 Good morning everybody thank you for being here today my name is Ryan Parcell the Chief Public Information Officer for El Paso County. First off I want to welcome all of our distinguished guests of which obviously there are many I wish I could name them all but we appreciate the work that every organization represented here today does for our community. Today is an exciting day for El Paso County and our residents as we announce the recipients of more ARPA or American Rescue Plan Act funding that the county's awarded to nonprofit organizations to continue helping our community recover and thrive in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a moment you'll hear from some of those organizations who will tell you how this funding will impact the daily lives of everyday citizens in El Paso County and even though each speaker is going to to introduce the person that follows them I'll give you a brief outline of the program. First you'll hear from Commissioner Cammie Bremmer, Vice Chair of the Board of County Commissioners and Representative from County Commissioner District 5, Cindy Audrey from Pikes Peak United Way, Lynn Telford, CEO of Caron Chair Food Bank for Southern Colorado, Kurt Woundy, Associate Executive Director Nami of Colorado Springs, James Sullivan will join us remotely and he's the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club at the Pikes Peak region and after you hear from each of the speakers we'll open up the floor for any questions from the media and we'll have a group picture with all the recipient organizations so I'd like to welcome Commissioner Cammie Bremmer to the podium. Thank you. El Paso County is an organization committed to doing the next right thing and nothing highlights that more than the work we've done to help the community recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Today we're pleased to announce the next phase of funding to help our community remain strong and resilient. I'm excited to share that 50 regional programs were selected to receive nearly $9 million in community impact grants. We received a large volume of applications for this grant which is indicative of the great need in our community at this time. The selection process was fair, equitable, and took many factors into consideration, particularly the effect of the projects and the number of people that each of those projects will serve. What you see behind me are 48 organizations representing 50 regional programs that will have an exponential impact on our community. And for each person you see representing those organizations behind us, there are hundreds of others that will be impacted in our community. There's no doubt the pandemic has affected families, individuals, and especially our children. Even under the best of circumstances, it's taken a toll on our mental and physical health. And it is more important than ever that as we look to recovery, we look at how it has impacted us in a holistic manner and help address those gaps and needs in our community. This grant is so important because it's not just going to be a number to balance the fiscal reports, but it will have a tangible and long term impact on the lives of about 30,000 El Paso County citizens. Thank you to the work of those behind us. The Community Impact Grant was designed in a way to encompass as many aspects of the whole person as we could without becoming a one size fits all. We focused on vital programs like mental and behavioral health, suicide prevention, employment assistance, financial and debt counseling, substance abuse, and food insecurity to name a few. With this grant, organizations like Care and Share will be able to bolster their food purchasing capacity and return fueling many smaller food distribution centers and distribution networks to alleviate hunger in our community. So families can take a small sigh of relief and know that their next meal is on the way. Pikes Peak United Way will be able to start on its family readiness center where their evidence based programming will work to help break generational cycles of poverty, vulnerability and crisis while teaching self sufficiency and economic independence. El Paso County is excited to partner with the Pikes Peak United Way on this whole family approach to connecting community members with the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. The grant will also support the great work to being done by CASA to provide advocacy for youth experiencing abuse and neglect and organizations like TESA that will provide a safe house for women experiencing abuse. The pandemic hasn't been fair to anyone, but many children have all have lost all sense of normalcy due to loss of programming, either due to program budget cuts or their families not being able to afford the after school programs as a direct result of job loss or hours cut due to the pandemic. Children who have not been able to go to after school soccer programs, outdoor programs and other extracurriculars will be able to get back to their social development. With this grant, our children will be able to play, socialize, learn and just be children again. We're funding various programs that will also support senior services, provide counseling services, resiliency programs for adults and children, and many others that will address the various needs in our community. El Paso County is invested in our citizens. And we want you to not just survive, but come out on the other side of this pandemic thriving. It gives me great joy to say that El Paso County has been not only an excellent steward of the funding we have received through the American Rescue Plan Act, but from day one, we have been and continue to be leaders in promoting regional recovery, making big investments in sectors and in everyday people. We've been innovative, collaborative and conscientious in how we allocate these funds. We realize that it's not the government's job or area of expertise to provide many of these greatly needed programs. Therefore, through this grant process, we've selected nonprofit agencies, schools and organizations who are the experts in their field of providing assistance and supporting community members in need. We want to empower these agencies you see behind us that have been working for the good of our communities to continue their great works. Please join me in giving all of the grant recipients a great round of applause for their continued hard work and service to our community. Again, I'm truly humbled by the work you do and I thank you. The Board of County commissioners, thanks you and citizens of El Paso County. Thank you. Now, it's my pleasure to welcome Cindy Aubrey. Thank you very much, Commissioner Bremmer, and I will say that it's been a long time since we have had a voice like Cammie Bremmer's here in El Paso County, and so we're just grateful for everything you do and for the compassion that you show all of our nonprofits. Thank you, Cammie. Yes, I am Cindy Aubrey, president and CEO of Pikespeak United Way, and I'm joined today by our board chair, Laura Newman, and also our COO, Heather Steinman. On behalf of Pikespeak United Way, our staff, volunteers, partner agencies, and our donors, we thank the Board of County commissioners for this investment in our community. We are determined with our nonprofit partners to serve the underserved and put an enormous dent in poverty in El Paso County by focusing on youth success and family stability. Cammie mentioned our Family Success Center, and that is where the investment from El Paso County will be going. It will be opening in August of 2022 in southeast Colorado Springs in what is now Pikespeak Elementary School. Pikespeak Elementary is closing due to low enrollment, and when we partnered with Harrison D2 to really explore how we could serve families in our community, they stepped up in a very big way, giving us a building to use that we will invite partner agencies, various people around the community to serve in southeast. And so everything from county services to literacy to financial literacy to a possible food market with our great partners at Caron Share, we are taking the services to the community. We look forward to everyone in El Paso County getting involved in our Family Success Center, and we certainly are very grateful for our partner agency who's who have so far joined us, and we are still adding to that partner list. This is a big vision for Pikespeak United Way. We know with the strength of our community and the way we have partnered in the past during COVID, during wildfires. This is an exceptional community that comes together when people are in need, and we know the Family Success Center is going to follow in that path. We will have lots of community involvement there. One of the partners who we will be including will be Caron Share, and it is my pleasure to now introduce the CEO of Caron Share, Food Bank for Southern Colorado, Lynn Telford. At Caron Share Food Bank, we believe that no one should go hungry. It's a big job to provide nutritious food to our neighbors in need, so while we play an important part in this vision, we do not do it alone. You just heard from our good friends at Pikespeak United Way where another partnership we have with them is a mobile food distribution where we provide the food and they make sure it gets to our neighbors in need. This has been a resource that has been invaluable to the families during this difficult time. In fact, we have about 100 partners here in El Paso County. Many of them are here, and we serve thousands every year. Our partners include food pantries, churches, schools, soup kitchens, emergency shelters. We are very grateful for this grant and the partnership that we have with El Paso County. Caron Share is an alignment with the county's ARPA priority area of expanding programs to address food insecurity. This will help ensure that Caron Share has the resources necessary, despite these unpredictable conditions, to keep nutritious food within reach for the people who need it the most. As the only food banks serving El Paso County, our capacity to acquire food is critical. ARPA funds will be used to purchase food that will be made available to our partners and programs at no cost. This will, through most of our history, we've relied almost exclusively on donated food, but this is just not possible now for a variety of reasons, and so we actually have to purchase food, and so this money will be used for that, so it's just wondrous that we're going to be able to buy that food. ARPA grant funds will also be used towards general operating costs for acquisition of donated food, transportation of food, storage of food, distribution of millions of pounds of food. In addition to the distribution of food, we're excited that we partner to have an El Paso County Mobile Market. So a mobile market is like a beverage truck where the sides roll up and we fill it with food and our neighbors in need come and shop and get the food that they need and it can go into places that we weren't able to serve in the past, so places that a semi truck can't go. For example, a mobile home park. Another wonderful thing we're doing in El Paso County is our sunny side market in Fountain. It looks like a little grocery store, but it's a food pantry, and when our neighbors in need come to visit us, they're greeted with a smile and invited to get the food that their family will enjoy. At Caron Share, we have a strong ethic around dignity, so this really provides an easy and dignified experience for them. I often say that Caron Share belongs to the community. You support us, we serve you, you volunteer with us. We cannot do our work without you and the many partners and collaborations that we enjoy. We are incredibly grateful to the commissioners of El Paso County for the work they do and for this grant. Together, we can fight food insecurity because no one should go hungry, and now I would like to introduce Kirk Woundy, the Associate Executive Director of NAMI. Thank you, Lynn. About a year ago, the Elevated Insights Research firm surveyed a thousand local people on their pandemic experiences. About half said that COVID had worsened their mental health and well-being. As the researchers pointed out to us, these were just the people who were willing to say so, and again this was a full year ago before 2021 brought its own disappointments and challenges. We've all been through a lot in the last couple of years. Some of us have lost loved ones to COVID. Others are struggling to keep their kids feeling optimistic and hopeful amid waves of bad news, or to stay connected to parents or grandparents who aren't allowed visitors in their assisted living communities. There are economic worries, political worries, and generally just incredible fatigue. People are anxious and exhausted, and if they had mental health issues going into COVID, they've likely gotten worse, not better. At NAMI Colorado Springs, we are so grateful that our local leaders, those who decided how ARPA funds should be spent in this community, recognize the challenges we're all facing on the mental health front, and we're honored to be in the company of other nonprofits who are so deserving of this support as well. These are groups like Inside Out Youth Services and The Place, which do incredible work to protect, support, and build up marginalized teens and young adults. Mount Carmel Veteran Services, bringing therapeutic resources to vets, military members, and their families, and Diverse's Health, which is our community's most powerful mental health organization. At NAMI, we'll be investing ARPA funds into strengthening our no-cost peer-based work with individuals and families navigating mental health conditions. We currently have two full-time positions. With the addition of one more full-time programs position from this grant, we will connect more people to our education courses and support groups. We'll recruit, train, and retain the volunteers who make these programs possible and who are truly the lifeblood of our organization. Working with community partners will initiate conversations about mental health and provide reassurance and resources in spaces where people often feel isolated and alone. We'll also use a small portion of these funds to help cover the costs of additional office space on the Silver Key Campus in southeast Colorado Springs. Currently, NAMI employees are doubled up in two of our four dedicated workspaces and it can be difficult to find privacy for a peer or a family member who comes into our office. ARPA funds will help us ensure that as the mental health needs of our community grow, our organization keeps up. So on behalf of our small team at NAMI, our dedicated board of directors and our non-profit partners and colleagues, I want to thank El Paso County for being proactive in supporting the mental health of local people and families. And now I'd like to introduce James Sullivan, president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of the Pikes Peak region. I want to start by saying thank you to all the commissioners and the trust that they put in our organization. If any of you have ever heard me speak, you've often heard me say that the Boys and Girls Club must tell our story, must tell it well and must tell it often. So I appreciate the opportunity for us to tell our story today, particularly as it relates to COVID. But I would be remiss, excuse me, if I don't thank the commissioners particularly highlighting Commissioner Gonzalez. We thank you for you've been very Yes. Okay. Okay, great. All right. I wanted to start by saying thank you to everyone that's there, friends. Certainly want to start by thanking the commissioners wholeheartedly for their trust in our organization. For the 100 last 134 years, the Boys and Girls Club has been serving Colorado Springs and very proud to play a little role in that in my short time here. I also would like to highlight the commissioners Gonzalez and Commissioner Banderworth who've been extremely supportive of our club, where there's tours coming to our events. We have a great partnership with the county commissioners and I'm grateful to have that and this is just another step in that relationship. As I mentioned earlier before I was muted was you have a chance to hear me speak often and say the club must tell the story, tell it well and tell it often. So I appreciate this chance to do that. With the funds that we received from this particular grant, we'll support two of our programs, Positive Action, which is essentially to help you support them emotionally as well with some of the social issues they've faced, particularly during COVID. But as we know, kids are always, you're always facing different issues and just trying to grow up. The club plays a critical role in that process. Our staff people become extended family, they become that aunt, that uncle, that big brother, that big sister, helps kids navigate through that process, excuse me, under normal circumstances. Today we find it even more challenging with COVID. This issue has been compounded by the fact that the kids have been displaced and they don't have their normal place to go to in school or they're doing distance learning and then when they get a chance to come to the club, while we have them in cohorts in a safe environment, the kids are still able to get that intermixing and intermingling with not just themselves but with our staff who are trained youth professionals. We're proud of the work that they've all done. The second part of our grant today is going to go with our summer camp scholarships. And there we get a chance for kids to, for those who were young and got a chance to go to summer camp, think of those week or five weeks or 10 weeks in our particular case that the kids will become and will be involved in really positive activities that are good solid things that can be able to try to reconnect. The issues around COVID have displaced our young people and for the club in particular it's been exceptionally challenging because we support a part of the population that has a lot of significant needs already and when you take things like COVID and parents losing their jobs, trying to find work, manage their, keep their families, manage the mental health issues, look at putting food on the table. The partners that are here today serve all those needs. The club sees all of that and so it's always gratifying for us to have good partners like this out in the community. It's even better that we know that they're busy in work and they also help support the club in the work that we do. So with regards to the Boys and Girls Club, I'd like to take this opportunity again. Thank you all for being supportive. I thank you all for what you're doing. I see lots of friends out in the, in the community. There have been partners with the club also. Our former board chair, Ms. Newman's out there. I see many of our friends. So again, thank you all and a good day to you. Thank you to all of our speakers. With that, we'd like to open up the floor for questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you everybody for being here.