 All right, good evening everybody and welcome to today's merit awards. My name's Chris Rogers, I'm the mayor for the city of Santa Rosa and I just want to take a moment and welcome everyone here today. This is our 40th merit awards here in Santa Rosa. They started in 1978 and personally it's my favorite event that we do every single year. And talking to other council members, I know that it's for them as well. We get so easy, particularly as times are difficult in our community, to forget about all of the folks who are doing incredible things to support one another. And the merit awards are an opportunity for us to stop and say, who's making a difference in the community that isn't normally recognized? How do we continue to foster community through these efforts? And how do we make sure that we set an example for future generations as well on how neighbors can help neighbors to make Santa Rosa be a better place? I want to welcome you, you'll hear from some of our council members as they introduce award recipients. And I want to say a big thank you to all of our recipients and their families for being here today. You'll also get a chance to hear from our Merit Awards Committee. We have four members who are up here today. We have Karen Weeks, Grace Villafuerta, Diane Test and Carolina Spence. You'll hear from them and I want to start off by giving them a huge round of applause for leading this effort. The Merit Awards really recognize folks for four different categories. Beautifying our community, expanding the artistic and historic culture of the city, enriching our neighborhoods, serving others, particularly young people. And they have come to become our community heroes, sort of our lifetime achievement for our community. Again, I want to thank you for being here, for all of you for taking the time, for all of you for doing the work and putting in to make Santa Rosa a better place. With that, I'm going to turn it over to our committee, Carolina Spence, who leads the effort as the chair. And just thank you so much for everything you do, day in and day out. And we're sending Chris over to his corner so he can have his picture taken with all of the winners. So keep your eye on him. It's a pleasure chairing the Merit Awards. The program call began in April, and we called to the community for nominations and the Merit Award Committee reviewed, selected for all of these wonderful nominations to finalize the list of honorees. So how this is going to go is during the evening ceremony, each committee member will take a few moments to describe the achievements of the Merit Award winner. And we'll invite the individual or group to come up, accept their award from the mayor, who is in his chair, and your photograph will be taken at the time. We're, as an aside, we are dedicating this ceremony to our former Merit Award Committee member, Vince Harper. Vince devoted his life to local at-risk youth in improving the lives of the community around him. The city of Santa Rosa mourns the death of this beloved community member. And as you leave the building tonight, look at the lovely display of Vince in the hallway outside the room. Now, I'd like to introduce Council Member Diana McDonald, who will announce the first category. She's my council member. Thank you, Carolina. Do I get an applause? I'm just kidding. It's only time we get applause from being a council member, so I appreciate it. The Serving Others category recognizes groups and individuals for their contributions towards improving the lives of others in Santa Rosa, especially young people, seniors, and those in need. Now, it'll be Karen Weeks. It was really smooth. Thank you. So the first Merit Award winner tonight is Ian Rich. In 2013, at the young age of nine, Ian Rich founded Operation Blanket, an outreach program for the unsheltered in our community that has donated thousands of blankets to people experiencing homelessness. The idea grew out of Ian's karate practice where he first learned the word compassion. One night, Ian sat down to dinner with his family to discuss what he could do to show compassion for the many homeless people he saw around town. After discussion and wondering what it might take to provide everyone with new homes, he decided blankets might be a more feasible option. Operation Blanket regularly provides blanket deliveries year round to nine homeless service agencies for Sonoma County, even when Ian and his family lost everything in the 2017 Tubbs Fire. He still conducted his annual drive hosted at Cottington Center. Ian now 18, is the youngest of six and has five older sisters who I'm sure are very, very proud of him, as well as his parents. He enjoys being an uncle, tenices, and nephews. He lives with his mom and dad and their dog named Bear. Thank you, Ian, for being an inspiration to all of us. We are honored to present you with a 2022 Santa Rosa Merritt Award. Our next merit award winners is Regina Brennan and Enzinga Woods. In 2017, stemming from a group of community members who felt an urgency to address critical needs in our community by standing together to uplift each other during challenging times, Regina Brennan and Enzinga Woods co-founded the Sonoma County Black Forum non-profit. Its purpose was to build and sustain an engaged, inclusive, and informed community. Early in the pandemic, Regina and Enzinga led the quest to identify the most urgent needs of their community. They were quick to respond to the community's answers and focused on providing healthy and substantial food to those who needed it. Sonoma County Black Forum worked quickly and hosted three food distribution events at Santa Rosa High School in 2020 and three more in 2021. This location allowed them to provide a safe, contact-free distribution where participants could stay in their vehicles while picking up much-needed grocery items. Sonoma County Black Forum also delivered to populations who had difficulty attending the drive-through events. Not only did residents provide heartfelt appreciation, but volunteers were able to recognize additional urgent needs of their participants. The Sonoma County Black Forum included these needs in its focus. They continue to expand their services and have remained dedicated and persistent in their desire to impact their community positively. Congratulations to Regina Brennan and Enzinga Woods for being a 2022 Santa Rosa Merit Awards winners. And I'd like to introduce you to Tyler Wallace. Tyler, would you mind sort of wandering your way up there so they could hear about you and see you at the same time? This is called really embarrassing people. Please meet Tyler Wallace, who during the COVID pandemic wondered what he could do to help seniors who were isolated at home stay motivated. In answer to that question, he formed a new organization plan with Santa Rosa High School where he attends and the Council on Aging. Working with the Council on Aging Executive Committee, board members, students, and he formed the Council on Aging Student Leadership Alliance. Now if you can say all that, you get to belong. Over the past 12 months, the students, 19 of them, have made presentations to other high schools and launched their first project, Funding Lunches for At-Home Seniors. To do this, they obtained, listen, this is a great plan. To do this, they obtained 200 prom gowns from Macy's, sold them to high school students for $20 each. Tyler coordinated free advertising from the PD, airtime to advertise at the Dress Project, and the money from the sale of the dresses went directly back to Council on Aging Meals on Wheels, offering free meals to seniors. Congratulations to Tyler for his creativity, leadership, hard work, and I'd say glamour. Thank you for introducing Tom Schwedhelm. Thank you. I just want to reiterate what Chris had mentioned about it. Thank you all for being here because there's so many different choices everyone in this community has. But on Monday night, there's not only one NFL Monday night football game, but there's two, but you still chose to be here, so thank you so much. And I'm hoping you, just like I am, finding this inspirational because a lot of us work a lot in the community. Then you start seeing some of these examples for being recognized, and you're like, holy smokes, I can do more. So thank you for being here. And one other person I don't think we introduced over there next to the mayor is Brandon Sweeney out of Mike Thompson's office. I really appreciate Brandon representing Mike Thompson's office, our wonderful congressman. And so I get to introduce the cultural enrichment category. So the cultural enrichment category recognizes those who have worked to enrich the artistic and historical culture of Santa Rosa. And committee member Diane Test is going to introduce our first recipient. Thank you. I'd like to introduce Rachel Evans. Rachel Evans has been a competitive dancer since she was a young girl. As a junior in high school, she created Sonoma County Dancers United and continues the nonprofit organization now as executive director. Sonoma County Dancers United's mission is to work with dance studios, public schools, and organizations to promote dance opportunities for children and teens. Rachel is a paralegal with the Department of Justice. Still, her passion is giving back through dance so that youth and teens have the opportunity to build their creativity, physical fitness, and overall mental health, which are critical to youth development. Rachel seeks out grants and donations so that youth can apply for scholarship opportunities for four months of free lessons at Santa Rosa Dance Studios of their choice. The nonprofit Sonoma County Dancers United was also awarded a City of Santa Rosa grant to participate with other non-profit in an anti-bullying workshop as part of the Violence Prevention Partnership. Rachel also has taught dance in public schools located in Rosalind and South Park. During COVID, she created dance lessons, videos, and distributed the links on social media for schools to use. Rachel's dance lessons may include many dance styles, including ballet all the way to hip-hop. Thank you, Rachel. We are honored to present you with the 2022 Santa Rosa Merit Award. I'd like to introduce Karen Weeks. The next recipient is the Sonoma County Lowrider Council. In August 2020, members from the Sonoma County Lowrider Council, staff from the Office of Community Engagement, former police chief Ray Navarro, and former mayor and current city council member Tom Schwedhelm, met to discuss how to foster a better relationship between the Santa Rosa Police Department and the greater community. During these listening sessions, the idea of a low-rider patrol car came to be. The project was inspired by similar projects in Stockton, Oakland, and San Diego, as seen by Jose Carras of the Lowrider Council. Over the next eight months, six local car clubs from Sonoma County Lowrider Council work to transform a retired 2011 Ford Crown Victoria police interceptor into the Mary Lou Lowrider Patrol Car. In addition, Enterprise Rental Cars donated a stereo with bodywork and paint done by the Body Shop of Santa Rosa. There goes half our audience. $17,000 was provided by the Office of Community Engagement to complete the project. The Mary Lou was unveiled to the Santa Rosa community in March of 2022. The Lowrider is named after fallen detective Mary Lou Armour with permission from her family. Detective Armour was the first California peace officer to pass away in the line of duty from COVID-19 in 2020. Amiral of Her and Her badge number 442 is on the vehicle. The Mary Lou is a symbol of collaboration and teamwork and is used for engagement and educational purposes within the city. The Mary Lou continues to attend community events and parades throughout Santa Rosa. Thank you so much Sonoma County Lowrider's Council for months of hard work, commitment and dedication. And now I'd like to bring Council Member Diana McDonnell back up to announce the next category. Thank you, Karen. The beautifying our community category recognizes those who enhance the beauty and the livability of Santa Rosa. And Grace, are you coming up next? The show must go on. Thank you. Our next recipient is Robert Ash. He weighs in trails in Santa Rosa and has taken the initiative to pick up garbage along our creeks since spring 2020. Robert has gained the support of the Santa Rosa Wreck and Park Division who has given him supplies and a key to a storage closet to hold some of his tools. Robert also collaborates with the Russian River Keeper and Santa Rosa Creek Stewards who has performed this daily routine of picking up trash solo for much of the last few years. Recently, Jordan Benavidez has joined him in cleaning the creeks and is also committed to keeping the environment clean and highlighting this critical issue to the community. Robert states that having just one additional partner daily not only doubles the work completed and provides welcome companionship but also allows him some time to source additional ways to pick up and prevent debris from entering the creeks. Dedicated to keeping the creeks and trails safe and clean, Robert also paints over graffiti along the trail. He is well known along the trail, provides conversation and education to others about how to positively affect our environment and encourages community members to volunteer to help nurture our environment. Robert expresses what I do downtown affects what happens further west and states that residents performing acts such as sweeping their curbs to prevent debris from entering the waterways would positively impact them as well. Congratulations Robert Ash on being a 2022 Santa Rosa Merritt Award winner. I'd like to introduce council member Natalie Rogers who announced the next category. Strengthening neighborhoods. The Strengthening Neighborhoods category recognizes those who strengthen and enrich our neighborhoods making them more connected, resilient and enjoyable for all residents. And I want to say Diane Test if I remember. The next recipient is Jane Engdahl. Over the last several years, Jane has utilized her event organizing experience with the Sonoma County Fair to strengthen the Burbank Gardens neighborhood by hosting neighborhood parades with music and prizes. Each parade in the Burbank Gardens neighborhood is led by Jane on an adult tricycle with her boom box blaring. Jane creates posters, puts them throughout the neighborhood and shares them with social media. Everyone is welcome and as many as 100 neighbors have participated in the parades to celebrate Halloween, Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter and the 4th of July. And fostered a renewed sense of community despite the challenges we have all experienced over the past several years. Congratulations Jane on being a 2022 Merritt Award winner. I now would like to introduce city council member John Sawyer who will announce the next category. Thanks Diane. First of all, I've been doing this for many years and I used to sit where these very lucky people and it's challenging to sit where they're sitting. You have to say no sometimes. It is a limited number of awards that are given out each year and depending on how many nominees you have, there is the need to say to make tough choices. It's always very rewarding because you get to see what happens on the final night. In addition to thanking the committee and acknowledging their hard work, I have to say that I think this is one of the most enthusiastic audiences I've ever seen at the Merritt Awards. Please give yourselves a round of applause. It's been a while since it was held in this room. We were from a number of years. We were in the council chamber and it had actually a limited number of people that it could handle. This is much better. I love the larger venue and hopefully we'll be able to do it here into the future. So what I'm going to do is introduce the next category. It's community heroes category. The community heroes category recognizes those individuals who rose to a challenge offering their courage, strength and self-sacrifice in service to the community. And I wasn't sure who was going to introduce. Our next recipient is Food for Thought. For over 30 years, Food for Thought has provided the residents of Sonoma County with healthy food through their thousands of hours of volunteers' hard work and dedication. Food for Thought is a non-profit, started in 1988 by a handful of compassionate citizens who wanted to meet the most basic needs of those with HIV and AIDS in their community. They have not only continued this work, but expanded their services dramatically in the past three decades. Their numerous services today include cultivating and maintaining their garden, where they harvest vegetables to distribute to people, and providing ingredients for volunteers to prepare home cooked meals in Food for Thought's commercial kitchen. Volunteers also collect and bag groceries for clients, either picked up or delivered to residents' homes. Younger volunteers also help with food drives throughout the year. Food for Thought volunteers also deliver freshly cooked meals to people's homes using dozens of driving routes throughout the county. Over 800 individual volunteers provided $362,600 worth of hours to Food for Thought this year alone and served 12,705 homes. They truly have a hard-working and dedicated group of volunteers who offer their time seven days a week, some of whom have been volunteering since the beginning. And they reflect the diversity of our community. Congratulations to Food for Thought for being a Community Hero and 2022 Santa Rosa Merit Award winner. Two recipients are Patricia Marino and Anna Salgado. Patricia and Anna, are you out here? Do you want to wander up here? There you go. Perfect, perfect, perfect. If you listen, because they're always behind the mic, nobody gets to see them. If you listen to KBBF radio station, you will hear Anna and Patricia. They have the bilingual program at KBBF for the last nine years. They inform the community of what's happening in Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. It airs on Friday from four to six. Their audience consists of very loyal youth, parents and seniors who want to be kept informed. They also help listeners speak up. Facing fear is not easy, as we all know. But with these two ladies' guidance, the audience gets all the current information on fire, floods, pandemic, along with recovery. While spreading the information, they express a calm presence that removes all the fear and replaces it with confidence. The audience is very grateful for KBBF and the ongoing support of Anna and Patricia. With information and coaching, these two ladies have taken care of their listeners through all the challenges that our local community has faced. The work of these two energetic women feel a niche in our community supporting people who feel afraid and giving them empowerment to be accepted and included. Congratulations, Anna and Patricia, and thank you again. We are on our last recipient, and remember I told you it won't even be an hour. We're right on the target here. And before we read Susan Hayes, I want to be sure and encourage you all to think about nominating someone again next year. Start early. We can remind you if you'd like us to, because we're very persistent. And you can see what a wonderful event this is. So as we wrap it up, we're going to wrap it up with Susan Hayes. Susan, where are you? There you are. Susan is the real deal. She includes generosity and love in every encounter she shares. She advocates for the underprivileged communities, and she dedicates her time to providing for those who need a caring hand and a listening ear. Formally a noose, a nurse, Susan now commits to volunteering countless hours at Catholic Charities. For over 15 years of service, she has been a fundamental anchor in keeping vital programs afloat, especially now through the choppy waters that we're getting over the pandemic. With a small team, Susan collects, organizes, and gives away gently used clothing to housing people, houseless people in Santa Rosa. In addition, she travels to each homeless center every week to talk to staff, check in on them, and assess for the Sam Jones Hall residents. And she is an avid member of her church as a reaction parish. Her love knows no bounds, and she would say she's just a phone call away. We are blessed and honored to have such a close relationship with a vital community member. Susan's gentle spirit and positive... And I want to thank our indomitable chairperson, Carolina, for leading us. And wonderful staff, Kim Hatch. We couldn't deal without her. She's terrific. And I'd also like to thank two council members who are on their farewell tour. Tom Schwedhelm and John Sawyer. John has been an avid supporter of Merida Woods both before he was on council and on council. And Tom has been an avid supporter for the last eight years. He's been on council, and I just want to thank them. Excuse me. I'm choking up. Now everybody can go home.