 Hello, everyone. I'm Cindy bank. I'm the associate director of the program and practical policy engagement here at the Ford school, and I am very excited to welcome you all to our kickoff for the semester young leaders in public service, the city council person Gabriella Santiago Romero. First, I want to acknowledge Maryam Nagarin, who is my associate at p3e who will be handling all the technical issues for this event, and also our community engagement manager Deandre calver just signed on. I hope everybody will, you know, feel comfortable for those I know some of you are driving and doing some other things. But if you would turn out if you wouldn't mind turning on your cameras if you're if you're comfortable. And then. So, a Gabby. Okay, if I call you Gabby will show she's going to give some introductory remarks and then we will turn it over to Q amp a's and we really want this to be. I really would like this to be something that is interactive and so that you can have a conversation with with Gabby. So, without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to her. Thank you Gabby for being with us today. You know, of course, thank you Cindy and thank you to the Ford school and thank you everybody who's joining on the call. I know we are all probably zoomed out there's a lot of zoom fatigue being in person to lab better. There's usually pizza, along with events like these at your events so apologies, but I see some people with coffee. So I hope you've got your, your, your breakfast, your water your coffee in. And I'm excited to be here so as mentioned, I am council member every lesson to have a mayoral here in the city of Detroit. I preside my work over district six. And for folks who don't know the strict 16 Detroit. Often people think of district six as just Southwest Detroit. But frankly it is so much more hidden compasses, a little bit of downtown the town woodbridge court town, Southwest Detroit area codes for 217 which is very close to the marathon refinery for 204 which is above warring. So it's a very large districts a very diverse district in backgrounds in income salaries and needs. So we can get into all of that work and what it means to be an elected to be serving so many different folks who all require your attention and care. And I'm excited to dive in and share a little bit about my work and why I'm even doing this in the first place. And I do want this to be interactive so I will share my story try to be brief I was given 1520 minutes I don't think I'll take all that time but I would love to answer any questions afterwards and would love to hear from folks that are on this call. I'm only going to assume that the people here care about local elections care about our local governments are just being engaged in general and creating change so would love to hear about yourself as well. And any questions that you might have for for yourself and in how you can do this work as well. So for me I always start my story by, and if people who I'm laughing because my, my executive assistants behind me he knows the story by heart. I always start my story by talking about the first time that I come that I was poor. So I mean immigrants originally from Mexico, but I came to the states when I was one, and I was raised in Southwest Detroit to a single mother, and I didn't know we were poor until I was a middle school, and I was crying to my mom for new clothes Jordans or Air Force is that I wanted, but all the girls in school had new shoes and I wanted to look fresh to. So I asked my mom who was cooking dinner for us shed it back towards me. And I asked her mommy can you can you buy me new shoes, and she told me know me can I can't. And I couldn't understand why, but I knew poverty was a thing. And so I asked her real, real neatly as like one more report, and she turned around show the food in my spoon in my face and said you didn't know your poor laughing at me, and I felt really dumbfounded I had no idea that we were poor. And because growing up there was always food in my table my mom always provided for us, the lights were always on the heat always worked. The image that we hear poverty was not the life that I lived because my knees were always met, but it was really later in life that I realized that the food in my on my table was often picked up at a local church or food pantry. My mom would take me with her sometimes and she would pay $15 to get a box full of full of food. She would work seven days a week, the moment that she woke up the moment that she went to bed to put her money together to be able to pay our bills, which allowed us to live our lives with dignity. And she told me I was growing up we kind of go to school get a good education, something she wasn't able to do back in Mexico past the third grade. So that I listened to my mom, I, I first person to go to college and my family graduated from Detroit Mercy University, and I studied international business, because quite frankly, in this capitalistic system. That was in my mind, but in order to just provide for ourselves, in order to sustain my family, and in order to meet our needs. But quite frankly, I was raised in the city of Detroit, Detroit that is full of social justice warriors and leaders and fighters. And when I was in college it didn't really sit well with me that I was learning, frankly about just the bottom line, only about how to make the corporations the most amount of money. So we're often asked what would you do to balance your budget, and primarily young kids would raise their hands and say I will cut costs by cutting pay for my workers, I'll cut salaries, I'll cut hours, I'll cut benefits, and they were being awarded And this did not sit well with me was really frustrating it was pretty terrifying that they were graduates leaving the school to continue this cycle of capitalism that was really harmful, that was keeping many in my family marginalized really impoverished and I wasn't I was in college during the recession. So, when I was driving back home, they were dads with their pink slips, having a cigar in the middle of the day and having a cigarette in the middle of the day, because they had just lost their job, because here were corporations cutting jobs in order to balance their budgets. And thankfully during this time for Sheila to leave was my state rep, and she was a fighter for workers, she stood up to me or found refinery, and they were poisoning us here in Southwest Detroit. She stood up to corporations that wanted to to to cut back on our benefits and to cut back on us unionizing, which to me give me a lot of hope to have someone from my community a woman of color, a woman who comes from immigrant families, who was fighting for everyone. And frankly, if it wasn't for Congresswoman to leave. I would not be here. I would not have I think the strength or the craziness because you got to be a little crazy to do this work to believe that I can actually accomplish this. Thankfully, graduated, I stayed firm in the belief that you can change things from the inside that it's important to know how business works it's important to know how it functions. And I'm using these skills today on City Council, all we do is review contracts all we do review budget so thankfully I am using that degree, and I'm using it for something that I feel feel good about. I've worked for the county, I've worked for Warren Evans, right after college, I was an executive assistant there, and quite frankly, that was a reality check of how much work our government needs. And the way coming at that time, I believe it's different now I hope that it's different now was working out of papers in files and here I was able to send files in a zip folder online and, and we ask ourselves why are things taking so much time really is quite frankly because a lot of our local news companies are not up to speed to technology are not up to speed, in order to be able to provide us the services that we need. And I'm seeing that now even on City Council which we can get to. But for me, it became very evident that it's important that we have people, young people, people who are willing to learn to do to accept change in order to really better service residents because quite frankly, and many of us that are angry at the have complete right to be, and we have a long way to go. And so after the county though after experiencing that and seeing everybody had a master's degree, everybody that I love was a social worker. And many of them have gone to the school social work at U of M. I decided to apply and recently graduate in 2018 with my master's in social work so that's my connection to U of M. I was proud of being able to go and and the support that I got from the university. It works really hard I was on student Senate, a student, student union I was a student union at U of M was the president there's funny. And for me, it's been something that's always been very engaged on campus, and in the community. And I think that's an important skill and treat and things that if that's something that you do now, please continue to do. And I'm really proud of all of us that are willing to take on those extra leadership opportunities and need them well. And really, for me, that experience of running the campaign really honestly, even though we didn't need to. It was a lot of fun. And I think for me was a little a little taste a little practice of what it would be to put together a campaign on a larger scale. For myself, I never necessarily grew up wanting to be in politics or wanting to be a politician. Quite frankly, I always grew up protesting them. And the first time someone actually mentioned to me about going into politics I once again, I was, I was a child I was in middle school. I was crying to my teacher about how we have global change global climate change and how it was real. I was really scared and frustrated even back then. And I was talking to her about how I think we should design cars to breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen like plants, and whoever is in science please bring that up. And my teacher said, Well, you know, you should be a scientist you should go into that and working chemistry or whatever. And I last I said, I'm not good at math, I don't want to do that. I'm not good at math. This just takes practice. That that wasn't something that I love that that's right. So she said, Okay, fine, go into politics, be a politician. And quite frankly, if y'all remember 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I didn't think that was possible my response to her was me. I thought you had to be an old white man to be a politician. This is a fifth grader sixth grader responding to to her her middle school teacher, because that was what we saw all of the time. We didn't see people like us we didn't see diverse leadership, young folks women of color clear folks, leading in these roles. And so honestly I put that in the back of my mind and never thought about it again. And thankfully throughout my, my career, my, my life. People like Rashida, people like some that are chain people like my former console and Michelle all incredible people who have ran for office who have told me to run since I was 1718 years old, because they've seen me in the community they they've seen the work that I've done. Because of that, of that push because of being told to run over 100 times, I started to believe it a little bit more. And quite frankly, I think that's the unfortunate reality for for many women, many women of color, many people of color, many queer folks disabled folks. If we don't see it and if we're not asked to do it we don't really believe that we can. I had the supports and the encouragement of incredible people in my community. And so after a graduate school social work. I was the policy and research director with the people Michigan, we're an incredible organization I cried for a month after winning the election for city council realizing that I would be leaving my job at we the people. We the people is a statewide organization that I helped fund. I was one of the first three that that were hired in and we created this organization, really rooted in community and building power for marginalized communities across the states across races and backgrounds because we believe that those of us that are the most impoverished working class little class are often pinned against each other by race. So if you're up in the Q&A if you're up in the UP, and we often hear, especially from from those in power that those people in Detroit and we all know what that means. Those people in Detroit are asking for too much money and that's why we can't provide you money for housing, and we hear the opposite in the city of Detroit, you know, those people up in Oakland don't care about you, or whatever the case may in boring, you know, because they're asking for more funding for whatever the case maybe we can't give you anything that you need. So really we've been divided. We've all been told to believe in the scarcity mindset, and those of us that works out with the people work out with the people believe that is complete BS. Look at our look at this nation look at this world we are full of abundance. It's really us that are being broken against each other. It's really leadership that wants us to believe this and this believe in this narrative that is keeping us from achieving what we should be able to achieve for from accessing all the resources and services that we deserve. And so, while working at we the people. I was once again approached by by friends and leadership to consider running for office. So the first time I ran was in 2020. I ran for county commissioner. It was my first attempts and I actually announced in 2019. October of 2019. And I had gone through every how to run for office training. I've talked to everybody that I knew an office I had really prepared myself because I frankly don't like to lose I don't like to make mistakes I wanted to be as prepared as possible. Nobody prepares you to how to run for office during a pandemic. And so as soon as March hits, I became paralyzed, because I knew what this meant, I knew that I couldn't knock on doors, if I cared about people safety and I do. I knew that I couldn't ask for money, because how when people were losing their jobs, and quite frankly, when the federal government and the local government was now responding to our people. How can I go around telling people to vote for me to vote for change when the people that we voted for won't weren't even working for us. Quite frankly, I put a pause on my campaign. Didn't campaign for a few months. I shifted completely over to mutual aid efforts with local friends. About 20 of us got together we raised around $75,000, we provided 300 families direct service food translation services support for them to get their, their, their, the federal checks. For me that's what was needed and that's truly who I am in the poor, and quite frankly politics doesn't matter if they're not responding to you. So we pause that I did not win, because you, I was running against a 20 year incumbent, but we got incredibly close I lost by 1000 absentee votes. So we won election nights, we lost 1000 absentee votes, and that is a huge win to be completely honest about to run against a 20 year incumbent in my community. And after the loss is hurtful is very painful. It's a painful thing to go through that I had accepted that I was going to try again in two years. And the focus shift completely on organizing, and that was that until January of last year around this time. I was actually contemplating running for city council, because my console woman Raquel was not seeking reelection and she reached out to me, asking this is literally a dream come true to to to be asked by, by, by your city, by your city council member, or you're sitting representative that you really respect. She has mentored me have never worked with her, but she's really mentored me and shared a lot with me for experience, and what was needed. Yes. Actually, I said yes and then I said no, because I got scared I would have to have the primaries we're going to be in August. Quite frankly, I had to give myself time to to run, but then we're she that's a lead called me issues like I heard you back down. Don't do that we're going to support you. And I said okay, if the community has my back. And I know that I've done a lot of work in the past for the county commission seats and there's overlaps in the districts. I will try again. And we tried again, and it was beautiful. We had an amazing campaign, a large majority of my campaign team argue event grads. I love them so much still and still undergrad so incredibly smart brilliant people who helped get me to the finish line. And we ran a really amazing race we ran. We won by almost 75% of the both so 74.5% we raised around $140,000 just so much money. I first raised 40, I raised 40k on my first race. And we've had a ton of interns and volunteers. We not to districts twice. We put a lot of work, because for me, I didn't just one that people to think that Raquel was going to give me her seat and that was that's that's not who I am that's not the point. We still have to work hard people still needed to know who I was, how to contact me what my values were what I wanted to do for them as a city council member. We're here. I'm calling you live from my office downtown. We've started where about a week and a half in. And my team I'm really proud to say, we are all moved in fully staffed computers, emails phone numbers we're ready to go. And there are other offices that are still catching up and getting and getting their offices together. But we're ready and we're really excited. And I'm really honored to be doing this work. I wanted to mention just briefly before going into questions would love to answer any questions are here where people may have like concerns over ideas of the for me, why I'm doing this and why I think we, those of us that are active in the community do have an organizing or a social work or community mindset to do this work is because we need us we need people who are willing to work hard, who like myself were willing to come in during your winter break to clean out your whole office so your staff can just come in and start from day one. People who care. You'd be surprised how many people just don't care how many people are not willing to be innovative, who are not willing to be for thinking. I mentioned the frustrations that I live through at the county. I'm at the lack of technology which to me just makes more sense for efficiency. And here in the city of Detroit, we don't there is no streamlined way of doing your work. So, to be honest, every office has to figure it out, when quite frankly, I, I'm already thinking about should we pass the local ordinance where we just have you know, templates like like how every office should run efficiently from day one because quite frankly we're wasting a lot of time here trying to have all of us trying to catch up and learn things on the go. What if we had things already set in place where you can start like any other organization any other corporate business. When you get there they give you your manual here's how to do your work here are all the links to to your drives. Here's, and we don't get that here was just really frustrating. And so those of you who care about innovation will care about efficiency care about doing good work, you should be doing this. The last thing that I'll mention is one of the things that I'm most excited about is just the team that I have. I have hired people that are way smarter than me. And that are just really brilliant. And they are making this office incredible. And because of them and the opportunity that is being provided for being in this space. I think we're going to be able to serve our residents really well. So for me it's about teamwork. It's about bringing innovation bringing fun, bringing efficiency and getting things done. And this is quite frankly, I know from a very personal level, having people in leadership who care, who do their jobs well really doesn't have an impact on our lives. And so I'll pause there. And happy to hear any questions or concerns stories ideas from other folks. Abby, I mean, I'm like beaming with pride as a mom, you know, and your mother must be also so proud for what you've done and your passion for what you're doing just really just comes through. Mary and put in the chat, you know, if you want to ask your question, raise your hand or put in the chat, I'll ask it. We had a few come in with the RSVPs. I know I see Matt Dargay is on Matt, do you want to ask your question or should I just ask it. Oh, my apologies. I don't have a question was my hand raised. Yes. Oh, no, you just you sent in a question when you are a CP. And your hand is raised. Oh, I did. And now my hand is raised wonderful. Well, yes, now that I think about it I did submit a question. My apologies if you if you wouldn't mind reading it. I'm happy to do it. So Matt asked when running for office. Were you ever asked what makes you a better fit for office than a lawyer or business person. What did you say or would you say in response. Honestly, thankfully no one's ever got forward. I, and if they were, I could just, you know, say I have my business degree. I have been asked, you know, when you're running for office they do ask you about what makes you different from your opponent. And I would say that as well just my experience and what I've done in the past, but to be honest, never had that question and if I did. I, you know, would answer honestly because I do think that I'm qualified for this position. But not only that, I don't think that you necessarily need a business degree to do this work I don't think you need I don't have a policy degree necessarily that I, you know, that from the fourth school I have a policy focused social work degree and focus on social evaluation, or program evaluation, social work and policy. I mean, if I didn't have any of that experience but if I had this passion and drive that I do. I think my main shift or focus for for that would be, I know the community well. I would hope that if people run for this position you have relationships in the community which I do. So if I only have that you know I have those trips in the community which is actually very powerful and important. And I would say that I, I know what our needs are, I am and I know who to go to to address those needs so don't think you need all that. But if that was to be asked, I would say in that way. Well, and I don't know if Matt is one of the number of social work students on but specifically from the social work background you bring a lot. Absolutely. Your constituents. Yeah, 100% into that. I actually on staff I had Joel Reyes clan who both of us graduate of new school social work together. He's managing my community. He's managing my residents and and she went services. So my office although we, you know, we, we are here to do policy. We are also local municipalities that that support our communities, and I have a social worker on staff. That does that work because I know that he can do that as a social worker. That's great. Well, we'll ask Chris Parker who had mentioned that he's driving so I'm not going to ask if you want to ask your questions was basically asking what advice you have for those of us, or I don't know I'm putting this on you, Harrison are considering running for office. if you're considering to run for office gay, that's very exciting. I hope that you do. I would also say that I would ask yourself why. Where are you doing this and for what? What are your hopes to do? I know that I mentioned for myself and we're all different, but I know for myself, especially as a woman, and this is just like to just be to be frank and to be honest about the realities of a situation. To the original question of if you don't have a business degree. I was asked questions specifically about the budget. I was asked questions specifically about like certain policies, which thankfully I knew about. But quite frankly, in my mind, I would often leave those meetings like, well, I hope they're asking my opponent. Like I hope that my my opponent is getting, you know, these very specific questions as well. Because quite frankly, when I see people interact with with with male candidates, it's very friendly. It's like, there's no doubt in their mind that they can do this work. There's no doubt in their mind that they can understand budgeting and policy. For me, I do, I might not get those direct like questions of like, where's your degree at in business? But I do and I do feel the skepticism, sometimes the way that I'm approached. But for those that are interested in running, I would really say to know yourself, know yourself, know why you're running, know what you hope to do. And if you feel at all, that you need a little bit more preparation, lean into that feeling, because then you maybe do, I think we all do. So what is that is that getting to know your district a little bit more? Is that feeling comfortable with policy and budgeting, which, honestly, you learn it along the way. But not only that, do you like it? Because quite frankly, I think some people go into into this work, and you don't realize that it's not whatever you might think, which is like, you have the power, you're, you know, whatever. You're in meetings every day, all of the time, you're looking at contracts, you're looking at budgets, you're looking at money, you're approving. And do you want that responsibility is that what makes you happy. So I would just ask yourself a lot of questions, journal, reflect. I would ask a lot of friends that you might know that are in office, have coffee with them, dinner, get a drink, whatever the case may be. Have a time for yourself to explore this opportunity, and make sure that it's what you want. And also try it. And if you decide you don't want to do it, go right ahead, do something else. I know for myself. People in government don't make a ton of money. We don't make six figures. And looking at my check that I'm going to get tomorrow for the first time, I'm like, I can make more as a consultant. So this is a service. So make sure that you're ready for that. And I already I'm already telling myself, if I don't like this in four or eight years, that it's okay, I will hopefully inspire the next generation of leadership, I will hopefully structure this in a way that works better functions better. And I can go back into organizing, go go back into doing something else that makes me happy that that I think still meets my goal of really creating change in my community. Great. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to call Alyssa. I'm not going to I would I was thinking about putting her on the spot because I know she's our one scientist who's on. Well, yeah, I have a science related question. Okay, because because I because I was thinking, you know, she recently got her PhD. And but she got hooked on the policy side of things, but I'm not quite sure she can explain how to make a car act like a plan. I can't. Yeah, I didn't I didn't specialize in combustion, but I'm sure that there's someone working on it. But I was curious to know, like, when you're, you know, making decisions, in your role, like, how do you go about reaching out to experts and what experts do target, you know, like, how do you decide? Okay, I need help on this issue. There's a lot of people who study things. I mean, even though it seems like science is small, it's actually not right? There's a ton of people to reach out to. So how do you go about prioritizing and getting in contact with with experts? Yeah, so a funny story about sciences. I'm actually I'm dating a scientist. She works for the EPA. And I remember the first time when I met her, I was like, I believe in science as if that was going to be like a win for our conversation. But science is incredibly important. All of the expertise that people know is incredibly important. As I mentioned, I hired people that are smarter than me. So my chief of staff actually has, she's a lawyer, she went to Oxford. She has a background in water, water science, like, I forget what it is. Not only that, but in these positions, you have access to the EPA, you have access to EGLE, you have access to other scientists, you have access to lawyers. And then I also don't want to think of just those what we think of as normally, you know, experts, but I have access to community community leaders, pastors, community organizers, executive assistants of local nonprofits. So when it comes to decision making, I think in this position, no one should make decisions on their own. I don't know everything. And quite frankly, it's really my job to find those experts, seek them out, ask them questions, and then really make my decision based on those on that feedback. My policy analysts are also incredible. Ray, who used to work for the President, President Jones office, or President Brenda, her office, she is now with me. So she's got like an institutional knowledge, she knows who to reach out to when it comes to experts that we might need. And then Hank Kelly is coming in, they worked for Grand Rapids and they're a city planner. So the folks that I have, I have them with me for a reason. And I know it's because I'm going to need them to help me in a lot of aspects. And they are very detail oriented, which is incredibly important in this work. So if I don't feel comfortable with something, I'm also allowed to not vote, I'm also allowed to say no, or say I'm not ready, or, you know, so for me, prepared to make decisions as best as possible based on on feedbacks from others. And I guess one of my, can I ask a quick follow up question to that? You know, my question would be, you know, how do you balance breath and depth? I mean, when you're making a decision, like specifically, I mean, just to give an example, like upgrading wastewater treatment plants in Detroit to more efficiently, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a million, you know, ideas about this, and they all require money from the government almost always, right? And so you have to make decisions about should we invest in this technology to make, you know, you know, theoretically, you know, anaerobic reduction to like, make things more efficient, right? Do I put money into that? Like, how do you balance the breath and depth with that? Like, how do you, do you choose equal numbers of people on both sides? Do you pick one person from Wayne State and one person from Dearborn and one person from, I mean, how do you, like, I just feel like, you know, it sounds like maybe there's a lot of personal connections involved, but like, how do you go about, you know, making sure that you get to know everybody and also get to know kind of the broad people have a broad view and people have a very narrow view? Yeah, so for me, that's a good question, because I think oftentimes we can be in our own little bubbles. Only we trust with the folks that we know, which I think limits your, your ability to see really the full picture and to also hear about other ideas. So I will start from my, from my office. I think it's about looking everywhere, reaching out to the folks that do have the qualifications that do have the experience, regardless of who they are really. This can be from across the aisle, there might be a, you know, very well known science since that's actually a thing like libertarian or, you know, concerns himself, whatever the case may be. And that is okay if they are coming in with the experience with the end goal of, you know, coming up with a solution to this problem. And I think that's important. I think that that gives us the ability to really learn and to get to the answers that we need and to the breadth and to how deep do we get into the work. That I think because government is so slow, the process is really important. And because it's not like it needs to or nor will it happen next week, the process to me is important, bringing those people along, being very intentional about the conversations about who was at the table. It's going to, I think, make a huge difference. And I think that really matters. So when you're beginning to talk about infrastructure, when you're beginning to talk about whatever the case may be, starting off very intentionally with the experts that know things, with the people that have always been doing this work, and not starting from scratch, starting from people's expertise that's been doing this work already. And that's that's how I see the process being. And I think that there's always going to be a lot of bumps in the road. It's going to, you know, as people, we always discuss and have conversations. So my hope is that eventually we come to a conclusion that that we're happy with and actually addressing our problems. Hi, baby. Thanks for bringing the baby along. It says we have a baby and we have a cat. So Rachel had her cat on her lap. We have a question from Caroline. Hi, yeah. Thanks, Congresswoman, for being here. It's really, I love hearing your story and I find it really inspiring and encouraging. I actually have two questions you can choose which one to answer if you want. One of them, so in your bio that they sent for the event, it talks about how you did mutual aid projects during like when COVID hit. And so I would love to hear about that experience, like challenges that you faced with that and like lessons learned, getting that off the ground. And then my other question is, in terms of, I guess like scale of government, how you balance your commitment to local organizing and local government versus statewide organizing and those different priorities. And obviously they overlap, but just how you navigate those two different scales of how you invest in communities. Yeah, the work that we do. Thank you for those questions. And thank you for calling me Congresswoman. I'm not a congresswoman. I'm a councilwoman. Councilwoman. Thank you. I'm fine. I was like, oh, we'll see. Councilwoman. No, thank you. I just for the other folks to know. So I'll start with the last question, the scale of local versus state versus federal and what that looks like. So that's a really great question. And I'm already coming across that question myself. So things that we want to do here locally. So I would love to have us pass or change our tax system. Detroit pays very high taxes. Residents here are very angry for the taxes that we pay. We pay taxes for working here. And all of this is going where people are often saying my small system is still bad. You don't pick up the trash on time. The lights don't work. All of these things are true. So how do we deal with that? You look into the tax system, you change the tax system, but in the city of Detroit, we can't because we are preempted to by the state. So really, it's a state issue. So as much as I want to go ahead and say, hey, everyone, I have this great idea about a dual tax system where we tax land, whether we do property to really help speculators stop speculating and really invest in economic developments because that's the idea behind that dual tax system that already exists in other cities. We can do that here in the city of Detroit. So when it comes to organizing, what does that look like? I go back to my relationships. I go back to where the people can do this work because they are a statewide organization because they have organizers across the state that understand state politics, that have relationships with their local officials because we've been doing this work for a while. Myself as the policy research director, that was my job to talk to local electives and connect them to organizers so that we were able to push our work in our campaigns, which the biggest leaders campaign I was supporting was the Drive Michigan Board campaign to reestablish driver's licenses for all people in the state of Michigan. They were taken away from undocumented people in 2007, 2008, which has led to a huge influx of deportations. My uncle included in a case that thankfully he stayed, but he dealt with that same fear of separation. So for me, it's understanding the systems, it's understanding how to plug into them because we still can. And as I work or as I ask my colleagues and comrades at, you know, in the state level to push this, I can have conversations locally saying, hey, I would love to do this, but we can't do this unless we pass this in the states and organize locally to have residents here understand that. That's one example because we can't do everything in the city that we want to do. We're limited in our powers. Quite frankly, the city of Detroit has a strong mayoral seat. So the mayor can really do a lot more, a lot easier than city council can. So I think that's part of it is understanding those differences. To the question about mutual aid and the learning. So I had never done mutual aid before. And I knew it was a thing when COVID hit, I believe it was a Wednesday, it was a Wednesday that we shut down, because it was the day before the Tuesday of that Tuesday, I was out passing out my literature because that was the election for that was the presidential primary. So it was it was that Wednesday that the state shut down. And I freeze up, I said, how can I shift my my focus. And I thought to myself, well, there are probably a lot of people like myself that have resources to give. We just don't know how to reach those people that need the support. So I was like, what if we can create a document that anyone can just call or fill out asking for support and anyone can call or anyone can fill out providing support and then just match them. That was my need trying to be a social worker and matching those that need and those that can. So did that the next day sent out an Excel sheet was working on my own really, and my friend Michelle Martinez called me and she's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, but I'm trying to do this mutual aid work. She's like, who's helping you? I'm like, nobody. I would need help. She's like, yeah, you do because you can't do this alone. That was learning number one. Don't do things alone. You can't really do things alone. Things were done with other people are so much better. So we reached out, we got some volunteers, we built a beautiful ecosystem. We were a well oiled machine. It was a little rocky for the first month while we were gathering volunteers while we were all figuring out what our roles are. When we were creating those roles, because we had fundraisers, we had people calling people that were needed that needed support. We have people driving food, we have people collecting food, and then we had people that we needed to drop them off to. So that took us a while to figure out. But once we did, we were a well oiled machine. We did this for about all summer, and we are still connected. For us, we're still active on our WhatsApp and put, frankly, when the parents, which is out to any of us saying, hey, I can't pay my light bill, we do what we call just some very fast fundraisers on our Instagram, and we're able to raise $2,000 in a day and pay the mother's light bill. And whenever we have left over, we will pay another bill or we'll provide it for food. And when there was the flooding that happened this past summer, we got together and we cleaned out about a dozen basements, which is actually really hard to do, y'all. Cleaning these basements in the flood was so much harder than I thought it was going to be. But we did a dozen of them, primarily for seniors in the city of Detroit. So that was some learning. And I think that there's always going to be learning in the mutual aid world. Mac has a question. Hi, thank you so much for your time. Just having been familiar with working with Council Member Custodian De Lopez, I saw a lot of the dynamics that happen within Detroit City Council, particularly just on the subcommittee meetings and between other council members. So I'm curious how you've been able to so far navigate more of the political dynamics and some of the tensions there with really like keeping your goals and your mission stable and not getting off track by the way, you know, some of the politics operate. Yeah, thanks for that question. I think for me, it's really goes down to how you do your work. I am not Raquel. We are two completely different people. People often think that I'm Raquel 2.0, many Raquel that I have worked for her or worked with her, not the case. I love Raquel deeply. I think she's incredible. I think she's an incredible work. But we work very differently. So not only that, we have a completely different council now. So the politics look different because the personalities that were once here aren't I think also the nasty politics, although we still have one under federal investigation, many of that is outside of this new council's realm. So I think that helps. We have a new president, Mary Sheffield, who has, from what I'm told already, been the 180 compared to our past president who has been known to not necessarily be the biggest team player, to not necessarily give all council members the same kind of respects, including unfortunately Raquel. And I think the way that Raquel responded sometimes is incredibly feisty and like very in your face. And I'm more of a kill them with kindness and often I'll swallow my pride for the betterment of the work, which is honestly something that people should also think about when they're trying to do this work. So I'm navigating politics a little bit differently. Personality wise, we're different folks, and there's a different council now where I really do hope we actually work as a team, which is going to be very important. This is local politics. This isn't the state house where you have divided Republicans, Democrats. This is nonpartisan. Folks should be on the same page supporting residents to the best of our ability. So really hoping that we all come with that mentality, and that we are able to better serve. And I know Deandre has a question. Yeah, sure. That was actually kind of my question, which is great because that means the Ford School was teaching, you know, teaching our students ways to think of people that actually work for the government. Councilwoman, it's such a pleasure to hear you talk. I was actually Council President Sheffield's Director of Community Relations for her first term part of her second term. So you're you're energy and your passion is actually making me miss the 13th floor of K Mac right now. That's that's so great. You know, as you mentioned before, you know, you are you're community minded. You're coming from, you know, such a great background that you really understand what people are going through. Kind of along with that question, you know, you're in a district that is very diverse, more diverse than people give it credit for, you know, I remember, you know, representing Councilwoman and, you know, hearing about all the corporations and the companies and all the money that I don't think a lot of people realize a lot of outside money comes into the city. How do you think about going through your first term, balancing the community with all these other interests that want to bring development and people hear jobs and when you disagree, it's like, oh, well, your anti job, you know, how do you plan on balancing that for the better betterment of the city, but particularly the district that, you know, kind of born and raised you. Sure. Thanks for that question. I'm happy to hear and that, you know, the 13th floor. Well, Mary Sheffield awesome. I'm excited that she's that she's president now. To be frank, I'm a little terrified and not terrified about necessarily making a mistake, but about the politics and that would look like because quite frankly, as you mentioned, people in my district want jobs. People in my district, some of them want a new coffee shop. Some of them do want a new restaurant. But quite frankly, also, we are being gentrified. We are being priced out. If you put that coffee shop in there, why is nobody from the block working there? Why is somebody who just moved here 30 like 30 weeks ago? No harm, but also where is the opportunity? Where is the equity? And I think that's what makes people upset is that we don't mind your neighbors. We don't mind new people. What we mind is feeling stepped on, which is a lot of residents feel that feeling as if you're being ignored and being left out of this new development and opportunity. And District 6 does have that. It's Kork Tong Yaw, it's midtown, it's downtown, it's the riverfronts, and there are conflicting needs. I've met with developers who are like, look, my neighborhood, my neighborhood, when they live downtown, in my mind, downtown sure is a neighborhood, but it also is completely different when it comes to the scale of the economies and the scale of support and resources, it's still downtown. But I hear you, ma'am, who owns the building, who wants to care about your neighborhood. So for me, it's about meeting everybody's needs to the best of my ability, because she does live in her neighborhood downtown, and she does need to have her street life fun, and she does need to feel safe. And I do care about everybody feeling that way. So I think I need to be in conversation with everyone, talking with folks so that when it comes down to maybe a sale or a contract, and if I feel like it's not meeting all of the community benefit agreements that I can be meeting, I'm going to vote no, but I do hope, ma'am, that you understand why it's event. And if I ever say yes to a contract or yes to the developments, because I've had the union workers telling me this will bring us jobs, and people in my community in my neighborhood are like, oh, you're just saying yes to something new, a new corporation, a new whatever the case may be. I'm able to tell them yes, and it provides jobs for our neighbors. Yes, and here's the job application to take these jobs that we're bringing in. So that is one of the trickiest parts, I think, about this work is that I am now part of the system. As much as I fought it, I am wearing this hat, but I have to remember that it's just a hat, a hat that I can take off, a hat that I do take off at the end of the day when I'm playing my 30 minutes of Animal Crossing because I just need to be in an island somewhere and to know that I am able to have conversations with people and really let them know why I'm making the decisions that I'm making. Understanding that I'm all about economic development. My families, they're entrepreneurs. My dad has a business, my mom has a business, small businesses, but I understand the needs to really support everyone. So it's going to be tricky, but I look forward to learning along the process really. Awesome, thank you so much, and I want to say I fully support you passing something and change the systems in there. When I got hired in March of 2014, I didn't get paid for eight weeks. So because of the city was so crazy, no one should ever go through that. I know how onboarding is crazy, so I fully support you change the systems there because it can make things a lot better if everyone's on the same page and ready to go like you are. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. We have another student to ask about for those of us that are interested in organizing and getting involved are there internship opportunities? Yes, great question. Yes, there are. Well, there will be. We are just getting started, but Joelle would be the person to reach out to. Let me pick up there this email real quick. So Joelle Ray's clan will be drafting our program now. And just so folks know the internships that we have, you will be working probably full see with Kristen, who's going to be our director of organizing and strategy. So I have someone on my team specifically working with us with the organizing ones because it's going to be for me. I see the power that it brings in politics really. So Joelle, Kristen will be working very closely on our internship program. And for me, I've gone through so many internship programs and many of them unpaid and the ones that have made me the happiest are the ones that I feel as if I did real work as if I was able to take something back with me, put it on my resume and it's not just, you know, a sentence, it's actual outcomes. So for us, our internships sign up and be prepared to work, be prepared to attend community meetings, to provide feedback, to create systems, to really put input into our work, because we desperately will take and need all the support that we can get. And if any of our students, how would our students contact you if they wanted to follow up after this? So for me, I'm also going to share, let me actually share my personal, I'll share both. So this is my personal, this is for anyone that wants to do a Zoom coffee, or if you're in the city, you want to do is coffee, because I also just think mentorship and relationships are really powerful. I know that I would not be here if it wasn't for the mentors in my life that continue to mentor me and coaches. This is my office email for anyone that would like to connect for something, you know, work related. And then I also have a, I'm going to start giving out my work number, just because I need to start separating my life. I've realized, but this is my work cell, if anybody would like to text me or call for anything, this is 313-480. This is my number. Thank you for sharing all that. Does anybody else have another question? Now, Gabby, this has been so fabulous. I also want to offer up to you that at some point as you get more settled in, that Deandra and I can have further conversations with you to see how, if you have policy projects that you want groups of students to work on, we have various ways to do it through independent study or actual courses. We also have a great, our MPA program now, students have to do a capstone project. So there's all kinds of opportunities for our students to engage and help you do what you do while they get incredible experience. And in some cases, there's sometimes pay for research assistance, but a lot of times it's class credit. So that would be great. Yes, no, I'm great. I would love that. We have a lot of fun projects, just a little insight. We're looking into cannabis in the city. We're looking into housing, into transit, transportation. We've got exciting new train tracks, Reno roads looking into to be built in the city. There's just so much. So that would be great. Yeah, wonderful. And for everybody, thank you all for attending. And I'm so happy to have so many social work students on. Gabby, thank you so much. My students will join me in thanking you and really look forward to having you around for a while. So we work with you and watch what great things you're going to do for the city of Detroit. Thank you. Thanks to me. Thanks, everybody. This was fine. This makes me really happy. I'm excited. I'm going to go back to work now, punks. Have a great day. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.