 Just before our Mayor welcomes us, let me just say a word of congratulations to all persons who have given of their time, their talents, their gifts in their service. Of course I want to thank our Mayor, Mayor Benjamin. I want to thank Parks and Rips. I want to thank our Mayor Pro Tem for being here today, other members of our Council who are here. Thank you so much. Our City Manager could not be here today. Of course she wanted to be here, but there's a death in Lancaster. Dr. Rucker, he died and of course she's participating and attending that funeral. We're also happy to have with us Councilwoman Yvonne McBride. Thank you so much for being with us. Let's have a good time today. How about that? Let's have a good time today. A beautiful field, a beautiful environment and guess what? We aren't through yet and that's the most important thing. Three years ago, three years ago as I stood on this ground with members of this neighborhood and this community, there was awesome cry from members of the neighborhood, we need some for our children. We need some for our children and of course this is the result of this taking place. You ought to give yourselves a big hand. So a field of dreams has turned into not only a field of promises, but a field of possibilities because as my grandmother used to say, we ain't through yet. So thank you all for being here. Thank you, Councilor Macdowell. I'm gonna say a brief word now in lieu of my remarks later in the program. It's a wonderful pleasure to be here with so many of our leaders. The way you keep a program like this short is you put all the speakers in the sun, y'all. All right. That means we'll keep our comments nice and brief, nice and brief. You see, it's all fanning up here. You know, we're just thankful. We're thankful for leaders like Councilman Macdowell and Bishop Mack and Reverend Graham and Councilman McBride. And certainly my friend Tamika is divine and I'm sure Senator Scott, who's amazing senator for their leadership, we're truly thankful for these men and brothers and the sister over here. Constant, steady, passionate leadership, neighborhood leadership, that community leadership, that you only see in special places and special people dedicated every which way to pull together any and every resource on behalf of these babies is it's amazing. Brothers and sisters, Coach Sanders, Coach, I mean, Regina, just thank y'all for all that you do, all that you've done, your passion, your leadership, your consistent leadership has led to the manifestation of this dream right here for for our children is going to benefit this this entire community. Thank you to each and every one of you. May God continue to bless you. Let's remember to make sure that we exhibit to these children every single day. The importance of showing what love looks like. The love looks like we're here. Young people. Some of you don't like they don't like to hear it. Some of you don't don't care for the hugs and the kisses. But we're here because we love y'all. We love y'all want to make sure that you have every single opportunity to live up to your God given potential. We expect you to do great things, great things. But we know that you can't raise yourselves. It requires each and every one of us stepping up to make sure that happens. God bless you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Let us by his and prayer with certain praise God for this wonderful awesome opportunity that we have today for the opening of all star fuel. Let us pray Father God we come once again in the mighty name of that son Jesus we thank you right now for a dream come true. We thank you Lord for a vision becoming a reality. We thank you Lord for this great opportunity to see community leaders and and leaders of our city to come together and open up this great all star field. We thank you for the partnership of Councilman McDowell and City Council, the partnership of Mayor Steve Benjamin, the partnership of Senators John Scott, Councilman McBride, Bishop Mack, Sister Regina Williams, our president of our neighborhood to come. The partnership of James Sanders, our community organizer. We thank you O'God for the partnership of the parents and all those who represent Parks and Rec for the Randy Davis. We pray O'God that you will bless this day and bless beyond this day O'God. Lord we thank you right now for the children of these communities. North Park, Baybury, Bethel Bishop, Colony apartment, Book of Washington Heights community. We thank you Lord that this field will serve as a place of refuge, a place of impact, influence, a place that will make and shape our children into good team players, good citizens, good soldiers doing your will in your way. So bless now this grand opening of this all star field and we'll forever give your name to praise, the honor and the glory in Jesus name we pray. Amen. I have not heard from John of course was extended that invitation to come but just let me say a word reference in Senator John Scott about two years ago of course after having a conversation with the neighborhood. It was my privilege to be in touch with John Scott to say exactly what we want to do here. And of course he was very willing and very gracious in saying what are you will do it? I said, Well, we need we need some for our children. And of course that began the ball to roll. Senator Scott was responsible for securing over $300,000. I think in that right, Randy. Randy's gone. $300,000 for the building of this field. And I just want to say a personal thanks to him without him, without his leadership, and of course without conversation with him, we were able to do exactly what we've done here today. So in his absence, would you please give him a round of applause? As I came up early, I did forget to specifically mention a few folks I really want to thank. I want to thank Carrie Rich, Randy Davis, the entire team, Kenya, the entire team at Parks and Rec. I mean, this has been a labor of love over several years. Henry's just getting on board. He's getting to know the whole whole team. But this has been a whole lot of folks trying to direct some things but keeping the relationship intact with with with the neighborhood and just continue to continue to drive this first leg of the vision. Some of you have seen the entire vision going all the way up to Beltline Boulevard for what we expect would be a one of a kind facility here on this. Actually, I think in this part of the state, it's not the entire state. This is the first leg. But I did want to thank just our incredible folks at Parks and Rec for their work. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to come and to speak. Just wanted to say that it's critically important that we remain positive to be able to do the things that we need to do in this community. This is just a start, but the infrastructure and foundational function starts with your community meetings each month. And I've been a part of those meetings and haven't seen some and we'd like to see more because we discussed these things. Also, we had coat drives. We fed working with James. He calls me every time there's a function happening in this community. And I am there. But we're not tooting our horns. We're here to celebrate the accomplishments of these great city leaders, these Park and Rec leaders, the leaders of our churches. It's a combination of great leadership that brought this to be. And so I want to thank them for their hard work and their consideration and their passion for the mission. And that's what's most important. We are locking our horns because we want to see this community succeed in a great way. And that's what I want. And we have been a part of that when nobody's looking. We have been in meetings, Regina and I, when nobody's looking, we've gotten indignant with folk that we didn't agree with. When nobody's looking, we made a stance. And so that's not recorded. But I heard Job said my record is on high. Okay, so we want to celebrate this community. Clap your hands, everyone and celebrate it The joke that Mayor Benjamin says is sometimes he talks to me more than he talks to Mrs. Benjamin, his mother, but we've known each other since we were in college. So I'm thankful for our relationship. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the historic Booker Washington Heights neighborhood. Some of you don't know why I add historic because in 1920, the city of Columbia sued Booker Washington Heights because we had our own mayor, we had our own counsel. Thanks to the hard work of Dr. Bobby Donaldson, all of this is now recorded and will be shared with the general public very soon in connection with a homecoming in our neighborhood. We stand on the positive side of change. This field of dreams as it was originally dubbed is a field of dreams for real. I'd like to see introduce like for him to raise his hand Cecilius Bailey. I taught him at Hayward Gibbs Middle School. Stand up, stand up CC. CC is a sophomore all star state all star baseball player for the state of South Carolina. This is who this field is for and those who will come behind him. We'd like to thank everybody too numerous to mention as Councilman McDonald said we are not finished. Next is our satellite Richland County Library Councilwoman McBride. Then our neighborhood gym where we will grow basketball players, volleyball players. We're looking for a connector to cross Beltline to join the two communities. Yes, we are not finished. As we move forward, we pray that we are very careful though not to let our passion overshadow our purpose. We want to collaboratively connect with all of the communities. North Point, Miss Charlotte, the colony, and we're also starting a collaboration with serve and connect and Miss Cassie alia. I am so excited. We are so excited. We love our city of Columbia police officers. We love our our Sheriff's Department. We have collaborations with all of them. So what you see here today is not just one person, not just one group. It is love. We thank you for being here today. And we look forward to seeing you at our games and everything else that is yet to come. Have a great day. Well, it's a lot has been said and we appreciate the part and thanks for everybody that's coming. They came today and we're looking for a lot more. Yes, not only do we need a Recreation Center library as we need grocery stores. We need jobs for our young kids to go to work at. And you know, our children are not bad. They just don't have the opportunities that they need in our neighborhood. Keep them calm. We they have to figure out things to do without leadership and that gets them in trouble as he got me in trouble as I was a child. So we're happy for the park. Thanks for everybody that's been working for a part of it. And without Paul and Mark Guignard and five other coaches that are coaching now, the train wouldn't move. They are the fuel of this train. We got Paul and these are the guys that's in the trenches. Come on up, Chuck. These are the guys that's doing the work. Because when you dealing with children, not only are you the coach, you the uncle, you the father, you support them financially in different situations. So these are the guys that need to be celebrated. And when we get our part, I hope that these are the guys that's running it because they know everybody here, they can call a grandmama, call a mama, call a father, they are parents and know all the parents that's here. And we really appreciate them for what they do. And I've been I love you, Steve. We don't fault a lot. But we're gonna make some arrangements to get what we need. Thank you. Thank you, brother Sanders. And thank you to the coaches as well. We spent a lot of time together. And do great work on behalf of our children. closing comments from our friend and our incredible leader, who's become just I call him the counts, the Constance of City Council. The meetings that we have in public are one thing. The meetings that we have in private as Ms. Divine will tell you are you see the same man, but but he but he's leading from the front and from the back in a way in which I've never seen before. We're thankful for the leadership of Councilman Ed McDowell Councilman. Thank you. Well, we made it. And for everyone who has who decided to come today, I simply want to say thank you. The other thing that I do want to mention, I do want to mention that CPD is here. Our fire department is here. Many thanks to you and particularly to our baseball players. Would you stand for just a moment? All of our baseball, all of our baseball players, would you stand? Look, we understand that the season hadn't started here yet. But we've got some moving and shoving to do we gonna get it started. Look, it was these gentlemen here three years ago, when we didn't have a football field. It was these gentlemen, James Paul, Marcus, it was them who said we need something for our children. So the city chipped in bought equipment with the city and of course with sheriff's locks, locks office. We played football on a raggy field. But guess what is easily converted now into a football field and is easily converted into real hopeful possibilities. You see the nine acres of land that's there? Wait and see. Just wait and see. Yes. The Lord ain't through with us yet. And we aren't through with this community. Our mayor, our mayor protein city leadership, our staff, our county representatives, and of course, my friends and my brothers and sisters in Booker Washington Association. We can do it without you. Hey there, Mayor Steve Benjamin here. Thanks for watching this video. Make sure you give it a like right below the video. And don't forget to subscribe. Also, while you're here, be sure to check out one of our other videos or follow on our social media platforms. Thanks again. And remember, we are Colombia.