 on the set, you'll see something pop up on your screen. We're live on YouTube and we're now starting the webinar. All right, welcome. We're gonna give it just a moment for everybody to join the room. Hello, welcome. Hello. Hi, everyone. Give it just a moment to fill in. Hello, hello. All right, we're gonna get started with library news first. And as that goes on, more people will join us. I'm Anissa, I'm your librarian host today. And if you have never been at a program with me, welcome. I'm happy to have you here. But I create a doc for every program that's virtual and it has links to library news, library information, and then links to our partners today. And as resources come up during the conversation, I will add those links as we go, especially if they lead back to our library. Our library wants to acknowledge that we occupy the unseeded and ancestral homeland of the Ram Yutushaloni people who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland and as uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first people. We wish to pair our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ram Yutush community who are still here. And we encourage you to check out these two websites, Native Land, which is really great site that is an interactive map that shows where you are at and what land you are temporarily staying your body on and where it originated. And then Sigourte Land Trust, which is an amazing all-women-led organization out of the East Bay doing amazing work in the land-pack movement, and they are making strides. I want to thank you all for being here for our Nature Boost. It's our partnership with the amazing NPS and our friends, our soulmates of the natural world. This is a continuing partnership. It's not going anywhere. We're so happy that we're able to bring these presentations to the virtual world and save them on our YouTube channel where you can view all of our previous Nature Boosts. This is part of our Summer Stride celebration, which if you read 20 hours, read, learn, or explore 20 hours, you come to any one of our 28 library locations to get your iconic SFPL tote bag, which I should have one right here to hold up that has an amazing picture of a whale absorbing all the books, because it is the season of the whale. And I just want to tell you about two upcoming events. One this Saturday, which is going to be super amazing. It is located at the New Farm, which is out at Tencargo Way in Bayview. You know where Bay Area native plants are or where Heron's Heads Park is. That is where it's going to be. We're going to have free books, goats, chickens, hands-on art-making, screen printing, crochet jam, a Sheba who does Caribbean music, Filipino rock girls rocking it out, the Bookmobile strutters and poppers dancing is an amazing day. So please, it's going to be a nice hot day. Join us out there by the waterfront. It's going to be great. And 12 to five, we'll be there. Join us. Bring your book bag, because we have lots of free books to offer. And then we have at the library something called On The Same Page. This is a bi-monthly read. It's one of the longest-running literary campaigns in San Francisco, where we encourage all of San Francisco to read the same book at the same time. And this July and August, we are celebrating the work of Fatima Oscar. And I apologize. I see a big typo right there. Unfortunately, Fatima is no longer able to join us in person. So we're moving into virtual same time, but virtual. And then we have a book club that goes along with that. And you can find this book at every single one of our 28 locations and bookmobiles right now. All right. And without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Rebecca. Ranger Rebecca. And they're going to be talking today about stories of service. And I got a sneak preview the other day. And I just think the stories that we're about to hear are so fascinating and how they have become the people they are today and who they serve and how they serve. So without further ado, our friends at the national parks. All right. I'm going to stop sharing. And I'm going to turn it over as soon as I find my stop share. Yes. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you so much. And thank you to the San Francisco public library for posting and having us present on our series service. On behalf of the team, I'm thrilled to be here to have a conversation with friends, dear colleagues. And you all in the audience about how each of us became stewards of our communities. Stewards of the environment and ways in which we have found connection to our work in public. Today, we will each share about how our personal stories have had a profound impact on our work today. And ways that we can all get involved through public service. And before we officially begin, I'm Rebecca and I work for the national park service. And I'll be the program for today. I'm joined here by some of my wonderful colleagues from our tribe and some partnership, Ronnie Johnson from the National Park Service, Harry Aang from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and Veronica Geary from the Presidio Trust. We will all hear from them a bit later as I invite them each to come on to tell their stories. We all work at the Golden Gate National Reconciliation Area, Fort Point National Historic Site, New Orleans National Monument, and the Presidio San Francisco, which are all national parks service sites. Our agency missions are very closely connected and as employees of the National Park Service, Parks Conservancy, and the Presidio Trust. Our mission is to work together to preserve un-cared natural cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this, and the future of the country. We have all come to this work for our agencies through our level of mission, and most importantly, we are committed to producing it. So we're honored to be here today with you all to share with you some of our stories. Our program today will be very positive, as well as I am the most proud of this. We will each share moments when we first connected to service and our personal lives, walking through what that service looks like and then present some of our personal tips on how to stay connected to our working communities. We invite you all at any moment to chime in, comment, and ask us any questions throughout this program. There will be a question and answer section before it's the end of the program, where we will view the two slides. So with that, let's dive into the first segment, which is introductions and our stories. Again, my name is Rebecca Owl, and I am a volunteer and youth programs coordinator for your national projects. Working at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Fort Point, and Merlwoods for the past four years. I'm pictured here on the left at Merlwoods with former Merlwoods volunteer coordinator, Todd Hissanti on the right, who is now working at Olympic National Park up in the East. I'm so honored to be able to work to support volunteers who come to work at our park sites by ensuring that they're supervisors who, like Todd, have everything they need to get the work done and safe and healthy. I also support our park internship program, which helps to work hundreds of interns per year, and I'm thrilled to be serving a community that I grew up working with. My story of service first started with an education program. I was lucky enough to go on a school trip to Hidden Villa in the Los Altos to see why I grew up in San Jose, California. Hidden Villa is a small-scale organic farm that teaches about and produces responsibility. It was the very first exposure I ever had to environmental education, and I'm so glad I have the opportunity of such a young age. One of my four memories were developed at Hidden Villa, because it was a place full of many tourists. The first time I ever worked on a farm, the first time I learned how to use garden tools, I also met a cow. And for the first time ever, I started working overnight in a tent with my friends in school. This next photo is a reaction shot of my first time looking into this dark tent, but don't be fooled. Even though I look like I'm in awe, it's probably accurate to say I was probably a mixture between excited, nervous, and probably really scared, because I don't like bugs. It's probably a thousand spiders in there. That overnight camping program introduced me to the world of possibilities, though. It was so different from the culture that I grew up in. So expecting to have fun while sleeping outside was totally foreign concept to me. But we did have fun. We worked all day on the farms and we learned about sustainable gardening, eight groups and veggies in the field, and that night we slept under the stars. This experience showed me that with a good plan, camping can be a magical time for me and my family. It's a great opportunity for the warmth and solace of shelter after a long day. And especially this is a time for connecting with people. That last part is my favorite part, because as I grew older, I remained in touch with the same friends that we still bond over our lonely outdoors. 28 magical years later. And now I feel so lucky to be able to support volunteers, interns, and visitors on natural parts. Places that I learned at the early age to chair, protect, and share. We get the immeasurable pleasure of supporting other young people who, like myself, are experiencing some of their firsts in ultra-gloomy to-servants. And with that, I'd love to introduce my colleague, who is the one, my manager, who is a volunteer at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Hi, everyone. So honored to be here. As you can see, my title is Volunteer and Internship Manager. I work here with Rebecca at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods, and Fort Point. And as she said, I'm thrilled to be here. My job is to, you know, bring more people out and be inspired by that. I spend a lot of my time volunteering as well. So I think I was first supposed to tell you a little bit about my story of service. And that's on the next slide. As Rebecca, I did start volunteering at a young age. Nowadays, a lot of kids are required to do volunteer service. And I call that being voluntold. But actually when I was in school, you volunteered through your service clubs. Not because you had to, but you kind of were wanting to build your resume, do things for fun, and do things with your friends and do something different. So I did start in the Keyette Club, which is just like the Rotary or anything else. And I was the secretary of the club, and we went around to the senior centers to be out of your house doing stuff and making relationship and helping others. And that did instill in me an interest in continuing to volunteer. So this picture here, you can see, this is post college. So I also went out to college and then still was doing service. But after I graduated, I thought, hey, what do I want to do? And I was like, it would be great to travel and help others. I was fortunate to participate in a program, Youth Service International. We went to Costa Rica. I was there for three months. I got to do a wide variety of work. The project was based with volunteers from Costa Rica, as well as from the United States and England. And we got to live with Costa Rican family. So it was a wonderful chance to, and that's my Costa Rican family on the right. And luckily to be able to do that, I was able to do a lot of business in technology. I found them on Facebook years later and have gone back to visit them and stay with them multiple times. So I definitely, I've been told I'm a an honorary teacon. And we built, we got to build stuff, do stuff. And it just again build relationships. And that kind of kept going. And I'm definitely honored now that I'm still engaging people in service and then doing service. So it kind of just continues from there. There's some more pictures coming up that show my transition from being a young adult to being a married adult and a parent. So my service really changed and I started volunteering a lot in the community to support youth development. Family and youth in your community are, everyone is in need. So it's easy to serve and everyone can serve. So I was an active volunteer in our parent club, the mom's club. I created an adventure camp that was all volunteer run. I've been a volunteer coordinator. I've worked out a lot of organizations and created activities for youth. I was very fortunate that picture on the bottom is a field trip to get kids familiar with public transportation. So I really pride myself on that because most kids that age don't go on the public bus in these rural places. But it was really fun. We did a bingo. Let us see if you can find a stop sign in the hospital and they got to put their money in the bus. So that was a really fun time. So again service should be fun because that way you keep doing it and you spread the joy. You get the joy, you spread the joy. So then later on from that I also volunteered in sports. I am an all-american athlete from college. So again using my expertise and talents to benefit all of the community. I coached soccer from my boys and others for a long time. And I really enjoyed that. Sharing your talents and getting a chance to stay active out on the field and keep up my own soccer skills. So from there I've now my kids are grown and now I get to focus on connecting to new ideas and service and you're going to see that later again about where my journey and where I can serve best. But again I'm so proud that my job is about connecting people to service and to work with others dedicated to service. This is my chance to pass it off to Harry Yang who I'm lucky to work with so he can tell you about his stories. Thank you Ronnie. Thank you for being here. Yeah I really appreciate it. I'm just so much of an honor to serve you in my role as the Director of Interpretive Centers and Sales I support the staff, the operations and the programs at these sites and they're better known as visitor centers and these visitor centers are across the different national parks parks, the second most visited national park unit in the U.S. with almost 16 million visitors last year. So a very busy place and more and more visitors are returning to our wonderful parks. Next slide. My service journey started at a young age and through family circumstances. My parents immigrated from China to Guangzhou province and settled in New York's Chinatown where they raised three siblings and I in a small apartment. So space was super tight. So my parents really had to be really resourceful and look for ways to spend time outside of our apartment, which included the outdoors. And they fell in love with our local neighborhood park, Columbus Park, which is on Mulberry and Baxter streets in Chinatown. And visiting this park since I was a child led to really what is now a lifelong appreciation for public and outdoor spaces for lots of reasons. My family saw parks as a haven for community building, recreation and mental and physical wellness. My introduction to community service though started at around five years old when my family would volunteer to help the local parks and rec crew clean the park by picking up litter, trash and helping remove graffiti. We'd volunteer to do this whenever we had free time and definitely when there were scheduled park cleanup events. So it was part of our lives. My family really loved this neighborhood park. Again, it was an extension of our home, basically. And they did not like to see people harm it with trash and vandalism. They felt it was disrespectful and would make it unwelcoming to the host of individuals, groups and families that frequented it and really enjoyed it. So as a young kid, I was constantly reinforced by my parents to understand how important to care for and maintain our parks would be and to help make it as safe and enjoyable for everyone as possible, which helped instill a mindset even from that age where I started to see service as a duty and how I could positively contribute to society, one of the many ways. And this mindset led me to what I do now for living, working in a nonprofit space, supporting parks and public spaces. So just exciting how it all started. I'm going to now turn it over to Veronica, my colleague from The Trust. Hi, everyone. I'm Veronica Aguirre, and I am a senior utilities project manager with the Presidio Trust. And my background is in civil engineering, and I work behind the scenes, making sure all of the utility infrastructure like water, electricity, sanitary sewer and drainage facilities are serving the Presidio National Park. And this photo here is actually me at TunnelTops. I actually had a part of that project working on the infrastructure for the water feature and water features in the restrooms, making sure all this function with water and sanitary sewer services. Next slide. So I was born and raised in San Francisco. I went to high school that required 100 hours of volunteer service in order to graduate. So I actually naturally wouldn't have started volunteering on my own because naturally introverted and shy. So definitely forced me to step out of my comfort zone and participate in different community organizations and student organizations. This is a photo of me part of the green team student organization at my high school. And we were launching the first compost program for our school. And volunteering turned into something really fun. I was able to do with my friends. And the teachers are also very supportive. They were helping us connect to different organizations around San Francisco. It was a way to explore different parts of the city. I did other things like intern at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park with an ornithologist doing guided nature tours. I volunteered at a nursing home on Lake Street and helped out behind the scenes at some hospitals. So it was just something that turned into a really good experience as part of my education and turned into a really fun way to explore my San Francisco community. Next slide. So another thing I did as part of community service was doing some volunteer work with engineers without borders. This was a photo that I took with my team and some of the villagers. And the work we were doing was to provide water filters, sand filters for the villagers to have clean water. And in that experience I met some of the most warm and friendly people and also learned about their culture. It was a really great learning experience. And I also have to owe it to all the community service work like this. It helped me to figure out that I had an interest in science and engineering and this type of infrastructure work and learned that as part of my journey about myself. Next slide. This is another photo from my experience with engineers without borders. This is a photo highlighting the village children. And I highlight the kids because I got to see in that experience up close the effects, the health effects of not having access to clean water and it especially comes out with the children. They had skin rashes and bloated bellies and that was just heartbreaking to see and definitely made an impact on being motivated to work in the industry to provide clean water for facilities, for communities. I mean it's often taken for granted I think here in the United States. I honestly didn't think much about it for myself but seeing that really brought me to see the importance of sanitation and clean water and that's exactly what I do at the Presidium San Francisco and it goes into the work I do every day providing clean water for our community. Thank you so much, Ronnie, Harry and Veronica. As you all may hear this similar thread throughout all of our stories it really ties back to our personal stories how we got into the work that we do at our agencies and how we attribute foreign stewardship and public service. So Ronnie and I work really closely together so I want to pass it back to her to talk about the work that we do at the National Public Service with that. All right so I liked it someone in the chat said gave me props for the give the joy get the joy and that's definitely what it's about. I chose these pictures because I love my smile on these pictures because it is this picture on the top left of is me working with a young person that I just met that day to pull Iceplan out of the beach and she was just a joy to work with and to watch her relationship with her parents who had brought her out there at a very young age to start volunteering to do restoration work on Earth Day. So it was working for the National Park Service the mission we have it's easy for me to be passionate about and to inspire others and there are many other people that want to join in the mission. On the right you can see Rebecca and Andrea and I this is also our young internship program where we bring young people Andrea was a college student from UC Davis getting her masters doing an internship with us and we were hiking out to the beach in Marin and and then again at the bottom working again with more interns and more volunteers to do service. The Park Service has a really robust internship program where we are engaging young people in hopes that they will become lifelong lovers and users of and advocates of our national parks. So other ways next slide that volunteers and shows up at the national parks is we have quite a robust volunteer program we have volunteers that take care of our horses and the horse mountain patrol you can see the smile again on the volunteer's face on the other side of the screen you might not be able to tell but those are very dedicated volunteers that work at our Golden Gate Raptor Observatory program where they are monitoring the raptors that go over the headlands and the migrations in the fall and then more ice plant pulling in the bottom. There is a lot of opportunity for stewardship whether you are volunteering for us or whether you're just coming and enjoying and being rejuvenated by our park sites and leaving it nicer you know leave no trace leave it nicer then when you arrived is kind of what Harry was talking about when he was young learning how to take care of the local park. So we're really excited to engage so many we have you know over 1500 long-term and reoccurring volunteers at our park but we also have daily programs where volunteers that can just come for a one-day chance so there's a whole spectrum of ways to engage and we're really interested in diversifying that so if you know anybody or if you want to come please check us out and come come volunteer at our parks and I think I can pass it back over to Harry after I show you a few more pictures of service in our parks we got people covering up graffiti at China beach we've got another group of people picking up litter at Chrissy Field and then we've got a group of young high school interns helping beautify the gardens here at Fort Mason so again all ages all sorts of projects short-term and long-term commitments however you want to serve we welcome you to our lands take it away Harry thank you Ronnie hi everyone um stewardship it's really near and dear to my to me and the people that I spend a lot of time with and and the definition itself is fascinating it's really the caring for and managing something entrusted to us so in this case we're talking about national parks and public and open spaces so how how does my organization and team contribute to stewardship well our visitor centers and staffs are on the front lines at the parks and usually the initial faces that visitors see as they enter and start moving around the national parks in these visitor centers the staff wears many many different hats and it includes welcoming visitors from all over the world and then spending time educating them on the local park history the trails sites activities logistics on how to get around things along with showing them and selling commemorative merchandise to help cap off their their experience also on top of that we're usually uh one of the first points of contact for visitors when they're having some things come up like accidents car break ins and questions about parking bathrooms where they could eat public transportation had to get to from you know point A to point B and then suggestions and tips for other things they could do in neighboring areas in terms of attractions and experiences so it's really an interpretive visitor center versus retail store it's it's it's a lot of things and and in these centers I think our staff really understands that they play an important role in terms of the services we can provide and that includes you know being an extension of the overall visitor experience which helps lead to a lot of the support for each of these parks and I'm going to go just go back up a couple of slides so this is a picture of the inside of our beautiful land and lookout center which is a lead certified you know facility and it's just beautiful overlooking the suture baths and and other things like ocean beach so beautiful the next slide is a picture taken outside our warming hut park store at Chrissy field and our staff really takes the responsibility to stay informed about things happening across the San Francisco Bay area and the local parks very seriously because they take pride in being able to provide helpful service and information to our visitors throughout the year and again the positive visitor experience has helped garner strong ongoing public support for these parks via positive reviews on websites so more people want to go to visit them visitation and sales in our visitor centers donations grants and membership sign ups because the conservancy is a membership based organization as well and then more things which will end up helping support and sustain our parks for generations to come and for you know people to enjoy it so on that note I will pass it to Veronica right so a stewardship in my work is a lot of more behind the scenes underground utility infrastructure that it's hard to notice but when it's not functioning this is a photo of what it would look like sewage industries and this is a photo from some professional work I did in Brazil in the city of Recife and in the areas on the hillside they're called favelas and those are basically slum areas that have very little infrastructure and the homes are also not built on very stable foundations so I was part of a engineering and architecture company doing infrastructure work development for the residents there and this is a photo of us doing an inspection of the conditions of the roads and as you see there's yeah it's not very healthy conditions for residents so we were working to contain this sewage conveyance into channels and not have to have everyone walk through it to get to their homes so that's one way we were working with we were working with the local residents to provide guidance to help them improve their living environment and another experience is in the next slide I worked at the U.S. Forest Service and I was an intern for the park hydrologist at the White River National Forest in Colorado and this was our team we were doing a lot of work on maintaining the forest environment things that again you don't realize until you're part of a team doing the work on the ground we were maintaining trails in this photo we're sitting on a retaining wall that we built with our own hands and chisels and I was also mapping roads and serving streams to monitor the health of wildlife in the forest making sure that the forest environment was thriving and doing it's on just being maintained well so that it can be safe for the public and for everyone to enjoy the park hydrologist I was working with also had the responsibility to help make sure that all the watersheds and water resources in the forest were also managed well and functioning for the yeah for the health of the forest and next slide so here at the Presidio Trust I am an engineer part of the team managing the utility infrastructure of the Presidio and this is a photo of our team and we make sure that the lights are on clean water is flowing at the taps and the toilets are flushing we're all like we're behind the stains making sure that things are functioning so that the park spaces can be safe for everyone who can who visits I guess I also support a water treatment plant here at the Presidio there's a small facility that treats water from Lovis Creek in the Presidio and serves that water to all the Presidio for drinking and irrigation and basically all the water needs mostly it's you know self sourced and we also make sure that yeah the utility facilities are functioning and maintained for everyone to feel safe and welcomed I feel so grateful for you Veronica because I don't think my mom who is pictured here on this slide this is her first time visiting Yosemite and she wouldn't feel as comfortable or welcomed if there were no flushing toilets and working water and you know that's that's kind of the thing that I think I forget sometimes is that for people who are visiting our public spaces they're really looking for that comfort and and so what that we do is I mean with utilities with the interpretive centers with volunteer service and youth engagement I think all those things are connected because they make us feel welcomed and so that's our next portion we're going to be talking a lot about tips on how to connect to our local communities through that service that we provide and I think for me because I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Hidden Velo when I was just to get in school as a result my story of service began very young and now that I'm an adult I want to give back that same opportunity to the future generation and I'm excited to share and just continue to celebrate that my boss and I established a partnership with Enterprise for Youth who's a local non-profit to provide local high school these big paid opportunities and professional development in their national parks and through that the Enterprise for Youth green career is starting for them we have two crews of high school students who are placed with National Park Service facilities maintenance and garden staff who work on restoring and cultivating historical landscapes keeping those areas clean and providing that welcoming space for visitors like my mom who can come and visit by youth get to learn from staff about the natural cultural histories of these lands along with flora and fauna that makes the most of me so the picture on the left is a little banana slug in the garden and then when we have some youth we're working with property plants I also got to witness friendships at Blossom and hear from the youth about their hopes and dreams for the future I got to take time with them to admire the beautiful landscapes the work and projects that are needed and just seeing them enjoy themselves kind of brings me back to that those first times in my life where I was able to establish those friendships that are so pivotal to my adult life today through youth engagement and service I found a way to kind of tie that together to the desires of my inner child the Enterprise for Youth program gives local young people a chance to be outdoors with their friends the first experience to pick up a band and learn how to use the tools work at a park and connect to their local community so extending that opportunity I had as a child using such great joy pride and purpose yeah so I told you about transitioning from doing a lot of using uh youth volunteerism when I was a parent and I had younger kids and and now as I become an empty nester I get to try to focus on volunteering in the ways that maybe I want to volunteer and so this is a reason picture of this past year volunteering at my local community park Chautauk County Park and we were pulling non-native plants but what I really enjoy about service and I know this section is about tips tips and tricks to engage in your community is don't sell yourself short you have a lot to offer don't think that you don't have anything to offer and that yeah just get yourself out there because once you start giving it you just won't be able to stop and the easiest way is to give in a place doing something that you love so if you like to be outdoors and go volunteer at a park if you like to be indoors go volunteer at the library you know if you like to be with lots of people um you know volunteer um there's so many opportunities so this again and then most recently my most recent pride moment it's on the next slide is on the 4th of July this year I recently joined the 51st Legion the Golden Gate Garrison which is a non-profit volunteer opportunity to both dress up as storm troopers if that's what you choose to do or you can do what I did and I'm an imperial support crew so I volunteer my time now to assist these this organization and they do a lot of really great work with Make-A-Wish Foundation and other non-profit organizations when I went to the online training to learn how to assist a storm trooper and learn that they really can't see very well and you need to help so that they don't trample children and like I learned all the things you needed to know it is that the person that was doing the training was talking about his daughter and how she had passed away and that when she passed away was really wonderful that that the Golden Gate Garrison responded to his inquiry and he got to know them and they came to her celebration of life and how that really meant a lot so again this is about building community and being with others because human nature makes it such that the more we can connect the more we can give and the and the more we are lifted in in low time so it's uh it's my newest volunteer opportunity and and the tip is just get yourself out there because you will not regret it and I'll pass it over to Harry to talk about his more of his story. Thank you Ronnie. Yeah I'm going to talk about some of the things that have been involved in internationally and locally and to Ronnie's point I think sometimes the idea of service sounds so it could be so overwhelming like oh we don't have a ton of time ton of money ton of resources or a big network so how can I make a difference you know to to people of the world and um you know I'd like to definitely say that service does not require grand gestures or for you to be uh rich or or have to dedicate you know a huge amount of your time throughout the week or the month um it's what you make of it and and what you can do and it and to get started as as Ronnie and others you know will be saying um but it does require commitment action and and follow-through and dedication um if you want it to be something lifelong and sustaining um and I think for for me at least uh in my family the first step was to make a decision to serve it's kind of like making a decision to to to do something regularly it's first that decision and the decision was to serve for a cause so then we had to think about finding out what the cause was that would make it almost easy for us to be excited by and committed to and passionate about so we had to really think hard what those things would be and then we had to find you know a community that would keep us motivated and inspired to do so so we did lots of different volunteer activities and the one that really really stood out for my wife daughter and I was about figuring out how to help fight poverty especially from a generational standpoint and we'll and it's it's such a complex topic and an issue so we wanted to focus on um education enrichment and empowerment programs um and and resources to these underserved communities so that they could um find ways to help themselves also in you know uh in future generations that get out of this plight and to to find pride and dignity and respect in in what they do to help their own community so empowerment's really really key and to maximize our service impact we were able and lucky enough to find and partner with several non-profits as again locally and internationally but this slide you know I'll focus on international and it was finding an organization that would inspire us through their mission their values their culture their people their goals and and also their efforts we had to really believe in it so internationally um my family and I um have uh found and been partners and supporters of project pearls um it's a nonprofit based in the Philippines that supports the poorest communities across the Philippines um through many different things including feeding programs um education and scholarships health and hygiene programs and supplies and again empowerment and livelihood programs amongst other things and the pearls uh is an acronym and it stands for peace education aspiration respect love and smiles and that's hopefully what this organization you know provides those communities that that that we help serve so on the slide you'll see my wife daughter and I volunteering at daily feedings in a district in Manila known as Tondo and it's an infamous district because it's a district where it's been a very underserved slum that's become an active garbage dump for fast food companies to discard their waste and trash so this community lives on top of this garbage uh in their makeshift homes as you can see there's just mounds and mounds and mounds and mounds of garbage um and they make some of their living through scavenging through the trash and uh scraps to find um potentially edible scraps that they could repurpose into something that they could eat and it's called Pog Pog which um in Tagalog means kind of like shaking things off meaning shaking off like like bugs and and and other things before they repurpose it into uh an edible form um and we could go to the next picture slide now and um this one is in Bulacan which is another community that Project Pearls helps support um and through active fundraising from various rotary clubs um I'm part of Rotary Clubs I'm a Rotarian um we were able to procure uh funds and install a water filtration system that now provides clean water daily to over 4 000 folks in Bulacan a province north of Manila and you know uh you heard Veronica and others talk about access to clean water we had found that this community that we identified was previously getting really sick and experiencing really a lot of health issues including death because they were drinking uh contaminated water cleaning with contaminated water and it particularly was dangerous for babies uh and the elderly babies because the parents were cleaning nipples and bottles and things like that from this contaminated water source um and elderly obviously they already had some vulnerabilities so they definitely didn't do well with contaminated water so now they have a daily um system that's able to pump out you know a thousand gallons of clean water that's distributed along with the water filtration system um we were able to continually support the school and classrooms that are set up there to help educate these kids from these communities so that they could begin looking at you know they're finding their fullest potential and looking at other possibilities in ways to help their own families and their community ultimately again to help get the next generation further along and ultimately out of poverty as they know it today uh and the last picture on the right is one of the other daily feedings that we were able to do at one of our visits there and this feeding was able to support over 2,500 families for that day and it could be the only healthy meal they have for the whole day and sometimes for days now we'll move on to the next slide and this is more about local projects um so again I'm part of the Rotary Clubs and uh support various organizations like the Alzheimer's Association um FoodBanks and San Francisco Marin counties and Second Harvest and also uh another organization called The City Eats um it's a San Francisco based nonprofit serving food and hygiene supplies in different programs to the unhoused community locally in the Tenderloin area Bayview and also a Civic Center area but also in southern uh in south LA around Skid Row areas so on the left side we were one of the monthly feedings where volunteers come and help prepare the food so it's actually wholesome cooked food fresh food we pack it then we distribute it we go out to the areas again the Tenderloin Bayview and also Civic Center areas and distribute the meals uh to the the folks in the area unhoused or people you know who are having a difficult time and we typically average about 2,000 meals a month during that that that feeding and you'll see some of the foods we produce we have healthy proteins we have vegetables we have grains um we have bottled water there's usually some PPE related um giveaways like during COVID we gave away mass N95s um surgicals we gave away um gloves and just other things to help this community try to be as safe as possible on the on the right um you'll see a picture of uh Rotary Club efforts to support the Alzheimer's Association um by fundraising and participating in the annual San Francisco Walk and for those interested this year it'll be on Saturday November 4th at Pure 27 on the Embarcadero and some good news through supporting uh through you know millions of people supporting the Alzheimer's Association they were able to get the FDA to approve for the first time an Alzheimer's drug that was released last week and and here's really the biggest takeaway with community service it everyone wins it's it's not just the recipients in fact sometimes it's more the people doing the service because you begin to realize that you you have a lot to offer no matter what your circumstance it could be your talents it could be just your your personality it could just be things that you don't realize you possess even knowledge um but but you can put it into play to helping make a difference uh to the world it doesn't again have to be grand it just has to be actionable and and consistent in order to really make a big dent um and it's important to make you know service like anything else that's uh something that you want to sustain part of your lifestyle um so that you can look for opportunities throughout the year you can connect and build relationships with those organizations that are behind some of the things that you're passionate about um so it doesn't become transactional or fleeting and again to keep it going it's important to you know do do the things that you enjoy uh but by doing it figuring out how to pay it forward so helping others see the value of what you do and why you do it and maybe that'll inspire them and then through that they'll find their purpose and they'll inspire others paying it forward um and it's exciting like everyone's been saying when you join a community of active volunteers is really there's really no limit to how great the impact can be and um again it's it's not about grand gestures but you have to find what you're passionate about and find a group that's going to keep you going with it and just keep on chipping away at it and it's going to make a huge difference so um on that note I will pass it to Veronica. I'm going to try to wrap this up quick never running out of time so um aside from the technical work I do and infrastructure I also enjoy volunteering in a local community um something I consider and encourage everyone to consider is the motivations for why you do community service because honestly the work can be very difficult and challenging and can be sometimes some really tough physical conditions so for me as a Christian I I see the work as a way to share the love and blessings that I've received from God and also the work is very rewarding it helps me keep focus on others and off myself um there's always more needs outside of myself and it keeps me grateful to be able to help others especially those who are the most vulnerable um so something I um some work I've done is volunteering to serve orphans and foster care youth and um this is a photo of a team I joined with uh renewal mission so nonprofit uh Christian organization one of my undergraduate friends founded and we visited an orphanage in Tijuana in 2021 during the COVID-19 lockdown and we brought a bunch of toys and food for the for the youth and took the kids out for a beach day we're here at the beach that we went to and that opportunity to have access to the outdoors meant so much to these kids um it's something that they've continued to talk about and they remember from the difficult time that they were in all of us were in during the pandemic so um next slide yeah and so I also work with foster families locally there's an organization and I've volunteer with called help one child and they make connections they basically provide resources for foster families in San Francisco and so once a month I like to go um help with uh parent support group and I just babysit their kids so that the parents can meet together have support time for one another and it's basically a form of respite care and a way to support foster families and these very vulnerable youth in our communities um so as you consider where to volunteer just think about what your interests are where your skills are at and where you're at in the community and it's a great way to discover um the new places meet new people and also can be a great outlet for creativity um something else I do also is uh I'm a preschool Sunday school teacher so once a month I teach little kids uh Bible stories and um we do crafts together and it's just been a really fun creative outlet and also a way to pave it forward for the next generation so that they can also grow in their own faith whatever um way to go in life you're just setting them up for success as much as you can thank you thank you thank you Ronnie Harry and Veronica the way that you choose to give your time really inspires me and the lessons you show me and how much of an impact I can make by just lending a hand so in conclusion serve whenever however you can it's never too late find and chase those smiles channel your skills into causes that help such as Veronica with her engineering background and from Ronnie pay it forward to the next generation and and find and make friends who love helping others we're so grateful and honored to work with all of you and this partnership with SF Public Library every day feels such and if any of you all want to come out and volunteer with us we invite you to reach out there are many ways to get involved at any ways and level you can follow us on social media Instagram Facebook Twitter all three of our agencies are on there you can also check out our websites all three of our agencies also have volunteer programs you can come back and come out and give back you can also email us directly all three of our emails are available there they are also on our websites so thank you all for coming um we are at the end now so I want to invite back anisa and see if there's any questions we can quickly address if they're on hi everybody I'm just looking on the YouTube channel which I'm just seeing you know lots of love and thank you for making this such a positive experience and how positive this talk was so we love that I think this is a great afternoon of of just sharing your story of service and um you know I think like libraries and parks even in our jobs we consider it a service as well too even though we're being paid for it I think it's the same kind of feeling where we're serving you know first something better for our our fellow humans does anyone have any questions out there we thank you so much for being here and I'm definitely going to get that info from Rebecca's last slide so I can add it to your doc which I just put in the link again so you can see any volunteer opportunities there other than that we thank you so much for oh harry you want to put a plug for your brew and parks and brew uh I have uh I don't have the exact date Ronnie and Becca or Ronnie help me with best okay have it make sure to join us at parks for all brew fest on July 29th all proceeds going to park programming whoo whoo here comes thank you you're welcome and I put a little link there too um it's so beautiful and celebration and parks and beer why not bring some books along it's all got all the favorite things there all right friends thank you so much for joining us today and we look forward to our next nature boost don't miss it bye everybody thank you everyone