 I'm Harvey Howell. I'm a member of the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance National Response Team. I have been deployed on this particular mission for about three weeks now. I expect to be deployed for this particular mission for the rest of the year. Just put it into the context of time. The rest of the year means we're talking about Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, for instance. I expect I will be doing a lot of traveling. I know I will be in Arizona for the Lutheran Sponsored Refugee Seminar, and I've got the exact name here. I will tell it to you because I can't remember it exactly. It's the LIRS, and that will be coming up September 2nd through the 5th. There will be at least three members from this area coming to this particular conference, and you may hear more about it. It may be appropriate for you to find out more about it as the meeting progresses. So on behalf of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, I want to welcome all of you. I'm going to introduce my friend and cohort, Jean Heilman, to also come up and give a few words on behalf of my partner agency, the United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR. And Jean is the acting president of the San Antonio area, VOAD. He's the first vice president, and our president is suffering a little bit of health setback, so Jean has graciously agreed to sort of co-host and co-invite this group just by way of a little bit of background. And then we're going to start moving through the agenda, and we have a lot of ground to cover. We have some significant voices that I know you have come to listen to, particularly who have some significant pieces of information, real-time information that they're willing to and grateful to share. But a lot of what we're going to be doing in this room is finding out who you are, who you represent, what you are doing, and the questions and issues that you particularly have. Because this is what we're about in a VOAD community. It is about community, and it's about coordinating and collaborating, sharing information, and so that is the forum, and that's what this is about. I tend to be a task master, and you will find me at certain points during this meeting saying things like we're going to honor everyone's time, we're going to stick to the agenda and that sort of thing, because this is, let's face it, folks, this is a passionate topic. There are many, many people in this country who feel very strongly on several different ways relative to this topic, and so we're going to be mindful of that, we're going to be mindful that passion tends to take our mouths and tends to take our hearts, but for the purposes of time, we're going to try and bridle our passions so that we can share information and see where we're going, because at the end of this meeting, we're all going to leave this room and go do something. It will be helpful if we are doing it together, it will be helpful if we know what each other are doing and how we can help you with your particular area or ministry or your particular need, or if we have a resource that might meet that need. So that's going to be the main substance as you look down the agenda of where we're going, but a lot of what we're going to do before we get there is find out really who we all are and a little bit about what it is and where we're doing things. I know in the room there's a number of you who have traveled quite a bit and so welcome and we'll hear more particularly about that in just a bit. Any questions about Presbyterian disaster assistance and our role in this particular type of event? Do I see a question? No, I'll give you just a little brief information and then I'm going to get Jean to come up and talk about VOED. Presbyterian disaster assistance emerged shortly after World War II, primarily as a refugee agency partner of the Presbyterian church and we are particularly interested in this time presently in the refugee care, if you want to use that word and I'll just read you a bit of the you can get this off of the Presbyterian disaster assistance website. Real briefly, Presbyterian disaster assistance is the emergency and refugee program of the Presbyterian church USA. We focus on the long term recovery of disaster impacted communities. We provide training and disaster preparedness. We work collaboratively with our church partners and members of the ACT Alliance internationally and nationally and with our faith-based responders. We connect partners, let me use that word again, we connect partners locally and internationally with key organizations active in response and a sum among those that we connect with are the United Nations, the National VOED, World Food Program, Red Cross, FEMA and others. We manage a number of specialized volunteer teams that work nationally and internationally providing consultation, program design and training. We cooperate with the Lutheran immigration and refugee services in providing service structure for asylum seekers in the United States and I'll read that bullet for you one more time. We cooperate with Lutheran immigration and refugee services in providing service structure for asylum seekers in the United States and we cooperate with Church World Service in the resettlement of refugees to the United States. A little bit about PDA. Jean, I'm going to invite you to come up, talk a little bit about UMCOR and also the San Antonio VOED and there's a mic, thank you. Well, on behalf of San Antonio VOED, I want to welcome you and thank you for being here. VOED is voluntary organizations active in disaster and that's why I'm there as a United Methodist. I'm the conference disaster response coordinator for Southwest Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. One of the things about this refugee disaster crisis is that it in many organizations cuts across lines within the organization. Nobody has exactly the right portfolio to handle this. And so in the Methodist Church and in VOED, we're trying to address that. One of the functions of the San Antonio VOED is that we have been actively involved in organizing volunteers during major crises such as hurricanes when we have evacuations into the city. And so that's one of the things we do. But the main thing that VOED does is communicate among members who are themselves the ones who do the work. And I think that's what we will want to continue to do. Should I report what we are doing now? Let me say a brief word about UMCOR, that is our National United Methodist Committee on Relief began after World War II primarily as an international organization, but more recently has moved into national disasters and is very active in the current crisis. We've gotten several hundred thousand dollar grants from UMCOR to work in the valley right now and have employed a full-time person within the church to sort of coordinate the effort there. I'll talk more about the specific things that we're doing when that opportunity comes. Thank you, Gene. And by the way, Gene and I have been involved in the San Antonio VOED together for some time, going back I think as far back as Hurricane Katrina, but during the 2008 hurricane season, Gene and several of the other San Antonio VOED members I see in the room, I'm smiling at Gene, were very involved when there was a need for volunteer organization. And Gene was very active in organizing what the response was that the San Antonio government felt was needed for this disaster response, and that was the development of a VOC it's called. We love acronyms in the disaster world. Volunteer, operation center, it was a way for spontaneous volunteers, folks, some of whom are like you in this room, felt a passion and a calling to do something and needed a way to be able to, and so there was a way to be processed, background checked, because you're going to be working in a shelter with people whose literal worst day of their life is the day that you're encountering them, if you're in an evacuation shelter, it is an awful place to be, better than where you would have been, but nevertheless not nearly as good as where you're wanting to be. And so Gene has quite a bit of experience with that, we'll talk a bit more about that in just a bit. Okay, for my favorite part of the meeting, what we're going to do is we're going to go around the room, and because there are so many of us, rather than just a point starting here, and everybody stand up and introduce yourselves, I've got the cheat sheet. So what I'm going to do is kind of call your name out, we've organized this alphabetically as best we can by your organization or church, and so it's going to follow that alphabetical order. Forgive me if I misprolaborize your name, but I've got Bob Kamo first with Altavista neighborhood, Bob you're here, welcome, thank you. I've got Barbara Arsino and maybe Reverend David Phelps from Chapel Hill, United Methodist. I'm sorry? And you're Barbara, welcome Barbara. Paul Ryan with the Children's Hunger Fund. Paul did you make it? Paul's busy. Kodorio Garza from Cosa, that's the city of San Antonio. I see a nod, are you here? No, not yet. Seth King, Daily Bread Ministries. Seth, did you make it? Okay. Sister Irma from the Daughters of Charity. Sister, thank you and welcome. Olivia Valdez, Divine Redeemer, Presbyterian Church. Right here, thank you. And I see also Rob Mueller from the same church. Pastor, thank you. And somebody else, you're pointing. Okay. Reverend Sue Briner, or did you make, Reverend, thank you very much. Reverend if you don't mind I'm going to get you stand up one more time because you might have something to say in a minute. You are, if I'm reading your vector, right? You're the Bishops' Associate, but you're the Acting Bishop for the Southwestern Texas Senate of the Elko. That's the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Right. Thank you for being here. You're, by the way, from Seguin. I am. The Reverend Don Page. Don, are you here from Faith Community? Okay. Then I have a whole litany of some people who are very close to my heart because some of them taught me Sunday School here in this church. And so I'm just going to run down the list very, very quickly because there's a bunch of us from First Presbyterian Church San Antonio and that would be Beanie. Are you here, Beanie Burkey? Did you make it? Diana Morehouse. Diana, yes. Thank you. Ed Bondurant. Don't see Ed. Grace Dawbert, who is also my mother. Thanks, Mom. Joe Rust. Thank you, Joe. Joe's past editor of the San Antonio newspaper. Judy Spencer, longtime friend. Judy's worked with us many times in disaster response during our hurricane shelter that we had here in the church. Mary Monroe. Mary is sitting next to her husband, Mike. Thank you. Mike's been very helpful in putting together a number of the resources that the church has been looking at relative to this event. And one of the handouts on the table was sort of a group of resources that Mike put together and I invite you to go back if you didn't pick up on those sheets. We've got a few of it printed out and we'll look at that again. Meg Kulp. There, I thought I saw you. Thanks, Meg. Pat O'Neill, I know is here in the back. Hi, Pat. Thank you. Long time staff member at this church. Paula Bondurant probably is driving Ed. Rosemary Engstrom. I think I saw Rosemary. Yes, I did. Thank you. Hi, Rosemary. Virginia Burns. Virginia. Great. Say it one more time a little louder. St. John's. St. John's. Okay. Somehow we had you associated with First Prez. So if you get tired of them, come on down. Just a little humor. Judson Taylor is in the room. He's in the back. Judson is on staff at this church. He's the director of communications and actually put in a stint at the PCUSA, our national headquarters in Louisville, and we are thankful to have him back. Thank you. Alyssa Payne, who is the missions director for First Prez. She's down here. And Alyssa and her cohort Claire Plantana. Did I say that right, Claire? Okay. Close enough, apparently. They're both on our missions committee. They direct our missions and have had a lot to do with what goes on in this particular church, relative to organizing and collecting information on this type of event. I already know that Katie Badona is here and several others. So if I had not called out your name and you're from First Prez, just kind of a quick show of hands. Katie, anybody else? Mark, hiding. Thank you. And so we'll capture your names on the sign-in sheet for the after. After later, we'll send out a review. Okay. Haven for Hope. Anne, did you make it? Sister Julie, welcome. And Anne, it's good to see you again. St. Pete. Okay. Okay. Great. We're going to maybe hear from you in just a second. Cheryl, did I say that right? North, Holy Spirit Episcopal. Is it Cheryl? Okay. Great. Welcome. And you're probably sitting next to Leslie. Hi, Leslie. Also from Holy Spirit Episcopal. And are you from the same place? John. Hi, John. Great. Cecilia Prez Reyes from the Incarnate Words Sisters of Charity. Cecilia, there you are. Welcome. Did you bring anybody else from the sisters? No. Okay. Thank you. Reverend Reginald, TW Nichols. There you are. Jefferson United. Where is that located, Pastor? Jefferson High School. I may have gone to kindergarten somewhere near there as a child years and years ago. And I see in the back. Okay. Okay, great. So, again, if I'm over-citing you, is that a word? Just holler out, because once again, we're trying to keep track of all of the orgs or agencies in the volunteer world we're all assigned or participating or a member of some thing. And that thing is how we work and network together in that. Anyway. Okay. Now I have the Reverend Matt Russell and Pastor David Collins, who are both probably some more from the city, did you all make it up today? Paul, I've got you down. So, you're David. And you're from Carn City, St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Thank you, gentlemen. And did Matt from the Presbyterian Church make it up? Not yet. Okay. Carn City Church. I'm sorry here. Carn City Prez. Yes. In Carn City. In Carn City. Does that get that right? Great. Um, Carcita McLean, Laurel Heights United Methodist. Did you make it? I saw that. I hope that heals. We do that around these kind of places. A little bit of healing. Okay. Gene Jensen, I think I saw you, Gene, a member of San Antonio Voad and actually current chair of the Long Term Recovery Committee there. Gene is with the LDS Charities. Uh, I'm going to work on your name, Miriam. So help me. Miriam Buhanda, Methodist Healthcare Ministries. You're with the Government Relations. Did I say it close enough? Thank you for being here. Methodist Healthcare Ministries, by the way, is helping to underwrite the video and portion of this piece. And so you'll be able to later on go back and revisit the pieces of this that I went over too fast for you to get. And it'll be on the website. And so some of us are actually watching this across the state right now. So thank you. Karen Bell, did you make it? Karen, you're with Saint Mark the Evangelist and you have the Mobile Loaves and Fishes. Great, thank you. Katie Faria and Teresa Valdez from Our Lady of the Lake. I see one of you. I'm sorry? Okay. Welcome. Uh, Rob Pierce, did you drive up from Pleasanton? Yes, you did. Rob is First United Church in Pleasanton. Thank you, Rob, for being here. David Gibson, Presbyterian Children's Home and Services. David, I thought I saw you. Welcome. I am here. Jonathan Ryan. And you're going to be hearing more from Jonathan. I'm going to invite Jonathan to stand up just so that I can see him. He's been actually seeing quite a bit lately. He was, he's one of the ones interviewed in this morning's paper article, well timed piece. And Jonathan is literally in the midst of this and hearing quite a bit from him in just a bit. Michelle Garza is actually covering the city council. Is that right? Correct, the city council. So we've got multiple things going on simultaneously. Jonathan and Michelle are both with RAISIS, which is the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. They have been busy, busy folks. Victor Martinez, you're an associate pastor. There he is. Thank you. Redeemer Prez. And you're the pastor of mission and cultural engagement. And I think that's who Rob was trying to point out maybe a while ago. Nope, okay. Well, thank you and welcome. Corey Albrecht. Are you here, Corey? And Marissa Perez. Did you make it, Marissa? Yes, there you are. Welcome. So now I get to use your an acronym. S-A-I-S-D. That stands for San Antonio Independent School District. And her title is Governmental and Community Relations. Everybody go, ooh. Also Emma Hernandez. Did you make it, Emma? She signed up. She's also with the Independent School District and she's the office school leadership for team one. You guys are going to be busy and so thank you all for being here. Erica Borrego, my friend from the food bank. Did you make it, Erica? She's a busy lady and one of the past vice presidents of San Antonio of Oed. Stacey Merkt. The San Antonio Mennonite Stacey. A little bit louder, please. So we have three folks, including a pastor from the Mennonite Church. Thank you for being here. Ed Scheiber and Jerry Gregory signed up for Temple Bethel. Did you guys make it? Temple. Okay. Rachel Dodd. Rachel? Hi, Rachel. This is from the Texas Interfaith Center for Public Safety. Polity. Do you want to stand up and introduce yourselves real quick? Okay. And? Okay. Okay. Great. Is that five of you guys? More? Say it a little louder. Texas Congregate. Thank you. Hunger. Not yet. It's not noon yet. Sorry. Dale Trimper, Travis Park Methodist. Dale, I saw you come in. Thank you. You're just down the street from this spot, and you guys have been busy. Gene, we've already heard from with UMCOR. Arliss Olson. Did you make it? Arliss. Yes. Arliss is the Unitarian Universalist Group. Thank you. Reverend Lydia Martinez. Reverend, there. I saw you all go. Thank you. And you have somebody sing next to you? Well, technically, you are now. Lady Ray Romano. Lady, did you make it? Lady's very busy at United Way and also a member of this church. I didn't see her. Sally Said. Sally, there you are. Sally, you're the University of Incarnate Word Professor Department of Modern Language. That's a mouthful. Welcome. Kelly Allen, pastor from University Presbyterian Church. Kelly is sitting somewhere right up front where I can grab her. I don't see her. I can't grab her. Kelly has been very busy. She is currently the chair of the Mission Presbytery Immigration Task Force and has been very involved in this particular issue even before we became aware of it. Going back for several years and we'll be hearing more from her in just a bit. Richard Holt. Richard, did you make it? Yes. Richard, you are University United Methodist Church. You're the Director of Outreach and Missions. You've been a busy man. Thank you. I have Minnie down and Moria also. Great. Welcome and thank you. I have a bunch of folks who we don't know exactly who you're associated with so I'm going to run down this list very quickly and just a quick show of hands. So what we're assuming is since you didn't identify an organization that you may be a volunteer or simply someone passionate about hearing more. So once again, thank you for being here. A lot of what you're going to be hearing today is designed for particularly your ears to hear. So thank you and so I have Anne Forbes. Anne, are you here? Gloria Almariz. Gloria. Elizabeth Gruy. Elizabeth, there you are. Are you associated with the church or another org? Volunteer. Thank you. Jorge Mantil. Did I say that right? Are you associated with an org? Thank you and so we appreciate when we get the sign-in sheet going around if you'd help us so we can identify that. Joseph Inderley. Yes, Joe, are you associated with a group? Volunteer. Thank you. Juan Flores. Juan. Lulac. So once again, we'll get that down on here and so welcome and thank you for being here. Lynn Myers. Lynn, hi. Are you a volunteer or are you associated with a group? So you're a double volunteer. Great, thank you. And that means we're going to introduce your husband or partner here in just a second. I'll bet you. Let's see, did I get Mario Trejo? Mario? Yes, Mario. Welcome, are you with the group? Yes, you are. We're going to get that straight in a bit. Martha Ellen Rider. Martha, did you make it? Martha and you're probably sitting next to another Ellen Rider, I'm guessing. Are you guys are volunteers? Great. Michelle Darian. Not yet. Roberta von Ellen Rider, that would be you. Thank you. Sylvia Maddox. Sylvia. Sylvia, are you a volunteer? You're an incarnate word. So you're not a volunteer, you're an incarnate. I'm just teasing you. But once again, it's helpful for us to associate you with an organization and you'll see why in just a bit. Steve Myers. Welcome, Steve. And we're old buddies. Thank you and welcome to the Red Cross. Did I miss anybody or any organization? All right. Thank you. And you can see why we didn't just go around the room and do that. There are a number of us here and I'm looking at the clock. We've used up quite a bit of our time already. So we're going to just jump right in. What I'd like to do right now, according to our agenda, what we've just done is the introduction part. The need of this meeting has yet to start. Yikes! So rather than spend a lot of time talking about orientation, I'm just going to ask for a quick show of hands. How many of you, through the news media or through your own participation in your own organizations, understand more than just the headlines what this is about? So for those of you who have a clear understanding of what is going on, I'd like to see a show of hands. Clear understanding. For those of you who came and are moved passionately or otherwise by headlines and wanted to know what's going on or simply wanted to know what it is you can do, I'd like to see your hands, please. Show of hands. I'm thinking, Jean, that that was maybe 40-60. So I'm going to invite Jonathan in just a minute to come up and do a little bit of education about what the event really is, but very briefly, what has happened, and there's a sit-rep that some of you had there were enough to print a few, but the resource, and I'm going to hand it up here, and the ladies, Alyssa back there, there's a resource that was also on this table that has a number of links for those of you who are digitally very functional, this will be easy, and for those of you who are not, you'll need to ask someone to help you, but the resources, several of these, are very significant. I'm just going to holler out what they are. One is the Congressional Research Service, and these are all courtesy of Mike, thank you. These are reports primarily. Unaccompanied alien children, the potential factors contributing to recent immigration. A second one, unaccompanied alien children, an overview, very helpful. Congressional Research Service, the unaccompanied alien children, legal issues, answers to frequently asked questions, extremely, extremely helpful piece, very informative, very clearly written. I like that one particularly, Mike. Then I have two from the United Nations, the children on the run, unaccompanied children leaving Central America and Mexico, and the need for international protection. That's coming from the UN, very helpful, and then the Central America and Mexico unaccompanied children migration. This is a situation report what we in the disaster world call a SIT rep, and it's fairly current, it's I believe dated July the 29th. I'm going to just holler out some statistics real fast. Highlights in this report, it's five pages, there were a few of them, we didn't want to waste paper and print jillions of these, and again it's on the web and this gets updated. But very, very briefly, there have been 57,525 unaccompanied children taken into custody on the USA border since October 2013. This reflects the tip of the iceberg of a problem faced by millions fleeing social and economic hardships, violence and drug trafficking. Rapid deportation could threaten the well being of returning children given that adequate humanitarian attention and protection is not guaranteed. Poverty, violence and family reunification are the main reasons the children decide to migrate to the US, let me read that again. Poverty, violence and family reunification are the main reasons the children decide to migrate to the US. During migration children and adolescents are very vulnerable and are exposed to a high risk to their health their physical integrity, their dignity and even their own lives. Quite a bit of additional statistical information, I'm just going to skip briefly down to this one that says these children come from Honduras 29% Guatemala 24% El Salvador 23% Mexico 22% with the rest the rest coming from two percent from all other countries. In other words there is a mass exodus coming to the United States of young children. I use the word mass exodus by comparison to the numbers that we have seen historically and maybe you can see this chart Mike, thank you for pulling this out because pictures are really helpful and there's a really great visual and if I can get to the right page real fast. Yup, here we go. UACs are unaccompanied alien children as we abbreviate them. In ORR we're going to hear a little bit about what ORR is in just a second. In their custody between October 2008 through May 2014, here is a bar graph I'm going to hold it up and I'm going to highlight it so you can see children in ORR, that's in the U.S. in the process of being processed sitting down here in October of 2008 at somewhere roughly at 500 the number 500 okay and the chart for those of you who can see it bounces along here staying under a thousand until April of 2012 when it bumped up to nearly 2000 and rocketed up in 2013 to like 3000 and now we're sitting way up here at 9000 now those are not children who have entered, those are children who are actually in ORR and we'll hear what that is in just a minute and so now we're going to kick it into higher gear