 Hello, Columbia. I'm your host, Alicia Utsi, and welcome to City View, where we bring you an inside view of the city of Columbia. In our top story, we have a big story. And it's about the veranda and the grand opening that was recently held in North Columbia. A truly great city is a city for all people. And we've got to make sure that we make the investments, the strategic investments, good, smart, public, private partnerships that allow for people to not only live in the city, but also to age in the city. And particularly, this project, the veranda, serving as high quality, you're not going to find anything better than this anywhere in the city or, I dare say, the country. High quality living for people who pay their dues to society, live good lives, and, quite frankly, laid the foundation that each and every one of us stands on the day. To be able to age in a high quality life, it's a big deal. It took a lot of people working together for a significant period of time. Private sector folks, city leaders, non-profit leaders, the C-E-Z, Inc., neighborhood stakeholders, sharing their vision about what they wanted to see out here in North Columbia. And it's part of a much larger strategy, from streetscaping to neighborhood park development. There's so much going on out here. And we're excited about what it means for the future of Columbia. Our vision is for Columbia to be the most talented educated and entrepreneurial city in America. This is a significant piece of that puzzle. And speaking of grand openings, we also had a grand opening at Hampton Park for the new community center. The work of so many folks for so long, visioning what was to happen here and making it happen. We want to make sure we have strong, healthy neighborhoods for our families, for our babies, to recreate them for all of us, to enjoy over the course of our lives. Congratulations to our folks at Parks & Park. Congratulations to the folks who've been working and praying for Hampton Park for a long time, to the wonderful leadership over here and Brandon Eggers, Cedar Terrace. Well, in addition to opening the new community center at Hampton Park, Parks and Recreation staff have also been busy hosting events for senior citizens in our community. Here for small business owners is where and how they can find capital and funding for their businesses. Well, the Office of Business Opportunities recently held a symposium free to small business owners to help them answer those questions. And as we're talking about access, we're also talking about all access, the quarterly workshops that are hosted by community development. They recently held one at the Charles R. Drew Wellness Center. The Columbia Police Department and the Columbia Fire Department recently joined other local law enforcement agencies in the annual Boots and Badges Blood Drive. We do know that this is the time of year where blood donations are lower. So we want to make sure that we get as many donations as we can in hopes of saving lives. Policemen and firefighters get injured as well. And so we need us just in case we get injured out in the line of duty. So it's very important to make sure you've got a vital supply of blood just in case it's needed. Well, in addition to participating in the annual Blood Drive, the Columbia Fire Department and the firefighters that work there have also been busy training doctors in our community about firefighters and how they rescue others. A big part of this is obviously we take care of patients that are rescued from fires or car crashes or whatever the case may be. But a big thing we also do is take care of injured firefighters when they get hurt. So it's important for our physicians who know who are on the front lines of this at the hospital to know the stresses they're involved in firefighting, whether it be smoke, heat, or just injuries that occur from broken bones to anything else that they may incur. So what this allows our physicians to do is to kind of see the hazards that they face every day. Annually, Fire Chief Robert D. Jenkins and our local firefighters take out to the streets with their boots, but not on because it's the field-to-boot campaign for muscular dystrophy. This $130,000 goes to support people and families like myself. People who are out there and living their lives fully engaged, making the best of what life has to offer. For each and every single person they gave to the campaign who stopped at the stop lights who stopped at the intersections and gave whatever change they had to give, thank you. It was a very small gesture that has huge ramifications because, again, this is about empowering people to live big, full, authentic lives. We had a lot of stories on City View. We hope we've given you an inside view of the City of Columbia. If you have any questions about any of the stories you've seen, contact Public Relations, Media, and Marketing at 545-3020. Email us at pio.columnsc.gov. And you can definitely visit our website at columnsc.gov for more information, as well as following us on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And definitely stay tuned right here to City TV for the latest news, information, and updates from the City of Columbia. And we thank you for watching.