 Hello everyone. Welcome to the Straight Talk from our show. I'm Bruce Wilson and today I'm handing solo, no guess, which is, I do this now in the end, it's kind of go over stuff that we're working on and things that we might have accomplished or things that are upcoming. So, well, Happy New Year to everyone. May 2024, May to another year so far, so good. How good is that? You know, I have power, woke us up this morning, can't beat that. You know, it's got to be one of the best things that ever, but it is the best thing that happened to you today. Nothing else is better. So I am proud to say that, man, I've got, I want more than one, but from town, meeting, TV, I want a war, another war. It's presented, here it is right here. It's part of it and it's, it's presented, presents. Town, meeting, TV, present the Community Connector Award to Bruce Wilson. Look at that. Community Connector. No, I've been called some things. I've been called a connector through the years. Well, it's mayors have called me the hub, you know, I don't know how I can be the hub when we're near the mayor, but that's what I say to them. But my goal is being a connector or the hub is to help people with their goals, dreams, aspirations while referring them to our community partners where there will be jobs, optionally mentoring, tutoring opportunities, where there will be legislative individuals who need to meet with some community directors or business CEOs to make their work more understandable or complete. So unfortunately, fortunately, I've been able to do that, working with these individuals because I work with them. And I'm just very thankful that I know these individuals and I can do, I can help people with their goals like this. It helps mostly youth and families and college youth in terms and to get connected to what their goals are in life. And that's real important, you know, if you want to be a software engineer, we know some software engineers at IBM. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief, guess what? We know doctors, lawyers, and I know two Indian chiefs, so we can connect you right with them. They can tell you what entails to be a doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, and maybe you can job-shallowing with them. So that's how wonderful, that's what we've been doing since actually 1999, you know, when I straight talked about program, we've been helping individuals venture, re-enter the community successfully, be going over thinking errors and patterns and conflict resolutions and exercises. And because of that, a lot of them was able to get into like the Distance House, Mandela House, sanctuary houses, and be a, you know, helping with the community, doing the things that they want to do in the community, doing the things that probably, that they wanted to do besides getting in trouble. The only way you can change the thinking, getting in trouble, is you've got to change the thinking that got you in trouble. You can't use the same thinking that got you in trouble. You need new information. And so what's the best way to help a person who, you can't be around people, places, and things that put you at risk. So what's the best way to help people who, to stay out of trouble? It's getting with the things that they want to do. And so that's what we've been doing since 1999. And on these long images that walk up to me on the streets, and it's incredible to hear people's stories about how they went to some of our programs, they talked about it, and my Youth Advisory Board, you know, all the youth centers are open, open, or six youth centers in across the state for youth to be a part of, and with a far healthy outlet, free to them, and open art galleries. And we do, we've done over 700 events, community events. And all this is to help them, individuals, including myself, would be in a safe place where there's no drugs, and alcohol, tobacco, where they could actually have healthy outlets, you know, and come up with creative stuff. Our Youth Advisory Board make the decisions on our programs, projects, and events. We have, we had them, but we build them again across the whole entire state. We create a youth home board for the city of Burlington. We, you know, we have, our Youth Advisory Board is a powerful, you mean, they meet with the governor and the Senate, whatever, whoever they want to meet, what they meet with them, because they're powerful. And all youth are powerful. They just got to get the opportunity to showcase their talent, and be productive, and then get people who like me and others to help them. Once you do that, you'd be like me sitting back, laying back, like, what's next? What else was supposed to do now? That's why they're in charge of our programs, projects, and events in the state. And we have over 50 awards to prove it. And we've done over 700 events. I'm very proud of them. I'm tough on it. And people who know me, they know that they know that I'm serious. Like some people call me the hub. So a lot of people call me the piper for youth. I mean, I don't know where they got that from, but because I know youth, our youth promote, we have a peer-to-peer model where they, they teach each other, you know, and they bring their own peers into events and dances and educational stuff in our youth centers, in our art galleries, and everything we've done over through the, through the years since 2003. I'm so, I'm proud of that. I don't care what nobody say. Anybody knows me. They know Bruce Wilson always bringing youth to an event to have youth agenda items on it. I'm going to mess around talking about what you think and how they walk and what they think. They can tell you that they damn themselves. And that's, that's what it should be. So many, so many people who, like me, in a capacity that I, like mine, just want to do the talking for youth or people who, you know, I'm not going to do the talking for a doctor or a lawyer, and then she let them do the hell they're talking. They know what they want to say. They, they portraying professionals. You know, I can stay on this all day long, you know, because, you know, it kind of pisses me off and I'll always have for many years. So I'm proud to be called the community connector. I'm called, say that you're in the hub. I'm probably called the Piper for Youth, which, you know, you don't call me no mentor, because I don't use the word mentor with my youth or, or adults or college students or enter. We use the word, or I don't use the word mentee. And we use the word mentors because they all are mentors. If you cannot learn from anybody around, anybody on campus, you see that infant baby, how to see that baby crawl and climb. You're like, damn, I wonder if I can follow that baby crawl and climb so well. How cool is that? I want to, you know, and you learn from that. Now who's the mentor? Who's the mentee? No he's not. You're the mentor. They're the mentor. Learn from everybody being a mentor. Don't think and look at who I'm, I'm their mentor and name my mentee. Because first of all, we never call nobody a mentee in our programs. First of all, when you say that you owe me a mentor and you're my mentee, they're going to admit so called mentees think that you're smarter than them, that they're supposed to learn something from you. And that is the first thing about mentoring partnerships is that you've got to find a youth or individual who have similar some something like about each other. You know, and so first time, if you can't be something about each other, how, you know, that person's going to not going to be honest with you. That person's not going to be straight with you. That person can feel that you're better than them. That, you know, they can't teach you nothing. Hey, I'll learn all the time for you. She's here. We're out there. What would I do? I don't know what to do. I don't know. You know, they so smart with our events and coordinating events and, you know, IT stuff and, oh, God, social media. I don't know nothing about none of those things is like them. I wouldn't try to, I wouldn't challenge myself to go put up makeup posters and put our stuff on Facebook and all our social media that we have. I wouldn't try. I'm surprised myself. When I look at our website, artsowonderful.com, I'm like, wow, look at that. Look at that. How did I get there? How did I get to put you there with the governor? How did I get there with the mayor? You know, it's so exciting to see my own website and I don't know, I don't even look at it. You know, why I don't look at it? I don't need to look at it. You know, why I don't need to, you know, why we actually don't even need no, no website. People know about us. They know we got, we have all, we're the leaders in murals, we're the leaders in youth centers and art stuff. They know we're not necessarily the leaders, but we are in the lead since 2003. And we've been doing this since 1999. So I'm going to stand firm on that. You know, I'm standing firm with that. You know, so anyway, so this is why it's called the straight talk with my Bruce Wilson show. Basically, this is the time I can say what I want to. You think I want to, I can say, right? I'm very fortunate to be a part of the governor's army. I'm a human rights commissioner for the state of my, you know, when our lawyer said, my lawyer said to me to our team said, Bruce, I asked, how many people I represent as a commissioner of the state of my city? You represent 667,000 people. Whoa, that's a lot. I'm proud to, you know, you might need my help about anything about human rights commission. I'll refer you to our incredible B. Harman, our executive director and our legal top legal senior lawyer. She can send it out to our team and help you out. You know, if you have any quit or send you my things that I might be able to help you with, you know, I can help you. I'll try to do my best. And so I'm happy to be a part of that. I'm happy to be over my mental health that I also was appointed by the governor to be a part of. Because if you say you don't have mental health issues, something wrong with you. I know I got mental health. Thank God for these mental health issues. I, you know, I ain't better than no damn body. I ain't trying to be. I want to just continue to get better. You know what I'm going to do that from people, like all of you. It's all the way. I'm going to get better. I got mental health issues. Yes, I do. For those of you who just say you have no mental health issues, and there's nothing wrong with you, and you're too good for to learn from you. Here's some advice from Bruce Wilson. I didn't learn this from nobody. But I think that if you dig a hole, like six feet down and jump in it and throw it and throw six feet of dirt on yourself and then that's perfect being perfect. Let's see if you can do that. You know, that's that's being perfect. I don't have to do that. I'm not telling you to do that because you can't do it in no way. You can dig the hole but you can't throw six feet. You can't throw the dirt back on yourself. Anyways, here I am talking, talking like Bruce Wilson from the South Side of Chicago. That's me. So anyways, March. Let's go over some things. What time is it? So I'm still good. March. So we got some stuff that I'm working and helping with in March. Wow. Let's think. Let's think, man. It's January. Wow. No, no. Yes, yes, it is. It's January, man. Oh, fast. January 11th. That's mid-month. Whoa. That's something coming up. January 15th. Everybody MLK day. It's a day on not a day off. So you know, I think go clean your don't listen. You can spend all your day working. But you know, most people do like a couple hours a day and do some community service opportunities. Go over some organizations, some non-profits who might need your help and do some things. You know, who knows how to be on January 15th. It could be snow everywhere. I want to show about somebody's driveway or whatever, you know, or show about your own damn driveway. You know, sometimes we all get so lazy. And that's include me, you know, like, oh God, I got to do something. But somebody always want me to do something on MLK day. And I'm very proud to do it because I really can't think of all things to do on MLK day, you know, because I think I I feel I do a lot for involuntaryism. Like I say, we have all 50 awards and we've done over 700 events. And I can't think of a lot of things else to do for as volunteering. But I'll do it if I can, you know, I'm gonna get no younger. That's for sure. But I'll try. I'm not I'll try. I help. So anybody wondering how to reach me, just Google my name. You just say, I need your helpers. So MLK, man. Wow, Martin Luther King day, man. Figure that. It's a big deal. You know, we've I think we've come, you know, you know, you are my age, born and raised in civil rights movement. You would say that we've come some we've come a far. But we didn't come. We haven't come a long ways. We really haven't. You know, it's like things, it just words change. It says words change, situations change, demographic change. These things changes, you know. But when it comes down to like civil rights, racism, being stereotyped, you know, these things really don't change. You know, you might get a smile on your face this time, but not usually people from their heart born and raised in racism, born and raised with stereotypical ways and angry about some race or somebody usually that stick with them. I don't care what the hell, black lives matter or what the hell it is. They usually change states with them. I'm here to tell you. I said, oh, man, so many anti-racism programs in the state of Vermont. From the Human Rights Commission to the School District of Anti-racism, Green Mountain Transit, Justice and Diversity and Inclusion. My God, I can't even think of all the anti-racism programs that I sit on for years and years and years. And all the room be filled. Everybody talk about it. And then all of a sudden the room get empty. And where are the people who was like, you know, black lives matter with anti-racism. Let's, you know, let's be proud of each other. Let's look out for each other in the ways that we can. I mean, let's do these things. And also they disappear. I've seen this. I've been in Vermont since 1989. I've seen this happen more than once. And so the words are turned different. You know, so let's bring out people of color, people who look like me, you know, Bipop. Let's bring them, let's bring them in the front room. Let's stop the back room stuff, you know, let's not make deals in the back room. You know, you thought that you had a chance. And all of a sudden, when you come out and anybody smile and you think you got a chance because your resume is incredible and you're an incredible person and the job is you feel you can do it and you can learn from others within the organization that you want to work for. And they have already made the decision who's going to be. So it's not really no the back rooms are still they're still there, you know, the back room is still there, you know, it's it's pitiful. It's pitiful. So my phone is going off to my community partners. And we'll call him right back in a second. But I'm saying so I'm so I've got a little some issues around you know, I sit on, you know, I've got issues around a lot of things you know, about obviously, if I didn't love everybody, which my parents taught me, I wouldn't be in Vermont since 1989, the whitest state in America. Well, somebody says a second white state, white top five type 10, top 10, still white state, which is OK. People are all right. You know, obviously, I don't have no problem with them. But this is 89. And if I had a problem with white people, I wouldn't be in Vermont this long. But I do know what racism is. I know how people with steertip steertip is, you know, many times, I mean, I be sitting in, many times sitting with our youth centers or our galleries and I'm just at the front just hanging out because usually I'm in the back, you don't even see me, you don't even know I'm the principal of all these places. And they're like, well, you know, last, last one with our gallery, somebody like, how'd you get this to die for a job? You know, because I'm sitting at the front greeting people. That's which that's part of I guess the connector of the, you know, pipe popper and me. This is what I think I'm really good at that. And wow, I said, how'd you do it? I said, well, usually I don't sit right here at the front. I sit right in the back out of the way, you know, that are you for coordinators run this place or run our stuff because it ain't about me. My job is to help them with it, whatever they need. And I said, but it was in absolutely, you know, so how this place can be was that we want to evolve from youth centers to sit at our gallery, to our gallery. And so so I said, OK, so I opened up our gallery. And so when they when they say to see that, well, I'm the guy who opened up this place, they look at me like, you, you, I get that look like I got to be like, not, not to wear your white sauce cab, moves cab, bears cap guy to the left. Bear. Yeah, it's me. I'm sorry, it's good. That's me. That's me. But, you know, so they kind of have for them to understand sometimes that person who looked like me can can care about people who like them, you know, everybody like the government is you or I lawyer said a lawyer say you were position six hundred and sixty seven thousand people. It's it's it's hard for individuals to to sometimes see what person of color, me, black man who cares about everybody and actually go out this way to do things, you know, to actually do these things. So but it'll bother me at all because I expected to know. Yeah, I expect. So anyway, let's go over some of these of us. Yeah. And any time somebody want to get in touch with me, Bruce Wilson, eight one seven at gmail.com is B.R.U.C.E. W.I.L. S.O.N. eight one seven at gmail.com. Send me I'll get right with you, go on some coffee or something, you know, straight straight up for me, you know, I think that's what the governor and all mayors and all these senators and congresspeople like me because I'm straight up and no shake on what I'm talking about. I mean it. I mean it, you know, I'm not going to be like acting like somebody else or some token black person. You won't find that in me at all. You know, and I sit on the Vermont State Police Fair and Personal Police. I work with the chiefs around around the state. I, you know, I all the things I work with law enforcement and all kind of things, you know, I do. I work with them. I don't work with them, but I work with them. Anyways, so anyways, here we go. March. Yeah. Damn, man. This is January, February, March. Woo, thank God I got too much. Vermont Housing Finance Agency. I'm helping them put on event and when this key is called the first time buyers information. They go talk to individuals about the first time home buyers, right? So your parents never had a home or then you might be eligible. You are. That's our job is being as well because you'd be the first time home buyers. And so basically we're going to sign people up on March 8th when they come to a branch center to and Vermont Housing Finance agency will talk to you about what it tells to be a first time home buyer, how to help you maybe with some grants without community partners and more people who still have mortgage, mortgage lenders and like credit unions. These type of people, banks and they will be there at this event and they will be there very happy because you know they're going to be very happy. They definitely want to sign you up. And so I'm very happy to like when we first had I mean I like how we got to do when this key first, you know, because when this key is very unique in people, new Americans, a lot of new Americans are there. And you know, they pay a lot of money to stay in a place they, they stay here already. Why not have a place, you know, son, why not maybe get a duplex and run into somebody else and think, you know, they'd be like 50 events. I mean 50 units somewhere. Anyways, so that's March 8th. I'm going to have the whole entire O'Brien Center. And that's how we do events though over 700. Listen, so we're going to have the community room where the food and presentations will be when you walk in, people going to be through our team, our volunteering team was going to be signing people up, you know, for the first time home buyers, whereas that from our housing finance agency will come and contact you and interview you and see are you ready, not right there. But somewhere once they get all the lists compiled. And then for meanwhile, they, for my housing finance agency will talk, will be speaking for about an hour about what it entails to be a first time home buyer. And ours, we're going to have like cutting units and banks and mortgages and realtors and all that there. And so we're going to have a swag bag for you know, like from to give you that these individuals, these organizations you can just throw things, drop things in there. Or you can sign up with them about what you want to meet with them about you want to meet with them. And also on the lead on this first time buyer is a partnership between Vermont Housing and Vermont Human Rights Commissioner. And I'm a Vermont, I'm a commissioner for the state of Vermont Human Rights Commission. So they want to talk to you back. They will they want you might will sign up with them to just talk about some issues you might have in your you know, in your life. And so we'll have other providers like we're not there yet. But we already know we have going to survive from like, you know, CJC's from CVOO people like that who who would see you and know about you can learn about other ways you can get information about first time home bar and the facts from having a home. All right. So that's going to mean I got I got March 8th. I think that's what I said we'll do that. Then you got April. April. CVOO. Fair Housing Project. Yeah, they do it every year. And it's like a arson craft contact contest. And they have information about Fair Housing, you know, what it is. It wouldn't tell the measurements, the demographics, the outcome. You learn you learn about it. And so it's going to be at City Hall. Or so we're going to have. So what if we're going to have something with that and we'll have like normally a contest of art and then we'll pick art art, who won the art and then when prices and they will have information about the count on words for housing. What's the minimum housing we have? How many more houses do we need? You know, things, whatever you think what Fair Housing Project is, it'll be through CVOO, which is, it's so wonderful. And for my Human Rights Commission, which was nice. And another thing. So right now, right now, art so wonderful, Bruce T. Wilson. We've got a new new business is called it's called Bruce T. Wilson, I.N.C. And we are calling artists and muralists to, you know, we are so art so wonderful is one of our programs and we have over 60 percent of the murals in Burlington. And around we have everywhere is like in St. Rivers. We in 2010 we we we found it. We created art so wonderful electric box. So you see a lot of electric boxes. Between us and our sponsors. We got we we have a lot a lot of we own those we own those boxes. Anyways, um. So what we're going to be doing with the Burlington Business Association, starting at I I'm helping working with April 5th, I said April 5th was called Sunset Cleanup, which we're going to have on graffiti removal and you know, we're going to have these little world best graffiti removal, little dang towels and we just walk around and get little spots off the wall. You're taking pictures. You know, hopefully you're going to pass something to us. We're going to coordinate that and hopefully I can get a Burlington High School students because Burlington High School students need 40 hours of community service to graduate. You can do all 40 hours in one week if you wanted to. Usually they go 10 per year, but they need 40 to graduate. So we're going to look for them really for our Burlington Business Association members. We'll look for Chamber of Commerce members because you know, if you give graffiti on your property, guess what? You're going to want somebody to come help you get it off just like you should come help us get stuff up. And we're going to be dead on that. I created the Burlington I created graffiti removal program to 2001 for Burlington City of Burlington Community Justice Center. And we still continue to do what's so wonderful. So calling artists and muralists to contact ArtsSoWonderful at gmail.com. So it's A-R-T-S ArtsSoWonderful at gmail.com. So you want to be your artist and you want to do some murals? Because we're going to do some of those, some of this I'm calling the Sunset Cleanup that our executive director Kelly DeVos sent me some information about what they some work people do around the country around how those businesses and politics and schools and everybody get together and they actually take time out to keep their downtown and city clean. How important is that? You know, it's like one hour. You imagine you got 50 people one hour wiping up some graffiti off of all of those little graffiti, wipe it off. You got 50 people doing that like once a once a week or once a month. I haven't decided if it's going to be once a week or once a month. But definitely it's going to be April 5th. It's called Sunset Cleanup probably like from five or six or six to seven or seven. You know, we're going to have some cool stuff happening that day, you know, give us some refreshment. Cocoa won't help. Whatever we decide, I'm going to talk to Kelly and Colin about how are we going to treat the people that help out. You know, we know for a fact if we're going to high school kids, because they get ten hours, they get hours served. How wonderful is that? Just walk around your school and wipe up graffiti off your school with little wipes. You spent an hour doing that. You know what I mean? You do that, man, you can get ten hours easily doing that. But per year. So that's March, Vermont Housing Finance Agency first time buyers. That's March 5th. April is going to be at the O'Brien City. I'm telling you, it's going to be tight. We got one missing. I ain't messing around. This, I got the dining room. I got the, you know, the big room, the community room. I got the kitchen. I got the foil when you first walk in. I got the basketball court where we have like live entertainment. They're going to have like, you're going to have a while, isn't it? Yeah. Live entertainment there. I think it's going to be what is the name of this group? From Africa to Vermont. Yeah, yeah. ATVT. They're going to be nice. They're going to say, they're going to say from Vermont. I mean, I live in Winnuski. They're going to see the Winnuski song. So that's going to be nice. So we're going to have that. It's going to be in the gym. We have bounce houses and castles for the little kids. Free food and refreshments. It's going to be a big deal for the individuals who live in Winnuski. So here I am. Tuning it out right now. I'm Bruce Wilson. And I'm happy to be able to serve this, be able to do this show about myself. You know, you know, I stand by what I say. I might have made some mistakes or some of the words that I'm about to use. But I'm really going, I really mean when I say everything I say. And so just know, just know I got the Town Mean TV Award for being the Community Connectors Award. You know, that goes to Bruce Wilson. You know, we've been doing shows since good Lord 2003. Look at that, man. So there you go. So I'm going to call the Connector, the Hub and the, what I say, the Piper for Youth. Thank you for joining in the story talk from our show. I'm Bruce Wilson. See you soon.