 If you're a teenager out there, a middle schooler or high schooler, don't just sit around on the couch and watch ESPN or Bravo or the soap operas, come out to the library and be a part of a teen section here that is very active and is a great resource to continue learning throughout the summer. If you have a goal of going to college, the best place to be during the summer is right here at the library, continuing your learning by exploring the world of these books and resources. So a challenge for the families of San Antonio and our teenagers to read as much as possible this year and make this the most successful summer reading program ever. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, and if I may, I would like to publicly thank you for, well, this may be your last time, however, we will continue to invite you. Thank you for being such a great champion of the library summer reading club. Thank you so much for endorsing it, for supporting it, and for talking about the importance of reading. We really appreciate and thank you for your support. Introduce two members of our key roles in the Mayor's Summer Reading Club. Dr. Vicky Ash and Jennifer Velasquez. Vicky oversees the younger target population, and Jennifer, as our team services coordinator, focuses on our teams. They both work very hard to develop a very, very structured program during the summer to reach as many young people as possible. Again, to talk about the importance of reading during the summer when children are on vacation. And if they don't keep reading, they can fall back in their reading skills and reading levels, and it's because of their work that we continue to impact the community and promote reading during the summer months. And I'd like to invite both of them to the podium to tell you more about what they do together. We're being here. The theme of the Summer Reading Club this year is Fins Boom Read. And so we're having a scientific sort of summer. As you can see, there's green slime everywhere. I want to say, though, that we have two things we want to think about with children and reading in the summer. One of them is really a message for their parents that we really are concerned about children losing reading skill over the summer. We call this the summer slide. And if a child is a little bit behind at the beginning of the summer and they don't crack a book all summer long, they're a little further behind when school starts again in the fall. So this idea of helping children to maintain or even increase their reading skill is certainly very important to us. But long before we even knew about summer slide, libraries were encouraging summer reading quite frankly for pleasure and for fulfilling your own sense of curiosity. So this is a time when children can learn about things that they just want to know about, not a time when somebody tells them what they need to learn about. It's a time when they can read books that help them build their empathy for other people and try on other lives. So we really want to encourage reading for fun and reading for skill. But my job I feel like is to help children learn to love to read. And that's what we're hoping will happen this summer with all the kids who join the reading club. Absolutely. And if I could just add that teens really have the opportunity to visit their library and not just read. This is an opportunity for our school learning and an opportunity to become involved in their community. If they're looking for volunteer service hours, if they're looking for something to do, the library in their community is a place for them to call home during the summer. And it's my job to invite 13 to 18 year olds to visit their library, partake in our activities, read our books and participate. Thank you. This is Jean Grady. It's a former school librarian. She understands the importance of reading. But I'd like to recognize Jean for her leadership on the Library Board of Trustees, for her passion for the services the library provides and offers. She works very hard on your behalf and introduced Jean Grady to you. Jean? Well, on behalf of the staff and of the Board of Trustees, I want to extend a real special thank you to Mayor Castro. We know he's really busy and we're glad he's here with us today. As you've heard them talk about the summer slide and all those things that go with it, we think that libraries are a really fun place to be. And I assure you that there are librarians here who will be there to help you. And I have to say that one of my favorite things to do in the summer was we didn't have a library in the little town I grew up in. And so we drove 15 miles to Denon, Texas. And we checked out, I checked out 15 books every week. And I'm a really fast reader, so that's what I did all summer was read. And I can't tell you how many doors it's open for me. Not just doing this job, but in getting to travel the world and see things that I never thought I'd get to see. So I assure you it pays off to be a reader. We appreciate Mayor Castro and all our partners that have helped put this on. We could not do it without all of you all. Especially the librarians who plan all the programs and the story times and all the things that keep children engaged all summer. So it's an exciting time for us. I'm pleased that you all are here. And I thank you for coming. Thank you. Once again for being here. One last thing to make it possible. And one last thank to Mayor Julien Castro. Thank you all for coming.