 We would like to welcome you and thank you for your presence on today as we celebrate the new amenities here at Fairwall Park. We want to thank our Mayor, Steve Benjamin, in his absence. He will not be able to be with us today. But we thank you for our council members here with us today, Councilwoman Devine, Councilman Davis. Thank you all so much for being here and supporting this initiative. We also want to thank our city manager, Teresa Wilson for her continued leadership courses support on all the parks and recreation initiatives. This is our, actually our second ribbon cutting for today, which is a continuous result of all the good work that's been taking place over the last couple of months. This portion of this project, of course, would not be possible without the funding provided through HUD. HUD's Community Development Block Grant Program in which we were awarded $219,534. We also received an additional $50,000 for Wells Fargo, the actual Neighborhood Lift Grant to help complete this project, which gives a total investment of almost $270,000, which is absolutely amazing and definitely appreciated. The revitalized park features with this new playground features a walking path, outdoor gym stations, a shade shelter, of course, open green space, an established tree canopy, additional sighted amenities like landscaping and a split rail fence that you now see around the perimeter of the actual park. The playground features an assortment of play elements from climbing to slides to bridges to swings, play a venture for two to 12-year-olds. We're excited about the opportunity that is bringing to this community. The actual outdoor gym begins along the path with six different stations. Sitting is provided along the path at select stations and shade shelter veers out in the open space for the community to have picnics and activities as they choose to. The new amenities provide more than just play. This is what we're really excited about. It provides more than just play but a focus on health and wellness for the citizens of this great community to enjoy. We are very proud, very proud of what we've done here at Fairwall and we will continue this work to improve the quality of life through our Parks and Recreation Department for this community. So thank y'all so much for being here today. So now this time I want to invite Councilman Davis for remarks. Following Councilman Davis, Councilwoman Devine will also provide remarks as well and we'll come back with some acknowledgments. Beautiful spring day now but I apologize for not just springing up out of my seat. A long day but let me just add to Henry's focus. This is the end product of a long journey. I remember one night at one of the meetings we were arguing about replacing the equipment that was here versus spray painting them so that it would look better. Of course you know that that didn't go over too well but we are here because of the partnership between this neighborhood, this community, staff and the folks from the private sector that helped make this possible. And it's a stark difference from what it was let's say a year ago and that's because again you demanded of us that we replace it and at the same time like any other neighborhood that's in close proximity to a neighborhood you've taken ownership of this and that again is the partnership. We'll do what we need to do to help keep it safe and clean but the bottom line is it has to service the community and that is a partnership that's kind of rare in some other places but you have our commitment that we will continue to partner with you on this and I want to ask you too though to encourage the moms and the pops to use the facility. If it's used by people who live there most often then it lasts a long time so it's a beautiful day. Enjoy that site because it's going to be here a while and the partnership is going to be here a while. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. I'm not going to be long I just wanted to say how special this day is. You as a neighborhood association have continued to push us and work with us to get things that are needed in this community and as I'm sitting here I'm thinking you know I grew up in this community my grandparents house right there on conveyor and as a child we would either jump fence to go over to the school and play or cross the street and go over there but there was nowhere I could walk to have a city park that was something that had stuff for everybody and what I tell people a lot is as we grow our city as we continue to to promote inclusive growth in the city of columbia we are building a city that is called an 880 city a city that is made for those that are age eight and those for age 80 and everyone in between and this park is a perfect example for that so whether you are you're bringing your children or your grandchildren they have something to do whether you are a senior you have something to do this park is truly for this community and it's truly something that we as a city of columbia are proud of because it really is part of that inclusive growth of our city and building an 880 city so I thank y'all for pushing us and demanding more and this is a great testament of what we can do as we continue to work together in partnership thank you thank you so much councilman davis councilwoman divine for your for your comments just want to take a take a brief moment to acknowledge miss argerie quarls who is the president of fairwall hollam heights community association thank you so much for your leadership here in the community um would you like to I just want to thank um parks and rec and for our councilman and assistant city manager for um this beautiful park that we was have been looking for a long time and I grew up in this neighborhood and I'm proud still and I'm grateful and thankful for all of you who come out to um experience this um opportunity to um share our park with us and I thank you again she did a phenomenal job she I was going back and forth with her on whether she was going to speak this afternoon and I'm glad she was able to get up and speak to our to the community so thank you so much again for your your leadership also want to recognize our local HUD field office director christin foie without HUD this would not be possible so I want to thank them for their partnership also want to thank our very own gloria sayi direct our director of community development and her entire team and gloria is here with us so thank you so much for your collaboration and work on our application community development do some they do some awesome work and we're grateful to have the leadership of gloria with the city of columbia also want to recognize of course our parks and recreation team led by mr randy davis our director of parks and recreation kenya bryan our deputy director Todd martin who's our project manager and it's all of our entire team who work together to make these things happen because you know once it's in place we have to maintain it and have to be sustainable so those are the people that help maintain and sustain what we have in place so we're very grateful for their work and their commitment to to this community and the communities across the city of columbia so we're very grateful for your presence on today what we're going to do now is we're going to transition to do the actual ribbon cutting and after the actual ribbon cutting we're going to have an opportunity for some interviews as well but thank you all so much for joining us today we really appreciate it this is a beautiful day as councilman davis has stated and again we're very proud of the work that's been done behind us and our goal is to continue to maintain that work for years to come so again thank you so much for being here today