replaced. And so we have an opportunity. This is not a transactional space. This is not where people come to engage in a transaction. You need help. I'm here to give you help. It's not a transactional space. It's a relational place. It's a relational place. Now I would describe it as a tough love pursuit of folks living on the borderlands, the margins, and the edges. Tough love. And that means in its pursuit people come through that door and the question always is, is today the day you're going to make a change? I care about you. Are you ready? And as Bill has said in the past, when moments of lucidity, even among those who suffer from some of the deepest mental health challenges or substance use disorders, every once in a while, and we wish it was more often, there's a moment of lucidity. And the person says, yes. And I've experienced that here. Where someone was pursued with tough love for years and finally said, I'm coming in. And there are people living in our community in our region today. I could name them who made that decision and found people here with whom they had relationships who could challenge them to make that change at the right time when they were ready and they did. This is a long haul. A building is not going to make a difference. The relationships that occur within it will. So this is never going to be just about a building. It's going to be about the people that come. But it is about a building in the sense of enabling us to do more. Because we are in a crisis that's been named by many in the New York Times, had an article this morning California's homelessness is being driven by lack of space, lack of houses, lack of place to put people. Let's just be frank about it. So we're here to announce a milestone in the advancement of Paul's Place and you're going to hear more about it. It's a multifunctional facility and that's key. The police have things to like about this. The homeless outreach people have things to like about this. People who are concerned about housing first love it. People who need, who want to talk about respite are going to like it. There's going to be the ability to offer much more, which you'll hear about. This is inspired by a matching grant. And I think we would not have dreamed as big if Sutter Health hadn't enabled us to think big about the innovative approaches to dealing with homelessness. Sutter, you live on the front line like all the other hospitals do, dealing with people who have no other options and trying to figure out a way to channel them to the best services. So this is a collaborative. City of Davis, Yolo County Housing, Davis Community Meals, Davis Opportunity Village. It was months of discussion about what can possibly be done with this space to make it the relational place that we want it to be. It didn't happen quickly and it's still ongoing, but we've been able to take the concept of tiny houses and with Maria's help, we'll be talking about it, develop it into a concept of vertical tiny living spaces. This collaborative has represented many gifts, many abilities, many experiences from the program people to the business people to the city to the police. This is involved people who are approaching this challenge from many ways, and it has brought your skills, your gifts, your abilities together. I'm proud of that. This will be a Housing First model. Don't listen to the rhetoric in the communities about the failure of Housing First. It is what we have and it is working. It is the path forward. Low barrier means bringing people in, getting them the services they need, moving them into permanent housing. Unless you think it's not happening, it is happening in our city. It is happening today. I think about 12 people have been permanently moved off the street in the last two years. There was a small program supported by the county. So we're going to hear more specifics about this space that will make, that will become a place as we go along. But it's really about bringing a sense of ongoing hope. I think it's hard for those of us who are housed to understand not only factors that lead people to being outdoors, but what being outdoors in the long term does in terms of one sense of place and one sense of ability to cope. It's a long walk back. This is a place where people can begin that journey. So I'd like to introduce Bill. Bill Pride is a local hero in the Social Services Committee. He's been Executive Director of Davis Community Meals and Housing since 2001. Touched thousands of life. It's his father for whom Paul's place is named. So Bill, why don't you share a little bit of your vision? Well, it's certainly a pleasure to be here this morning. I mean, it's a great event, a great time to actually move forward, have Davis Community Meals and Housing to move forward with a new program and have new housing for the homeless folks who live in the city of Davis. You know, DCM has been around since 1991, almost 30 years. And we went from being a small program, serving homeless folks a meal on Tuesday night to St. Martin's, now having multiple programs. And certainly, I think my greatest achievement as director has been expanding our programs into the permanent support of housing realm. And this is hopefully going to be our third project besides Cesar Chavez Plaza, also Creekside, which is going to open next year. And then of course, Paul's Place, which we're hoping to open sometime in the next couple of years. It's going to provide 32 units of housing for folks, four emergency shelter beds, 10 transitional housing beds, and the most exciting thing and the reason why we got involved in the collaborative with the city and Dove and YCH and the Davis Police Department is the inclusion of 18 permanent supportive housing beds on the 3rd and 4th floor here. And I think from my standpoint, these are all programs that we had to do. I mean, in all the years I've been here in all expansion we've done to different things, housing homeless families, doing a modified transitional housing program called new pathways, employment program, and lots of other programs we have to help folks move forward with their lives. Clearly to me, the most exciting thing we've done is move forward into the housing realm. And clearly in my view, and I think as anybody who's turned me talk anywhere knows that housing is the most crucial element to getting folks who are homeless become housed again. And I think the sad fact is that over the years and my 18 half years doing this, that clearly has not happened at the pace it should have happened. But I do think now that the states done a few different things that we have a possibility to actually move that forward, even if it's only a small increments at a time like the 18 beds that are going to be here at Paul's place. And so to my way of thinking this is a great project, it's going to benefit the community. It's certainly come together with a whole range of different partners, not only the generosity of the Sutter health folks and the partnership health folks, but also a lot of community members we've met with a graciously donated to the point where we're now standing here today announcing that we have are at approximately 80% of the costs we need or the funding we need to actually build a program and hopefully get this ground breaking here sometime early next year. So to me it's solving homelessness is more than just my own organization can do. I mean, you know, we have the staff, we have the experience, I think we have a know how to kind of put together programs and everything to actually help folks who are homeless move forward with their lives. But it's also dependent upon the support of the community. And I think that's what we're here to celebrate today, which is the support of not only the Sutter folks, the partnership health folks, donors have also come together and also donated to date. But the support of the community now helping build a program that should be a model program for other communities, a program that's going to help folks move from homeless is to being housed and something the city of Davis can be proud of. Thank you. Next I'm going to I'm going to ask Reed Yeomans come on up. Not to say a lot about Reed, because I know he has a lot to say and you're going to have to clap him off the stage about three minutes. But Reed and Susan Yeomans, you know, those of you from Davis know their contribution to the community, not just hoteliers and property owners for student housing, but also people are deeply engaged in a lot of different ways. You know, I think what most of you don't know this guy's a business guy, but he has picked people up near his apartments and taking them to the Social Security office to help him get their SSN. You know, he's housed people who were on the street in his hotels. He reached out to recently to the family of a deceased man, he know, who is out of state to let them to talk about what was going to happen with remains. I mean, so this is not a theoretical exercise or just to pat myself on the back because I'm a donor. This is the guy who with his wife and because of their deep faith believes in what this is about. Geez, I'm making him cry. But come on up and share your vision. Thank you all for being here and beginning this at the beginning of this effort. As Rob said, this is personal for us. Our office is an olive drive. And so in front of our office, these people sleep, eat, and that's where they are. And when you walk past them every day and you get to know their name, then you get to know who they are, and then become your friends. And then sometimes they get off the street. Sometimes they move on. But this is particularly poignant in that this one story, there was a lady in front of in and out. She was flying a flag, flying a sign, looking for money. And she did a ride back over this side of town to her camp, which is just beyond the bridge over here. And I'm giving her a ride. And she introduced herself, gave me her name and said, I'm Davis High Class of 85. Most half of these people are from Davis. They grew up here. They came to the school here. They got a job here. Their life went off the rails. This can happen to any family. This is vital. And so Susan and I got to know Paul's place through these friends and Paul's place 1111 H to these 11th Street. And we said to Bill, you know, if the Davis community can build the Madavi Center, we can tear this down. And I called it what it was. And we can build a purpose built facility for the homeless needs. And the city got involved and got Maria's group involved and dove involved. And so Susan, I paid a feasibility study and Rose Lester and her team that said came back and said, you know, this is amazing. This is the most enthusiastic response we've had of the 65 people they interviewed 90% of them said they would give. Wow. And so we were here today to celebrate the fact that we're 80% of the way to having the construction cost of this project. Now that's not the end. We have to have some money for Bill's transition. And as you know, if you're going to build an expensive facility like this, you have to have an endowment to preserve it. So we're not going in half ass, we're going to go all the way. But we're here today to have a monument to celebrate. Now, I'd like to thank all of you who've given or made pledges or have given gifts. Thank you. But this and there's still more to go. So if you're willing to think about it, we're going to come hit you again and we're going to talk to more of you. But this wouldn't be possible if it weren't for Liz Giveny and the Partnership Health Plan of California. They were the first ones in. Big donation, $750,000. Thank you. That's huge. And then of course, there's Sutter Health. We wouldn't be here. They weren't for Sutter Health. Thank you. Rachel McKinney, thank you so much for everything you do. Thanks for making this possible. We're going to hear more from James Cudfordy or about James, who made this, is instrumental in this. Folks, we're celebrating a milestone, but this is not the end. It's the beginning of the end. We have got a long ways to go and we need you all the way. Please support us and thank you for what you do. Thanks, Irene. So, Reed mentioned Liz Giveny of Partnership Health Plan of California. And so, I'm going to ask Liz come forward. She became the Chief Executive Officer in 2015 after leadership roles in partnership and was integral to partnership numerous geographic expansions. That started in Solano County, I believe, and now 14 across California. Partnership expanded into Yolo County in 2001 and has been a great partner in this effort and in many other efforts. So, thanks for being here and we'd love to hear what you have to say. Good morning. I have a couple minutes to speak, which may be two minutes too long for those of you in the sun. So, I will try and keep it short. It's great to be with all of you and celebrate the start of this journey. As you may know, partnership's mission is to help underserved in our community, specifically around health. But we all know that being healthy doesn't start in the exam room or even in the ED. It starts at home. And so, that's why having a safe and healthy place to stay is so important. When you don't have a safe place to sleep, it's pretty impossible to make your health a priority, as so many of our members need to do. So, you might wonder why is a health plan making such an investment? It's kind of an unusual thing for a health plan to do and we agree with you and we're hoping that the state will support us in doing more of these things in the future. So, we're working on that. But funding projects that address homelessness and housing security for our members and who are the most vulnerable in the community is an important part in making our communities healthy. So, we are incredibly proud to make this particular investment in Paul's Place project. It's an incredible amount of services that Davis Community Meals and Housing provides each and every day. And we are extremely excited to watch how this progresses. We know that each and every day 40 to 60 people receive services including showers, food, access to laundry, and referrals to really important community services and information, serving over 800 people a year, which is pretty remarkable for the size community. So, we're excited to be your partners and we want to say thank you, especially to those who are doing the really hard work. I had a pretty easy job. All I had to do was ask my board for money and they graciously said yes. So, I want to call out three people who are from Partnerships Board. Please raise your hand. Lasanya Porter, Karen Larson, sorry, and then Alan. Alan's in the back. Alan Yamashiro with Davis. So, we thank you so much and look forward to watching the progress on this impressive project. Thank you again for including us. See you guys. Snag Karen Larson for your board. That's pretty easy. Great. Well, I want to now introduce Rachel McKinney, who became the CEO of Sutter Davis Hospital. There's a lot of Sutter's flying around here. Anyway, we won't get into that, but Sutter Davis Hospital. And we met, I think about three years ago. Under her leadership, the hospital has won multiple national awards. I can attest, just from the conversation, she's a passionate leader and she's looking, you know, at how to provide affordable, safe, personal care. And she does care about the folks who are on the margins without your support. I don't, I think we agree we wouldn't be here. And so, I'm really proud to introduce you and I'm glad you could be with us. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm honored to be here today to represent Sutter Health here in Davis and to really see what we have in front of us. As a not-for-profit organization, Sutter Health's mission is dedicated to the health and well-being of the people that we serve, both inside the walls of our organization, as well as outside. This is why today's announcement is particularly meaningful, as Sutter has made a commitment of matching up to $2.5 million in private donations to Paul's place. As you've already heard, the future of Paul's place is the reflection of a work of an extraordinary partnership of so many of you here today, including former Davis, Mayor Rob Davis, who has long called for supporting those who live unsheltered in our communities, as you heard from him today, the humans, business leaders who have been passionate about this project, and truly are walking the talk when it comes to addressing this issue. Thank you to Reid and Susan. Liz Gibany, who we just heard from, and the financial contributions from the Partnership Health Plan. Bill, you and your team, and so many others who have come together to ensure that this effort will be successful. It's also a reflection of what is possible with a true culture of caring and collaboration, which we strive to provide at Sutter every single day. This is also an investment in the health of our patients, as Liz mentioned, but also their communities, our communities. Sutter's contribution to Paul's place is one of the largest investments in our Getting to Zero campaign, which is an effort launched in 2016 with a commitment to provide up to $10 million in matching funds to spur innovative ideas and collaboration that would help all of us better address the issue of homelessness in the Sacramento Valley region. With that, I'd like to particularly recognize Sutter Health's own Chief Operating Officer James Conforti, who's here with us today. James's vision, his leadership, and commitment to the Getting to Zero campaign was instrumental in helping us get here today, so thank you James. The innovation displayed with Paul's place is exactly what we were hoping to see when we started this campaign three years ago. It's a focus on aligning public, private, and philanthropic resources to support Housing First and low or no barrier programs in Placer, Sacramento, and here in Yolo County. The long-term aspirational goal is to reach functional zero when the number of individuals experiencing a homelessness crisis is equal to or fewer than the number of permanent housing units available to them. To date, we've invested more than $5 million across the region in this effort, including funding housing vouchers here in Davis through the Davis Pathways program in 2017. Getting to zero in Paul's place really brings it all together, housing and support, philanthropy, community health, and a deeply held commitment to service. I'm so grateful to all of you who are helping to make this happen for our community, for our patients, our partners, our community, our donors, even those within our own organization. When the Sutter Davis Hospital Medical Executive Committee heard about this opportunity, they immediately stepped up and donated $10,000 to the effort, so I'd like to thank our physicians and the medical executive community. The generosity and vision of what has happened today is more than just a gift. It's truly an investment in the future of our community, one that will have a lasting impact for many, many years to come. So thank you for all of your support, and I look forward to the future. Yeah, and you mentioned pathways, and I, I probably forget the funding sources for all this, but that is the program I was mentioning earlier that's moved people off the street. You want to know more about that? Go see Ryan, he's standing over there, he's this suave guy with his sunglasses on, he said, put your hand up. He knows all about it, he'll answer all your questions about what's going on in Davis now. So our last speaker today is Maria Grizjak, nationally recognized architect and founder of her own firm based here in Davis. You want to see some of her work, but look at the Islamic Center. Beautiful. She's a founding member and other members of here of Davis Opportunity Village, and I can attest the fact that early on this woman came to the table and said, let me use my skills and gifts to conceptualize what this is going to be. She's the one that converted the horizontal tiny village concept into a vertical tiny residence, and it's amazing. And so we're really excited that you're part of it, you've been extremely generous, and it's her vision that's helping create what we're looking at here, and I think she's going to come and talk a little bit more about it. Come on up. Thank you, Rob. Rob is an amazing asset to the city of Davis. He's done so much. I just want to really appreciate it. As a board member for Davis Opportunity Village or DOV, my fellow members and I have been working to bring micro unit housing to Davis to help provide permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness. We've been meeting for years and the opportunity came. Our goal is to provide innovative, low-cost micro housing in a village setting that includes critical services, interventions, and programs that promote independence and stable living. And that is what we are all about here today with this project. The challenge was always finding the land an optimal location for a project like this. The opportunity to collaborate with Davis Community Meals and Housing to transform this site, which you can all see here, to transform the site is a powerful and exciting opportunity for all of us together to impact the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors. Our collaborative, DOV and I spent many months researching the best approaches and designed for a multifunctional facility that is capable of addressing the needs of the community. And the operative word here is multifunctional. The result is Paul's place. This is an innovative one-of-a-kind structure and it will include on the first floor in this beautiful rendering, which is actually cited in this very site. I took the photograph. The landscape is an inviting garden with benches so that people can come and be here and enjoy a place that belongs to them, that is their home. And the first floor is an enhanced resource center, which is entered through the red H, which stands for H Street. It also is goalposts for coming here and victory. And it's for home. This is a home. And on that first floor, there will be showers, more showers than there are now. I think there's only one. Anyway, I don't know, but there will be more restrooms. There will be more laundry facilities and better space for staff and for the intervention programs that we need to have, as well as for emergency shelter beds. The second floor, which you can kind of see designated there is a four-story building. The second floor has 10 single bedrooms and provide a transitional residence configuration with a communal kitchen and a family room and bathrooms and laundry. The third and fourth floors provide supportive permanent housing, and they provide 18 300 square foot micro dwelling units. And two of them will be accessible to those with disabilities, but actually everything is designed for people who may have challenges in being able to access this building. Everything was designed to be able to be accessible. And if you go into the first floor, there's an elevator that will take you to every one of the floors. As an architect, I am very excited to see how this facility will provide a model for other communities. As I said, this is an innovative model. And this will provide an opportunity for other communities to see how to build something that will work for the needs that we have today. And I'm also inspired by how this facility will provide the opportunity that we need right here in Davis. Davis has always been a leader, and I believe in this community, and everyone that's participated in this has been absolutely amazing. Paul's place will be a key community resource for generations to come, bringing dignity, care, and assistance to hundreds of people each year, including a place to call home for many living without shelter. This will happen. Thank you. So, James and the others of you now from Davis, we're glad you're here. We want you to see this. I'm going to depart from our remarks. I'm going to finish up here in a minute, but if you're staffing this facility right now, just walk down here. Would you please not be shy? What happened to them? They went inside. Go get them. Yeah, just stand here whenever you're ready, and people just look at you. Now, but I mean, those are the relationship makers. I mean, it takes a particular kind of gift to day in, day out, walk with people who have challenges, and to try to discern how to come alongside them in the most effective way. And this staff, when they stand here, you'll just look at them, and then at the end we'll give them a walk. Riders and thinkers across the ideological spectrum have and continue to sound the alarm about the loss of community in our nation. You've read it, right? Robert Putnam's well-known bowling alone. More recently, Charles Murray's different place in the spectrum coming apart, or even more recently, Patrick DeNene's Why Liberalism Failed. These and others have decried the outcome of our relentless autonomy quest. Here they are. Hi. I just wanted to say hi. Give them a hand. Remember I mentioned I mentioned tough love? You're looking at. Thanks a lot, you guys. Thanks. So let me go back. So they have decried all these authors, and many more, if you're reading anything about the way forward in this country, the outcome of our relentless autonomy quest and the growing deficits and even disappearance of social capital. Social capital is that sort of thick bond of relationships that exist in places that enable people, us, to do things that we could never do alone. Social capital is not just about trust, but it's about engaging in the tricky relationships and conflicts and coming through and doing things that we could never do alone. We're hearing the alarm sounded across this country about the loss of that essential piece of capital. But I don't see it here in Davis. I really don't. I do not see that loss here in Davis. Oh, sure. We argue. We disagree. Periodically, we throw things. But when the time comes, when the time comes, we come together. And what we bring is the thing that I mentioned at the beginning. We bring our gifts. We bring our talents. We bring our experiences and our perspectives. And we don't hold tightly to them and say, I'll give it to you if you really need it. No, we come with open hands and we share. Now, you can see just by the people who've been up here today and those we've called out that this project requires the open hand of many people. And I'm not just talking about in a financial sense. I'm talking about time and gifts and skills and knowledge and experience and all of those things that are what social capital is. And we need that capital now if we're going to solve this really stubborn and unfortunately growing problem. So we have a lot to celebrate today. We are gifted people who are willing to share our gifts. We have innovative thinking. We have risk taking when we have people who are willing to give. Now, you've heard it already twice. I'm going to say it one more time so you won't forget. We've secured four million dollars. We need more. So first and foremost, you need to get the word out. Now, I'm talking to you members of congregations in this town. I'd love to see each congregation of all religious stripes. Give us a tithe. Give us a tithe. Give us that 10% operating budget or pastor's salary you choose. Give us that 10% tithe toward a thing that you say your faith tradition is about. The rest of you, come on. You're living in some of the wealthiest place, one of the wealthiest places in California. We're privileged people. We can do this. We need you. I'm not going to be apologetic about it. This is about priorities. You know, we often talk about political will. We're going to get there, but right now it's about personal priorities. What do you love? What do you love? And then we are going to call on you to make sure that the city of Davis, you know, in all its wisdom, gives us the entitlements necessary to build this place because these things don't spring from Mother Earth and they do require entitlements. Planning commission. I'm tempted to say raise your hand and then I want you guys to go to them. But I'm going to, you know, some of them are standing right in the front. Planning commission and city council are going to have to give those. I don't have any doubts about that happening, but we need to be really certain we understand the challenges that they're going to face in making that decision because it's not, it's not, you know, it's not simple to put up a four-story building and a place that hasn't one. So it's going to happen, but we're going to need to work with it. So this is a defining moment for us. This is a defining moment for us. I don't say that lightly because it sounds like hyperbole. There's a lot of that today, a defining moment, but this challenge is growing. And if we sit back and say, wow, the state needs to take care of it, that's a county issue. People that are doing that, that's their fault. If we do that, then we're not going to address the fundamental need to re-humanize people who have been inexorably pushed to the edge. And we can't do that. This is not who we are. So, yeah, this is a defining moment. And I think we're going to get there. I support the project and I want you to support it. So thanks for coming together today. One thing that hasn't, wasn't said today and it's about to set her again, an effort like this is not cheap. And we have professional fundraisers brought in and that's why we're going to accomplish this. But Sutter is covering the cost of the fundraising effort. So every dollar that we raise for this effort, as you so aptly described, is going to the cost. And I want to thank Sutter for that too. The match is fantastic, but this makes it possible. Thank you. You know who the actors are, right? You met them. Go talk to them now. Find out more about them. I also want to say, you know, if you want to learn more about giving, there's Reid, see Reid, see Bill, wandering around back out there. Talk to me. I also want to point out Marty. If you know Marty, she will be knocking at your door. Marty West. She is someone that can help you discern the most effective way to participate. And she is absolutely relentless in a way that I am not. So anyway, thank you so much for coming. Please stick around. Greet people. Talk to city council members. Talk to planning commission members. Talk to the folks who are up here. And we're really grateful that you're participating and choosing to participate in this project. Thanks.