 Okay, good evening, everyone. Well, thank you all for celebrating with us tonight, the many good things that community financial literacy is doing in our community. It really is a celebration. Actually, one of my first jobs or decisions as chairman of the board was to change the name of this event. It was the annual event, the annual meeting, and I said, you know what, let's make this the annual celebration. And it really tonight, to me, seemed like a nice celebration. Do you agree with the food? And all right. Well, my name is Gene Ardido, and I am the chair of the board of the directors of CFL. And my other job is to be CEO of Seaport Credit Union. So why are we all here tonight? And I think we all know how important immigrants are to our country and our community. You know, America was founded by immigrants, my mother is an Italian immigrant, and I'm sure you all have a similar story and heritage. Our diversity of cultures is what makes America great. But we have an obligation to support our newest immigrants and have them succeed in their new country. So that is why I personally am so deeply involved with CFL. So we are here to celebrate CFL's fifth anniversary. Isn't that great? Five years. It really is a terrific accomplishment. You know, at last year's CFL celebration, main economist, Dr. Charles Colgan, told us how important immigrants are to our economy. I mean, as aging as we all know, I certainly am, we are indeed actually the oldest state in the country. And that retirement of Maine's baby boomers will cause a labor shortage which is going to be a detriment to our economy. This is true, these are facts. So the immigrant and refugee community is needed to fill these open positions. However, they must have the education and skills necessary to fill those jobs. That is where community financial literacy is providing real value in our community. You'll hear more of the terrific things CFL is doing during the next few months. Minutes, I'm sorry, not months. Well, in the months too. But before we move into the agenda, I just want to thank our many sponsors of tonight's celebration. If you could, please refer to your wonderful program, and perhaps we can save our applause until I've recognized all of them. So I'll do this quickly. Our gold sponsors are Seaport Credit Union and the Maine Credit Union League. Our silver sponsors are Avesta Housing, University Credit Union, Berry Dunn, CEI, Casco Federal Credit Union, Clark Insurance, Idex Laboratories, People's United Bank, and Town and Country Federal Credit Union. Our bronze sponsors are Andrew Scoggin Bank, Cartridge World, Evergreen Credit Union, TrueChoice Federal Credit Union, Pretty Flaherty, Five County Credit Union, Wellin and Company, RM Davis, Inc., Norway Savings Bank, Representative Chelly Pingree, and Donald Sussman, and the Portland Public Library. So let's give the sponsors a round of applause. So I'd like to also take this opportunity to thank all you who have individually donated to CFL this past year. CFL is a non-profit organization and exists only by the donations from individuals like you and from businesses and foundations. So should you want to make a donation tonight, there is an envelope strategically included in your program. Feel free to include a check or go to our website to make a donation. So thank you so much for your support of CFL. We have a full agenda, so without further ado, we are going to play a short video produced and donated to CFL by Community Television Network, who are also filming tonight's celebration to be broadcast on Channel 5 locally on Time Warner. So thank you, CTN, we appreciate that. Okay, so now we'll do the video. Community Financial Literacy is a non-profit organization established since 2009. We are educated to empower refugees and immigrants by providing them with financial education, one-on-one financial counseling, financial coaching, and individual matching savings program in partnership with the coastal enterprises. We are dedicated to support our new menors who have come and met men their home state. You're going to hear some of the people that have benefited from our services in this short video and also some of the community members who support our organization and wish the organization can do more to support the many needs of the community. I hope you enjoy this video. Thank you very much. Community Financial Literacy, how have they helped you? You've been there for a while. Wow, they have really done a great job. They have helped me in focusing on knowing especially how to save money, which I don't have any at the moment, but I know as I grow and do get the money, I'll know how to manage it, I'll know how to save it, and I'll know how to build my wealth. There are people that I really thank for meeting because they have taught me how to keep my head high and I've known how to face other people in terms of interviews that I've been doing and going from the career that I want to go for. And there are people who advise me daily that I can count on every day, I can call anytime I have a problem. Yes, they are a great deal that I really appreciate for meeting. I mean, I do need some help in terms of the business and I do get help. And what can you talk about what that help has been and what it's meant for you? Yes, when I start doing this, I mean, I didn't know where to go, where to start and what to do. I've been going to place to place asking people for help. Like, you know, I'm starting this, but I don't know how to establish or how to start this business, but I went to a place called Women, Work and Community and they sent me to Community Financial Literacy and when I get there to Claude, I get help that I needed and he's still helping me. So you had the education when you came to this country? Yes, I did. In marketing and business? Yes. And were you seeking a job in Maine to try, hopefully? Yes, when I came in Maine, I had all these big expectations that I found a job in Maine. So I tried to find a job when I first got here. And what was the problem, so trying to find a job? What were the barriers to getting a job? The first barrier, I spoke a little bit of English. I think I spoke good English then. You know, comparing myself to many people that we came together. So I thought I'll find a job easily. So I tried to apply in different places. For the first time, the problem that I was facing was that I didn't have any reference over here. All my references were international references and they were reliable references, but nobody was willing to check them. So you need somebody to guide you. You need somebody to teach you to tell you this is what life is here and if you have this background, this is how you can work. Most people actually, when they get in this country, they do a lot of trials with mistakes. Some of them, they end up really messing up, but if we had somebody to lead us and say, okay, this is what we can help you. We can show you. We can tell you what can benefit you. I think that's something that will help. Well, actually, when I came, my dream was to continue working in not-for-profit. So I was definitely, you know, desiring to get a job that I was doing actually either at the same level or even much better. And how did that work out for you? Were you able to get that job that was at least at the same level or better? Unfortunately not. For me, the barriers which was a surprise was not having the American work experience. That, for me, was a surprise in that even when I had the qualifications on paper, but also the qualifications, the work experience, because I did not have work experience in the country, I couldn't get the same job at the same level that I was qualified and the same level that my previous job was in Zambia. So my first job was as an administrative assistant at University of Southern Maine, which was, you know, like a foot in the door. I've been in the US for 13 years now and I came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And what were you doing for work when you were in the Congo? Eight months before we left, I just finished law school and I was doing my internship. That's when everything started. What were you doing for work in your country? In my country, I was working like a judge. I went for a school of law and when I graduated, I appointed like a judge and I worked for two years. For the community, for at least this coming four years that I have seen it grow. I mean, this is the only organization that is giving people from the community we come from good practical information on the finance and how to understand the myriad of the complicated financial life that the United States have and then the rest of the world to a certain extent has. In order for people to come, immigrants to be able to fully engage in the American life and what we like to think is the American dream. What do they need? What's gonna make a difference in transitioning into fully into the American life? We need to leave this concept of assisting people only for emergency purposes. We need to look forward. We need to think about economic empowerment. We need to think about people getting good jobs. People improve their skills. People be part of the workforce that men has. And I would say that CFL has been working on financial literacy, which is a big step, which is a big gap in terms of knowledge and skills that people come with in a new country. But I would see CFL move on a bit. Having those skills in financial literacy is not enough if you can get a job, which when I go to manage it can get a job. And ultimately, I would like to see immigrants not forever in the category of assisted people, having them more social mobility, having them get better jobs in the workforce because I know they are scared and they can change a lot. And most of them are here to stay. So I think I would advise that people move on and really try to bring ideas and new projects, new orientation towards beyond the emergency, beyond the assistance, how can you become a part of the success in many communities? That's what we all aim and I hope that CFL and other organizations will be able to work on that and really focus on that. Again, thank you very much. You heard the stories and the testimonies of those people who spoke on the video. They reflect exactly what community financial literacy does. When Sahara came to my office, she was desperate. I could read her face with desperation, but when she went home, after giving her guidance, orientation on where she can go and how she can do things, she was smiling. And now today she has built her own clients and now she can run her own business. This is exactly the type of organization and the business that we want to continue to do with our community members. Our vision is to see many immigrants in the refugee community build a financial stability. In order for them to build a financial stability, they will need to get a job, to get a better job so they can reach the American dream. We will continue to rely on supports of individuals, corporation and foundation to be able to accomplish these needs. There is no way we could reach a milestone of 1,000 individuals who have participated in our program without your support. As we expand, we will need more support, we will need more resources and more capacity and we hope that you can join us in supporting services and a mission. I wanna thank our donors, individuals, foundation, corporation for supporting our mission and we look forward to continue building a better partnership to continue to serve those community members who are in needs and who have chosen men to be their home state. Thank you very much. It's my pleasure to introduce Claude Ruanje, the most connected man in Portland. Do you agree? As far as I know, Claude has met every politician, every business leader and every college president in Maine and probably every person in the state. Mayor Brennan, look out. He may want your job. Where's Mayor Brennan? He's here somewhere, areas right there. Well, we know Claude is famous for his charm. It is more than that. These leaders recognize the importance of Claude's work at CFL. Claude is a graduate of USM and last year received his MBA. He's a member of the Portland Chamber Board of Directors. I brought him to a chamber meeting. He went to the first Eggs and Issues, just a side story. And if any of you have been to Eggs and Issues, it is, I mean, I don't know if this is politically correct, but it is all one color, you know? It's, there's no diversity whatsoever in these meetings. So I brought Claude to a chamber Eggs and Issues and he started meeting people and within six months he's on the Board of Directors. That's Claude, all right? He's also a member of the Financial Advisory Council led by the Finance Authority of Maine, a member of Vesta Housing Home Ownership Center Advisory Committee, and he's probably involved with many other committees. He continues to be recognized with awards, most recently as a recipient of the 2013 Harvard Center Community Partner Award of Outstanding New Initiatives given by Bates College. He also received the 2012 Spirit of Service Award from Bowdoin College. So please join me in welcoming our Executive Director, Claude Ruanje. I thought he spoke more than I can afford to do myself, but that was great. Thank you for your introduction, Jean. As we always do every year, besides what you heard in the video, I wanna introduce the students who can share live more than just a video what they learned in our class and how the class and material they learned has helped them moving forward. So then I can come back and share a little bit the accomplishments. Let me welcome Jerome, who is one of the graduate from CFL classes, if it can come on stage and share his brief remarks in a few minutes. Please. Thank you, Claude, for your introduction. It is my pleasure to be here on this special day. And this is CFL's fifth annual anniversary, as everybody knows. As you know, that most of immigrants speak more than one language. English is my fifth language. After Quirondi, Quinyarwanda, Swahili, and French. So imagine speaking in a fifth language on a fifth annual celebration. What a coincidence. Isn't it? Now it is almost three years since I graduated from community financial literacy classes. Claude was my teacher of two important classes and these classes are basic money management and the savings to build wealth. Yes, I'm an old student of CFL and this is the right moment for me to come back and give an account to my teacher of what I learned. As everybody can tell, my name tag wasn't ready when I walked in and I made it myself. So now I can tell that Claude almost forgot about me but this is the right moment because I may not still remembering everything you talked about in class. But I remember the world you liked to talk about in the basic money management class at the beginning of every session and that world was a budget. And I know that you talked about balancing or just checking my income against my expenses. Now, there's one point you talked about and I remember nothing about it. This is when you taught me how to spend my cash. I don't regret that I forgot about it because I did not need to learn how to spend. I knew already. Instead, I needed someone to teach me how to save money and you did. Now it is two years and seven months since I started working in the United States I am happy that I started working after taking community financial literacy classes. With the financial skills, I acquired through CFL classes. I opened a bank account and an emergency savings account. I started saving as soon as I started working. Here is one simple principle I used to save. Pay yourself first. Claude, I remember, you said that every time we pay a bill, we are giving money away and making someone else rich. I think this is a simple principle of paying myself first from my every paycheck I transferred $200 from my checking to my savings account. Because I am paid by weekly, every month I saved around $400. After the two years and the seven months I have been working, I saved $15,000. Even though I said that, don't come to me, ask for money. Saving is hard, not only to immigrant communities but to American citizens as well. It demands discipline and the knowledge in how to save. Through CFL's classes, I learned how to build my credit score by using wisely credit cards. I have bought my iPad, which I have here today, my iPhone, which is charging in my car, using a credit card, just a credit card. How easy and exciting it is to swap a credit card and walk out of a store without paying a single penny. It is tempting to think that the money you have on your credit card is yours until 30 days later when you see a bill coming to your mailbox. In CFL's classes, Claude always reminded me that a credit card is only good to help me build my credit score. But it will ruin my financial record if I don't pay my bills on time to avoid late fees charges. Now that I have understood my lesson, I have five credit cards in my wallet. I checked last Friday, my credit score was 697, this is a name. Now I'm enrolled in an FDA family development account to reach my financial short term goal of purchasing my first vehicle. I learned how to do this through CFL as well. As an immigrant, my resources are still limited. However, I'm thankful to funders who support community financial literacy to open doors of financial success to immigrant communities. To me, community financial literacy, classes of course, as this is what I know about, are important to immigrant communities like a flashlight is important when you enter a dark room and you are looking for something. Most of us immigrants come from countries in which there is no economic system that uses credit card, credit score, or social security number. And still we want to be economically successful in this new country. Every CFL class I took helped me to find out how to build my credit score by using credit cards wisely, build up my savings by paying myself first and succeed to set my goals and achieve them. This is why I encourage immigrants who have not taken the CFL classes to take them. I even recommend the CFL classes to American citizens who wanted to learn important financial skills. Why not? Thank you. Thank you, Jerome. Every year, board members ask me if really I have to coach my students before they can come here and speak. I said, no, and I'm sincere. I tried to let them use their own words rather than me telling them all to say. So I do randomly, someone who can come on stage and speak, but they never share with me what they have saved and the kind of knowledge they have gained. But I think if we can even live now and say the event is over, I'll be happy. But the mayor who just came from Japan will say, wait a minute, how about my turn? Thank you, Jerome, for sharing your personal stories. The board member told me that I always speak in the long speeches and I have one of my mentor who always asks me, how are you doing with your speeches today? And that's Eric Boucher, our treasurer. He said, are you trimming them down to five minutes? I said, I'm trying, that's why you see today I'm just using simple papers rather than just typed the papers. And I don't want to repeat what Gene said. Honestly, I'm very grateful to all our donors and the funders. Many, it's unbelievable to see a small organization like a CFL having 22 financial institutions and corporations sponsoring an event like this one. Sometimes I don't understand that. But I'm very pleased that all of you, businesses, individuals, corporations are really looking forward to continue to support immigrants and refugees so that we can succeed in this country. I also want to thank our partners. When I first started this organization personally, people were asking me if I have a track record. I didn't have any. But there were organizations that really supported our organization and were willing to risk to partner with CFL even though I didn't have any track record. So those continue to be on our side as we continue to work and expand. That's Coastal Enterprises Inc, Avesta Housing, Men's State Housing, Poland Housing Authority, Men's Immigrant Rights Coalition, United Way Cush Coalition. Poland under that education, I saw my friend Rob here from his retirement. He said, I want to be here with Claude. Catholic Charities and the Women Working Community. You wonder how a small organization like a CFL can have all these partners. We really work hard. I also want to thank our volunteers. I didn't even come here at this event until 2005. But it's not the room, beautiful? Oh my God. So, someone in a room reminded me that our second annual celebration was at the Avesta boardroom which is only can feed probably 20 people. But we have over 100 people in this room. Every year, our volunteers really do a good job and better and better. That's why we're so happy and pleased. So, I also want to recognize our board members. Please, if any board member of CFL is in the room, if you can stand up, they want to see who you are and the wonderful job you have. You know, my brother Mutima taught me this. When he first started his own organization, he surrounded himself with the people who had knowledge and who could help him get an extra mile. That's what I did. For CFL to have a CEO on your organization broke us, CFL, lawyers, and others. It's unbelievable. One of the person from McKibben asked me, how did you make that happen? You heard what Gene said. I've met everybody. I even met the mayor, my friend. So, thank you for our volunteers. I also want to acknowledge my staff. CFL, I used to be a one person organization. But in the last four years, we have had additional staff. So please, those of the other three staff besides me, can you stand up? They can see you where you are. That's Clément. We have had a good ride in the last three years with the Vista, but it's going to be a shocking that we're going to lose one. But I have all your support. We can hire someone full-time who can support us. So, by the way, that's a request. Again, thank you for all your sponsorship and thank you for your donations and thank you for being with us. We also have volunteers who come every week, once a week. They put about 700 hours in our work. So, that helps really organization to expand and to do the services. And our donors will fund the annual report and all the information. We are transparent. We even had an audit as a small agents. That's how CFL is transparent and we want to continue to do that way. Let me now talk a little bit about the program. CFL last year provided similar services to what you heard Jerome talking about to over 300 students. We provide money management and seven to build wealth. And also, we are financial counselor to provide coaching and financial counseling. We even started doing some tax workshops so our people can be equipped before they go to the workforce development. 80% of our students showed an improvement on the financial knowledge. That's a big improvement from nowhere to 80%. I will admit that personally, I didn't have any idea of what is credit when I came to this country. But now, I can coach someone even on the phone because that's what I do every day. But this is what makes me happy. When I was in Louisston, actually I tried to bring this lady so she can really say what she taught me so that you can hear that. She's a woman who has grandchildren. She came to my class, she's a farmer because I have a partnership with the cultivating community as well. She came to my class and said, I refuse to sit down and be fed only. I know what I can do is to do to work in a farm. But I don't know how to count money. I don't know how to do a budget. But one thing I know to do after learning this class, I'm going to open my business account so that I can be efficient and understand that I have revenue and expenses so that I will know whether my business is growing. I almost felt with tears. She said, Claude, thank you for doing this for us. I know the language is hard, she told me, but we appreciate every effort they do in helping us. We have many stories. Those people, immigrants, refugees, really are not only here to let hands and receive, they are willing to make a milestone, to be taught and be on their own feet without necessarily asking for help. Where do we go from here? That's the question. You heard what the video, people in a video. CFL, we're the wonderful board that you saw. We have, we did a wonderful trip, a retreat, and we decided that we can expand beyond financial literacy services, and that's what we're going to do. We know that in the last five years, we have been taking some surveys. We gave a survey to 400 students and we realized that 70 people of those were now working. 70% of those people who surveyed were now working. There is a wonderful organization providing workforce development, but it's not enough. We want to join those organizations and they provide more services. Because our dream and our goal for the organization is the financial stability, how can we have people reach the financial stability without having a real job? So we want to expand. And the second, we want to have small businesses from the immigrants community. Like what you heard Saharo said, expand and manage their businesses wisely. This is the shocking news that's came to me actually on Monday. Somebody we have to start a small business called me and say, I have someone who is here who's trying to sell me a vending machine and I share this with one of my staff. Over the phone, I was at the city hall buying my little food for the lunch. I said, I can't hear you because I was in investment. I said, can you come to my office with yourselves person so we can talk? Seriously they came. He said, he's selling me a machine for no cost. Just $1.39 and that's it. So every transaction will cost him $1.39. And it's not wonderful to have. I said, you gotta watch out, what are you going to sign up? I said, what is involved in that? What is the monthly cost for leasing this equipment? He told me it's $189, $100.89. However, this customer didn't even know that and he was willing, I'll tell you frankly, he had given him already his license for the business, his information and everything in the iPad. I said, would you please delete those informations? He deleted them on my eye. I said, we will call you when we need you. When I asked him, what is your business card? He didn't even have any. We have many scam and fraud that can affect our small businesses individuals. They need to be part of the growing economy of Maine but they need some support to be able to run efficiently their businesses and expand. And I'm glad that's my friend Paul from NSCAR getting bankers here. We were working together in Lewiston to do similar programs so we can expand to the community. And the last piece is there is no way we can do financial stability without addressing the higher education. I know most of you understand that the cost of education today is $1.3 trillion, the loan for the student, $1.3 trillion. I was happy when I heard yesterday Elizabeth introducing a bill to try to reduce this kind of loans. She said, why can student loan be also financed, refinanced like a mortgage? It is really overwhelming when you add the burden that you have to these other issues. So I hope that we have a wonderful partner. And some of my board don't even know this. I received a call yesterday. We've been working with FAM, financial authority of Maine. They give me a call yesterday said, I think we need to move forward with the plan. And together with FAM, we're going to hire one counselor who's going to work with the student refugee immigrants to see how they can facilitate their integration and also be able to orient them. As you heard some of the people said in a video for higher education and especially funding for the higher education. And again, we need your support. And that's why we always rely on you. That's why we always call upon you. We cannot do all these stuff without you. That's why again, we need to build a capacity. Those three people you saw there, I don't think we can be able to manage all these programs as we're explaining too. Having said that, I think I didn't want to run entire speech without, because we know we still have a keynote speaker. Honey, can you give me the binder now? So, thank you. In the middle of all these things, I met a friend, even though I make kind of like a joke, I met with a Michael Brennan. Maybe two years after we started, or maybe three years, and shared him my story and what we do. He was very pleased and said, you need to get CFL out of the box. If we explain it, don't have money, so you need to see Michael. When I called Michael to be our keynote speaker, he really didn't even take me to say no. This is our mayor. This is the mayor of all new residents. This is the mayor of all people in Cedar, Poland. Michael Brennan is the first popular elected mayor for the city of Poland in nearly nine decades. At the city's top elected official, Brennan has initiated several initiative design to encourage economic development and a job creation as well as support and strengthen the city's diverse neighborhood. He represents the city interests in Augusta and Washington, DC, where he advocates for the city, its residents and the businesses. Prior to his election as a mayor, Brennan worked as a policy associate with the Cutler Institute for Child and Family Policy at the Masque School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, specializing in education and health. Before joining the Cutler Institute, Brennan worked as the director of community initiative at the United Way of Greater Poland, as well as for the Coastal Economic Development Corporation and as the executive director of the Campbell and County Affordable Housing Venture. Brennan has also worked as a director and Brennan has also been an agent, an agent faculty member at the University of New England. In addition to working at the Masque School, Microsoft as the state senate in the main legislature representing Portland, the farm up and the Westbrook. Brennan was first elected to the senate in 2002 and was elected senate majority leader in 2004. Prior to being a state senator, he was elected to the house of representatives for four terms between 1992 and 2000, representing Portland. During his tenure, Brennan was involved with several groundbreaking pieces of legislation, including the laptop program to provide every main student with computer efforts to reduce the negative impact of no child left behind and the programs to expand healthcare access to all men, a model used by other states in the nation in adopting universal healthcare. Brennan has been a proud and active resident of the seat of Poland for more than three decades. He lives in the Bakov neighborhood with his wife. Please welcome Michael on stage. Claude, thank you very much, Gene, Jerome, terrific. I was reflecting on what people said about the length of your speech and I just want you to know that research shows that after 29 seconds you lose people's interest. So just for future reference. And I know that poses a real challenge for me that in 29 seconds to maintain the interest of people here. I also, I just have to say very quickly, I've spoken here several times and I keep waiting for these books to fall over and so far they haven't, so that's a good thing. But this is a terrific turnout here tonight and the food was great. I also want to recognize the fact that the Portland Police Chief is here and the Portland Fire Police, Fire Chief is here. So, and they're not here for any reason, preventative reasons or anything like that, they're just, they follow me around a lot for a number of different reasons. I want to tell a story that several of you have heard before, but I want to tell it again. And my grandmother came to Portland in 1909. She's 14 years old and she had a sixth grade education. When she was 28 years old, she was a widow and pregnant with my father and she already had three other children. And so with the sixth grade education, the only work that she could find in Portland was at Maine Medical Center and the Food Preparation Department and she cleaned houses for wealthier people in the West End of Portland. But all four of her children went to college and I had two aunts in the 1930s when women didn't go to college and in the middle of the Depression, they both went to college and graduated. My father grew up on Kellogg Street, my mother grew up on Smith Street, they were childhood sweethearts and they got married in Cathedral Church here in Portland. In 1958, my father lost his job and he worked for Maine Central Railroad down at Union Station and they closed the passenger section of the railroad and he was out of work and he had three children and my mother was pregnant with the fourth child. We're a good Irish Catholics so we believed in big families. My father spent six months looking for a job in Portland and couldn't find one. So when I was five years old, he moved the whole family to Miami, Florida and took a job with Seaboard Coastline Railroad and he proceeded to then spend 37 years working for the railroad. Two months after I graduated from college, I went to Florida State University. Two months after I graduated, I came back to Portland and I had everything that I owned, everything that I owned was in the trunk of my car and I had $65 of traveler's checks. That was at $65 of traveler's checks and everything in the trunk of my car. What I did have was an aunt who never married, owned a house here in Portland and said that I could live with her rent-free and she'd feed me. Not a bad deal. And she also, in 1968, was the main teacher of the year and I had a teaching certificate and she thought she'd get me a job teacher. So having a place to live, having food and prospects of a job, Portland looked pretty good to me. And all these years later, I didn't have the opportunity to be the mayor of the city of Portland. But the reason that Portland was good for me, the reason why Portland worked for me is because I did have family, I did have a support, I did have a network of people that I could work with to find a job. And research has shown that oftentimes having that family network is more important in finding employment than your degree or necessarily your skills. So it's very, very important that we pay attention to the fact of having those social networks and the role that they play in finding employment for people. But equally important, I had language. I could speak English. And I wanna tell you two quick stories, one that you've heard before and a new one, just to keep your interest. Cause I'm past my 29 seconds. But in 2011, my wife and I went to Spain to visit our son who was working in Spain. We landed in the airport in Madrid and he was teaching so he couldn't meet us. So we got in a taxi, went to our airport, I mean to the hotel. We got out and said we need to get a cell phone. We went to three different stores, nobody spoke English, we couldn't get a cell phone. We then said, okay, we need to get some money and convert to euros. We went to a bank, we couldn't find anybody to speak English, we couldn't get any euros. Finally, we were hungry and we walked down the street in Madrid and I found a restaurant that had pictures on the menu that we could point to. So we didn't need to order. We then pointed to, we got lunch, we ate and I gave the waitress our credit card and she brought it back and I said, where do I put the tip? And she said, she was arguing with me back and forth and I said, I want to give a tip. And somebody leaned over who's sitting next to me who spoke English said we don't give tips in Spain, which I didn't know. So fortunately, two hours later, our son met us. He's fluent in Spanish and all of a sudden our ability to get a cell phone, our ability to get euros and our ability to eat got a whole heck of a lot better because we had access to language. And repeatedly, I am humbled when I traveled at my only understanding English and how many other people around the world have language acquisition. But I can't or I can only begin to appreciate the difficulties of coming to a city like Portland or to Maine and not having the language and having to figure out a way to live, to have a job and have a home. But I wanna give you another example and this goes to the very point, one of the points that Claude wanted me to talk about in terms of financial literacy. My wife and I just returned from Japan a week and a half ago and I tell this joke but I just told it again and Tim Honey's here and you already heard it so I won't do it again. But I am just recovering from jet lag. I had a couple times I've gotten up to speak and I've kind of fallen asleep but I'm not doing that tonight so that's a good thing. But when we're leaving Japan, we're in the airport in Tokyo and all during the time we had been in Japan we had an interpreter and she was brilliant. She lived here in Portland and she had grown up in Japan and every place I went she was there next to me. So I didn't create any international faux pas because she was there to interpret for me and to make sure I didn't do anything to offend anybody. But at the airport she left my wife and myself and my wife loves to shop and she decided that she needed to get a kimono for my daughter-in-law and for my new granddaughter. So I went and sat down someplace and after about 15 minutes I went to look for her and she was standing at a counter in one of the stores in the airport. And she was haggling talking back and forth with the staff. Now in Tokyo, Japan you don't haggle over price. You do that in Peru and Spain and other places but not in Japan. So she called me over and she said I want to buy this. She said but I think it only cost $60. And really converting the yen is not that difficult to American money. But somehow the way they were explaining it, she was having a hard time understanding it. I was getting confused. And then we finally decided it was really gonna cost us $600 to what she had purchased, not $60. And then we were sitting there, we were trying to talk to the clerk and say is it $600 or is it $60? And they're saying well it's this amount of yens and we're trying to do the conversion and not getting it right. And finally we just walked away because we couldn't figure it out. So right after that we ran into a person who was interpreting for us and we said Yaiko, this is how much it cost, what do we do? And she said it was $600 you would have spent, not 60. And that was another example where having limited access to language as well as understanding the financial literacy of a particular culture can have you end up doing things that you don't intend to do but you don't know any better. And so having community financial literacy provide that service to us in this community is an enormous asset that we have and an enormous service to the community. So thank you very much and thanks to all of you for the work you do supporting this. The other item that has already been talked about, Jean mentioned this, about the older population that we have in Maine. No secret where the median income we're the oldest in the country. And percentage of older people were actually second to Florida by a couple of percentage points. But the Department of Labor in 2010 issued a report that said that in 2017, only three years from now Maine would have a labor shortage because we would not have enough people entering the workforce that would equal those leading the workforce. So that's a real challenge for us as a state is attracting people to be here in the state. And in fact, recent census data shows us that we are only one of two states in the country, West Virginia being the other one that has actually lost population over the last 10 years. So we have a real challenge in that respect. But the other thing I wanna point out in Portland, we don't have as big a challenge in terms of attracting younger people. In fact, the state average 16% of people are between the age of 25 and 35. In Portland, it's 28%. So we're almost double the state average in terms of young people who are here. But think about this for a second. Just think about this for a second. In 1951, even before I was born, in 1951, Portland had 77,000 residents that lived in the city of Portland. In 1959, a year after I left Portland, Portland had 70,000 people that lived in the city of Portland. And in 2000, the 2000 census, we're down to 62,000 people that lived in the city of Portland. We're now around 66,000. And probably if we updated for the last two years, we might be closer to 67,000, 68,000. So as a city, we are smaller than we were in 1950 and in 1959. And we are only marginally bigger than we were our smallest point as 62,000. And I have people coming to me all the time that say we have all this development in the city. We have all these people that are moving to the city. And is it Portland getting too big too quickly? And I say to them, we're not as big as we were 50 years ago. And we still have another 10,000 people to go to equal where we were in 1951. So we need and want people to come to the city of Portland and we want people to be here. And one of the biggest challenges that we face is providing enough housing and providing enough job opportunities at the same time. And in fact, yesterday I went to a news conference and we had a groundbreaking in the West End. And it was for 39 units of market rate housing apartments. It's the first time in over 30 years that we have built in Portland market rate apartment units. And that's because the demand is so great now and we have a vacancy rate somewhere between one and 3% for housing in the city that there's a market demand that we can do market rate housing. But we have a huge challenge in making sure that as we attract people to the city we continue to create affordable housing opportunities. But the other item, the other issue that I think is important to discuss and again, Claude's touched on it and Gina's touched on it is the importance of education. 6%, and I'm gonna say this again, 6% of black and African American students in the Portland school system are proficient in 11th grade in math, 6%. We have a huge task in front of us to improve that metric. And that's a very difficult metric at 11th grade to have only 6% proficient math. And this is not where I'm allowing you to write a grant to the city. And say that you're gonna deal with that problem. I know you're gonna be there. But let me just add a couple, two other metrics to that. 37% of the students in Portland school system are students of color. And we live in the least racially diverse state in the country, but 37% of our students are students of color. But the other metric that is of more concern is that 55% of the students in the Portland school system are qualified for free and reduced lunch, meaning they come from economically disadvantaged families. That number in 2009 was 47%. And there's a projection by the Portland school system that we might be at 60 to 65% within the next 10 years. What that means to me is that we have a significant population of families and of children that are living in economically adverse, difficult circumstances. And we need to do more to create jobs and create employment opportunities that are just gonna boost the income of those families. Because still, regardless of all the things that you end up looking at, one of the single biggest markers that indicate student achievement is poverty. And if we don't deal with that issue, we won't be able to close oftentimes the achievement gap that we see in the Portland school system. And I'm gonna just give you three other numbers. I know from more at you, but three other numbers. If by 2017, we have 120 more students in our school system that are reading at grade level, that will give us 80% of students in the Portland school system that are reading grade level. If we have 60 more students that graduate from the Portland school system, we will have a 90% graduation rate. And if we have 40 more students that graduate from college within six years, that will move us from a 43% graduation rate to a 50% graduation rate. And for me, those three metrics are three of the most important metrics that we need to focus on in the city of Portland in coming years. Because that will address our educational achievement level in a way that will lead not only to language acquisition, but to financial literacy and to economic opportunity. One of the other things that we're, two of the other things that we're looking to do in the city, I've just started discussion. We have a meeting tomorrow to increase the minimum wage and it's been shown fairly clearly that increasing the minimum wage moves people out of poverty and provides more economic opportunity. And I hope the city of Portland can lead the state and increasing our minimum wage and providing more economic security for people living in the city of Portland. Two years ago, the city of Portland set aside $400,000 in our community development black grant money, specifically for workforce development for persons who may be homeless, persons who are new residents to the city and persons who are single parents in the city. And that's the first time in the history of the city that we have dedicated those funds for workforce development. And the newly revised economic development plan that we have for the city of Portland for the first time again, we have made a goal of workforce development, part of the economic development plan so that we are focused on making sure that as the economy improves in Portland that everybody has the opportunity to move forward, not just those people who are economically well off at this particular point. We also have an initiative called Growing Portland and it's a joint effort of USM, UNE, Maine College of Art, Maine Community College, the Chamber of Commerce, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Maine Medical Center and the Blood Research Foundation. And what we're doing is looking for the jobs that we need to create in the city in the next five years that will allow people to buy homes, to raise a family and to live in the city. And we're really focused right now on health informatics and believe me, I just learned what that was within the last year. And we're also focused on marine science and lastly we're focused on workforce development for those people that face multiple barriers to employment. So we have a laser-like focus in the city of Portland and creating jobs in economic development and in making sure that we have a school system that is closing the achievement gap that we're graduating students that are prepared to go to college and that when students go to college, they're graduating. And just because I can't get away from the statistic. But 85% of all the, we have about 20% of students now in Portland that don't complete high school. But 85% of those that do graduate go to college within two years. That's pretty good. But six years later, only 43% have graduated from college. So we have another task in front of us to make sure that that persistency rate increases and that not only people go to college, but they end up graduating. Lastly, and I know I'm 29 seconds times, whatever at this point. But I'm a licensed clinical social worker. And one of the things that social workers tend to do is look at human development, look at human motivation. Why do people do what they do or don't do what they do? And I think to some degree, social workers also try to look for the commonality and people as opposed to the differences in people. Social workers also tend to try to look at assets that people have and strengths that they have as opposed to deficits. And I say this in all sincerity. There are a lot of reasons why the city of Portland and the state of Maine should welcome people who come here from other countries. And we've talked a little bit about where we're an older population. We've talked about the fact that we're gonna have a labor shortage and we need more people to move to the city and move to the state. But I really believe the reason that we should welcome people who come here from other countries and other parts of the world is because it's the right thing to do. And we as human beings have a responsibility when somebody is in a country torn by violence, where there's a threat that they would be killed, where there are human rights violations, we have an obligation as a city of Portland to accept people into our community that are facing those circumstances. Not only because of all the economic reasons we talked about, but because it's the right thing to do of one human being helping another human being. And one of the things I'm proudest of the city of Portland and being mayor of the city of Portland is that people in the city of Portland understand that and have reached out and have tried as best we possibly can to be welcoming to other people that choose to come here. And I've said this over and over again, I'm not that interested in why people choose to come to Portland. What I'm more interested in is what people do when they're here. And I think the work that Claude has done, community financial literacy, helps people and positions people to be able to be part of the community, to be able to contribute to the community, and at some future point extend a helping hand to other people they'll choose to be here. So thank you very much for inviting me tonight. And I will work, Claude and I can mentor each other in trying to reduce our speeches and make them a little bit more pithy and see if we can work with that 29 second time frame. So thank you.