 I've got our first adoptive spot and I've got a second one who's getting ready to plant this weekend. Here's my family. Here's the red hooded one who's here. Hello ShadowGram. Nice white teeth. Thanks for having me. We've got a special filter bag. A lot of really familiar faces and thank you for being here. How can you tell? Yeah I think I can tell who you are. We began this project in 2018 with a hope and a dream to get rid of some terrible and very bad looking situation here. And I think we did it. And I'm so proud of everybody that did it. So thank you. We got a grant from the city and that was for $6,500 and that helped to start everything. We got a $3,500 donation from Union Point Apartments and that's how come we are including them. We're trying to make this an inclusive project that brings both of our communities together. I want to thank all of you but I'm going to start by telling you some of the people that have played a key role. Tim Waters you're on the city council and you guys had bucks so thank you. And Wayne, Wayne Tomic is the neighborhood resource specialist from the neighborhood and he runs the neighborhood group leaders association. And that is where we had to apply for a grant and jump through a bunch of hoops. So thank you Wayne, members. Carol Moors is here. Raise your hand when I say it. And is Mike here? Claire isn't here but we thank Mike because he's been the money guy. He's kept track of the money for me. And Ned Pinkerton, if it's and make it here, I don't think so. Okay. Darren Davidson is with the county extension and when this idea was just a little baby germ in our minds, we went over and met with her. And it was her direction that helped us form the building blocks for this project. And so we really appreciate her work. And is Kristen here from the Union Point Apartments? I don't think so. Okay. I also want you to know it was Blue Vista Landscaping Design that did the hardscape for us and they did an excellent job. And then environmental designs, there are landscapers, they did the, they put the stone down for us and took up all of the weeds and got rid of the fabric. So they really made it look great. And then Joel Thies is over there. Joel, raise your hand. Joel built the solitary bee house. Kristen Lester here. Okay. Kristen Lester is a resident and she painted our little learning box. Right now our learning box does not have anything in it, but eventually it's going to have some, I mean, we have the stuff, but we're just due to the pandemic. We're not putting it out yet, but we're going to have field guides and magnifying glasses in there for kids to do some research while they're in the habitat. And Ray Splitdle, where's Ray? Where's Ray? There's Ray. Ray built the arbor. Who here today? You will be as surprised as I was to see the adorable painted rocks. Karen Ward painted the rocks and we have materials of anybody or any grandkids or any kids who want to paint rocks. We've got the supplies and we'll share them with anybody. And then finally, well no, first I want to, before I say finally, I will thank all of the friends of the pollinator habitat for everything that you've done. If you're a friend of the pollinator habitat, raise your two hands. Raise your hand, Tom. He's kept us on track and he's calmed us down when things look bad and we appreciate everything Tom has done. Thank you, Tom. I'd like to introduce again Tim Waters. Do you like to say something? Can I take my mask off? You may take your mask off. I'll try not to project too much. So thanks for the invitation by the way. Thanks to all of you for all that you've done here. Wayne does a terrific job with the neighborhood group leaders association and really manages the whole neighborhood improvement program. The city does commit funds to that and then we count on HOAs and organized neighborhood groups to turn that money into something special. And that is what you've done here. You have been, the Chateau Grass HOA you should know is as well represented in the city as any neighborhood group in town. And it's Laura and others in this group. I have to say I point to this when others ask, what could we do as an HOA? I said, call Laura. Check out what's going on over at the Chateau Grass HOA because you guys have done an awesome job. So one of the comments and I've probably said this too many times. This will be the politician I guess coming out on me. But as an educator I spent my career in the field of education. I had a sign that my wife gave me. Maybe the first year I was teaching and I had it in my office wall of my entire career. And it said it went something like this. I used to ask, why doesn't somebody do something? Then I realized I am somebody, right? Now don't wait for someone else. Well, if I were to paraphrase that, this whole area I think had to be restored because of the construction that come through. And I'm guessing somebody at some point in time said, why doesn't somebody do something about that? And you all said, we are somebody and you did it. So good on you for taking the responsibility, owning this project and turning what was kind of a devastated area into something really special. And I can hardly wait. Do you have those materials in the microphone glasses? Because I have two granddaughters who are going to enjoy coming over here and doing some research. Wonderful. So thank you so much. Wonderful. Thank you. I'll be brief. These are anxious. These are anxious. I want to say, to me, this is really what the Neighborhood Group Leaders Association is all about. It's a network that we have fostered for decades in Longmont. It's a very unique organization. But it's really about empowering residents throughout our communities to come together and work together and improve their communities. I was really excited when you guys proposed this project. I thought, well, that's a really great and inventive project. We haven't really seen a lot of pollinator gardens, pollinator habitats built by neighborhoods in Longmont. But I know there's a lot of interest, especially in the last couple of years that you've been doing this. There's a lot of interest from other neighborhoods and what you're doing here. But it brings together all those aspects that make neighborhoods great. You had a need. You identified it. You came together. You worked together. You pulled from all the resources and assets. You found that clearly, all these different pieces, you have all these assets in your community. People who can build arbors. People who can build these different habitats, the rocks. It brings all those together. And the fact that you extended it beyond just creating this habitat. But my favorite part is that you integrated the educational piece into it. So it's going to live on way beyond just the habitat piece. It's going to educate children and bringing them up knowing things that maybe some of us didn't know when we were growing up how important pollinators are to our world. I also want to say that it has become such a model project that we're actually using it as an example. We have a new funding program that we just launched this week, actually, for neighborhoods. And we actually use this whole process that you've gone through. Really going to when you had the original kind of conception of talking and learning about pollinators all the way through creation of the habitat. And we use those steps as an example of the different kind of projects you can do through this funding. So it kind of lives on in that aspect too. And we hope that that's going to encourage a lot of other neighborhoods to do similar kind of projects which really meets the sustainability goals of transferring this grass turf over into really productive space. So I want to thank you obviously Laura and the friends have done so much work on this. Really great model from that aspect. It's all the community for supporting this kind of a project and being a part of it. So thank you on behalf of the city. One more comment. With all the drama going on in the country and around the world today, you look for bright spots. This is one. And in a city that has not only committed the resources to support this, the fellow right here who's operating this camera's name is Craig Stevens. Craig's the new executive editor of Longmont Public Media. That's your public access television service provider the city contracts with. So Craig's here to capture this, share it on YouTube and on the Longmont Public Media website and on the Facebook page. So you'll see it in the programming. Look for it and take advantage of what they bring to the city. They're doing a pretty extraordinary job in trying to create an interesting video to help all of us learn our way forward, not just through the tough times, but through the bright spot. So thanks to Craig for being here. Okay, so the final step of this thing is I've got 400 bees that we're going to release. They are solitary bees. They're gentle, but they're extremely excited to get out of their box. They're supposed to be in a little silk bag. And when I opened up the box to get them out of the, to get the bag out, they were coming out at me at home. So they're in there. I'm going to be putting them into the bee house and Ingrid, would you like to come up Ingrid, tell them who you're with. Stop. So maybe you can figure out who she is from looking at her now. That's what she is. Because I'm sure they're not afraid of bees. She's going, whoa. Come on up. We'll have to give them time. Oh, look, they're just itching to go. They're very small. They're called leaf cutter bees. So how do you get them to accept your new house? We have a special, well, hopefully they're going to just love it. They'll find their own. But we did add a little bit of a tractant to them. So Ingrid, what we're going to be doing is just opening it up and just letting it in here. And because there's many cocoons left to. We love pollinators. Do you like this? Yay. Let me work on it. Second one, we're getting ready to plant.