For Distribution Service. More independence through targeted, strategic investment distribution that the city would own and operate and pay pg e to provide service where we do not own and operate systems ourselves. And then the third option, full independence. We would pay pg e a fair market value for their facilities, become the owner and operator of the system that serves San Francisco. Here is a snapshot of the options to give you a sense of the size, revenue, and capital expenditure. The size ranges between 3500400,000 by accounts sir. 150 megawatts and by thousand megawatts. The distribution revenue ranges from 100 million per year that we would collect up to 700 million per year. The Capital Outlay ranges from 25 million annually to a few billion dollars initial investment in the system. Now, lets take a look at a little deeper dive on each of these options. Limited independence. Under this option, we would keep fighting the good fight, taking our concerns to pg es regulators. As you are aware, we currently have two open formal complaints at the federal Energy Regulatory commission. Under this scenario, pg e continues to impose requirements that negatively impact the citys ability to serve our customers. This a option has grown increasingly, and unnecessarily expensive. Our quarterly report, which was provided to the board on may 17 shows 61 projects are currently delayed. Add an extra cost, since fall of 2018, of 9. 5 million to the city. Targeted investment for more independence, has the city shifting towards a more aggressive investment, building its own electric distributions systems. We are making progress on this front, reducing costs, the prospect for grid modernization under this scenario is quite good. Hardships still remain where the city has not made investments. And then the third option is acquiring pg any assets for full independence. Under this option we would be expanding the citys existing public electric utility, hetch hetchy power. Making investments, in the system, through revenue bond financing. Our initial staff estimates puts the acquisition cost foz on the range of a few billion dollars. In a few billion places it in the realm of other Capital Investments undertaking since the city has pursued as you see a rate here. The water system and sewer system improvements, the expansion of redevelopment are on the same, you know, monetary scale. It is doable for the city. Having said that though, we do recognize that this is a complex undertaking and it is not without risks and challenges. On this slide i am presenting a comparison on how public funds are used under these options. Where decisionmaking and grid control lies. Who oversees the programs, sets the rates and ensures operational accountability . The effectiveness of achieving San Franciscos climate goals and how the option described, and the clean power sf program fit. As you see here, full independence is the option that perform the best. Public funds would be used for Public Ownership and investment in San Francisco grid. San francisco would control the grid and make associated decisions. Voters, the board, the mayor, our commission would ensure accountability and driving achievement of our climate goals and we would be integrating the clean power sf program fully. Risks and challenges do exist under this scenario, as i mentioned. They would need to be assessed. We would need to take a look at the condition of pg es it is largely unknown. We need to evaluate the potential impacts on pg es remaining customers. The impacts on cost and rates for San Franciscos residents and businesses into the future. Take a look at what our workforce expansion needs to be. Integration of pg es operational systems and technologies. And the possible disproportionate impacts to communities and residents of the city. Preliminary work on these issues show likely longterm benefits for San Francisco through full independence, through acquisition of pg es assets. The longterm benefits are durable, longterm cost savings to customers. Timely and costefficient modernization of the grid. By that, i mean, things like solar, on the rooftops, solar plus storage for resiliency, the sharing of solar generation across customers. Easy charging her bikes, cars, and scooters. Achieving longerterm climate goals the city has been striving toward. While ensuring safe, reliable energy, in a workforce that is wellequipped to take on these issues. With the attention as well to equity. Really, a Community Directed in a community accountable approach to providing electric services. That concludes the review of the options. Which brings us next to next steps. The report concludes that the study work should focus on acquisition of pg es assets, serving San Francisco. We need to continue our work to assess which assets to purchase and the Current Conditions and value of those assets. Assess the Public Utility Commission operational readiness for these expanded responsibilities as well as the citys Overall Organization capacity. Assess the equity implications, understand the System Engineering impacts and understand the impacts on remaining pg e customers and develop a transition plan. The timeline for this work is accelerated and influenced by factors outside of the citys control. Most notably the fact that pg e filed for bankruptcy. That effort really accelerates the timeframe for the work that we have underway. One known data. Is the fact that pg e has until september 29 to form a plan for reorganization. We are kind of anchoring on that date, as we pursue our study work. So that we are positioning the city to be ready to engage on that timeline. Any successful efforts could include a few year transition. During that time we would need to complete our regulatory, any necessary Regulatory Approvals with the state and the feds. We would need to establish the new points of interconnection between pg e and cityowned systems and conduct the work to ensure that the puc is organized to succeed with our recruitment and workforce and integration efforts being key. Our next steps are centered on helping San Francisco answer this big question. Can San Francisco purchase the assets, reorganize around a larger enterprise, and continue to provide affordable, reliable Power Service consistent with our values on clean power content and equity, while meeting our financial requirements . With that, i would be happy to take any questions you may have. I think you for your attention. Thank you, you have managed to take a remarkably complicated, complex piece of Public Policy and financial policy and put it into something that is very easily understood. I really like the Capital Spending comparison slide. Which really puts it in perspective, particularly as a puc. When you look at that yellow bar of what public power, acquisition expansion looks like compared to projects that the puc has successfully undertaken and successfully financed and continues in the case of the sewer system Improvement Project to currently the undertaking. These are massive projects that are larger than the gmb of some countries. I dont have any questions other than what can we do to help you beyond having given you the original e ref dollars so you can embark on this mission. Our job is to help you do your job. Whatever we can do to facilitate that, i am happy to do as long as we can afford it. Thank you. Supervisor peskin supervisor haney. Supervisor haney thank you for this. It sounds like the direction we should be going in. A couple of questions in terms of some of the things we might be looking at as we are developing a transition plan. Obviously we have a governing structure right now that exists, for the situation we are in. This would be a different situation. Are you also going to be looking at some of the opportunities for governance and other municipalities how they do this . Have you given any initial consideration to that . We have been looking at how other cities that operate fully integrated electric utilities conduct their governance. Ready examples like la wp, city that operates its own water and power department. Much like us, but they own their Distribution Service serving their customers. Organizations like the sacramento municipal utility district, santa clara owns its own distribution and power supply serving its city. These are the three larger municipal utilities operating in the state of california. Were San Francisco to pursue this acquisition, we would become the thirdlargest in the state. So governance, and how to be most effective is certainly on the list of activities that we are investigating further i will bring more information back to the board on. Supervisor haney thank you. One thing i know you have worked on a lot, and supervisor ronen wanted to make sure i brought up this issue. Some of the current challenges around connecting public projects with city generated electricity and working with pg e to do that, have there been improvements in that, and what sort of a current status of that. How do some of the short needs around that relate to this longerterm solution. Unfortunately we have not seen improvement in our interactions with pg e on getting City Projects connected to to their Distribution System that they own. Our last report to the board on this was in made. At that time we had 61 projects, City Projects that were delayed negatively impacted by pg e on grade connection with increased cost and delays. We tabulated 9. 5 million in additional costs to the city, since we started collecting the data in the fall of 2018. That is 6. 3 million an additional costs to the actual projects themselves that the city is trying to implement and 3. 6 million in lost revenue from pg e not allowing us to provide the service. Unfortunately, we are seeing some stepping up of difficulty with pg e. They sent us a letter saying they were just going to flat out cancel a number of requests we have two interconnect projects. Unfortunately, we are not seeing improvements. Supervisor peskin are those the main 2 letters . I think that is right. May 17 is when we sent the report to you. No, it would not have been a may letter, i think it was a june letter from pg e that we receive. I would be happy to get you copies of that letter. Supervisor haney there is a may 13 letter in the file, and a july 26 letter. We have had quite a bit of meetings and efforts to try to work things out with pg e that have had some limited success. We had i think, six projects that were initially allowed to move forward with pg e. Since those efforts, it has really come to a grinding halt. We are just seeing more and more of these projects delayed critically. Supervisor haney as part of this analysis, would we be looking at how to address that issue either in the shortterm, or or in a transition timeframe . How we might accelerate the process, in certain areas, where we have immediate need . Yeah, so, as i say, we are continuing to work things out with pg e. If we were to move forward with an acquisition and pg e were agreeable to that, or through the bankruptcy proceeding found that that was a part of the plan to emerge from bank of there would be an improved approach to transition away from pg e distribution ownership, to city distribution ownership that would make the connection of the projects, in the meantime, more businesslike and efficient. Supervisor haney got it. Obviously the focus of a lot of this has been is on the transmission and distribution of electricity. How does natural gas play into this . As we are thinking about the transition, or potential transition, what is the role of natural gas reduction . I think the city has been very successful in decarbonization the service of electricity. The areas that the citys climate focus to cetera now, are really moving towards transportation and the building stock. That is where we see gasoline, diesel and natural gas being consumed. We will see less and less reliance on natural gas, more and more reliance on electricity for powering building functions, and out Electricity Service that we provide over 50 renewable and Greenhouse Gas free. We are very compatible with the citys objectives there. Clerk for thank you. Supervisor safai, any questions or comments . Supervisor safai that last one was important to us. I think we delayed the project almost over 1. 5 years. The cost the project almost an additional million dollars, and people do not understand. When you try to explain to them we are having an argument about transformers, equipment and they are saying, we are just reopening a pool. They dont understand. A lot of these things are extremely frustrating to users and neighborhood groups. We have done everything we can to work with you, and your team, and pg e. It got so crazy to the point you all werent a vendor for a particular piece of vendor of theirs, so we had to loan, and then get it back, and then when the piece of equipment came. I mean, it was just absurd. Absolutely absurd. If we have the ability i know supervisor peskin, and i, we put forward we never would have a vision we would be in the position to use the ability to sell bonds to acquire infrastructure, on the distribution grid. Everything that we can do to have our own control over the system i think is something that we would 100 b in favor of. I think i can speak for all of my colleagues here, we are all in favor of that. The more we can be brief, the more you can give us information on. If theres anything we can do, we are happy to participate in that process. We appreciate the thoughtful and well laid out report. Thank you. Supervisor peskin tomorrow in closed session we get to hear about the over 20 pieces of Outstanding Litigation and actions where pacific gas and electric is the Adverse Party to the city. Something to look forward to tomorrow. All right, why dont we open this up to public comment. I have a number of speaker cards. If you will line up to my left, youre right,. If you will line up after the speakers i have called. I will be using the overhead. Eileen bogan, coalition for San Francisco neighborhoods here at the july 22 meeting of the Capital Planning committee, there was a presentation of the 2019 Building Code update. The presentation was made by the department of the environment. The presentation stated that the cities current admissions that come from private sector natural gas are 35 . One of the proposals will be to encourage all electric, new construction. The issue of reliability was brought up by a Committee Member similar issues were brought up at the july 25 meeting of the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services committee on overhead wiring. I believe under grounding should be considered with this hearing, and would propose the following priorities. Areas adjacent to police and fire stations to protect emergency response. Areas adjacent to hospitals for the same reason. Areas adjacent to muni routes to protect transit services. Areas adjacent to schools to protect students. Areas adjacent to commercial corridors to increase their competitiveness with online retail. Finally, at the Public Safety committee hearing, pg e stated that in terms of under grounding , San Francisco is fortunate, unlike minnesota we do not have a a gophers who could impact underground wires. The west side does have gophers, lots of them. A fact that pg e seems unaware of. Thank you. Next speaker, please. This is thrilling actually. I know there are hundreds of people out there that didnt probably know about this stage of the program. You could feel them. We are so thankful for the supervisors putting this forward , and for the wonderful report that you gave that was so clear and concise. Also that we would have be really jumping ahead because of their bankruptcy, to deal with the Climate Crisis is fantastic. Also no more secrecy so the people actually know what is going on with our system. It is so important. As many people now, it has been one i want to mention labor. It is so important that the people that work for pg e know that they will be transferred with pension and wages equal, or better than, to what they have now. That we would finally get rid of a corporation that is just for profit, felon, and has broken the agreement for over 100 years. As a part of extinction rebellion, we are extremely excited about this move forward that we can really have a public system that is for clean power. No more nuclear, all of those things are gone. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Its wonderful to appreciate what our representatives are doing in this way. Supervisor peskin thank you, next speaker, please. Good afternoon supervisors. Eric brooks with californians for energy choice, San Francisco green parties and the local grassroots organization. It would clearly be better for this city if we had public power. Some folks might remember back in the day, the San Francisco guardian did a study that showed we would get 200 million more per year, by not throwing money at pg e. With that said, weve got to be mindful that we are in a Climate Crisis. Getting a bunch of extra money every year does not necessarily solve that. Los angeles, the biggest public utility is dismal on Renewable Energy. Sacramento, one of the best leaders on Renewable Energy is not doing as well as a Community Choice programs. What that means is that we must have mandates. Whatever we passed here or at the ballot, that we have 100 local Renewable Energy master plan baked into that thing, like the document i sent to you, that showed you sydney, australias master plan. That is number if it doesnt have that, climate activists will not support that, especially community activists. All we need is a democratic electric elected board. Most consumer advocate are going to be deeply concerned about another agency that is ran by five people appointed by the mayor. Whether the mayor is good or bad is not the issue. We need democratically elected representation. That means we need to set up municipally elected board for this thing. Lastly, we wont even get a chance at this unless we amend ab 1054, and ab 11 that just passed in San Francisco. It makes it much more difficult for us to get public power. Those of us that are advocating need your help to push for those amendments and in sacramento, next month or next year. To end, with regard to ab 1054, this board is on the record and very clear, i think we indicated that we would oppose it if it was not amended, and indeed we opposed it. Next speaker, please. I am robin david, i am a retiree, i am retired from ibew 1245. I was also very active in the 2,001 campaign for public power. I am extremely designed delighted and excited that the seeds we planted in 2,001 are beginning to bear fruit. It is important to note, that not only this report, to my knowledge is secondhand, but as i understand it, not only does it take note of the fact that public power is concerned with the environment, but its also concerned with rates that are at least as good as better, and better than pg e. I would like to specifically address two issues. The first issue is that adopting this reports, and going through the whole process, is not the end, but the beginning of a very long process. When sacramento voted to institute smiled, pg e dragged on the battle for 22 years if memory serves correctly before smud was established. We have to be aware that we are in for an expensive battle, and be proud paired politically prepared politically and financially for a period the second issue, the report takes up the transition of the pg e labor force into the city workforce. In 2001, the labor moved in on the whole, was very much behind public power. The city union, the biggest local, and lead was chomping at the bit and salivating over the pg e workforce. Supervisor peskin wait one second. Number one, its good to see you after all of these years. Your time has expired, i would like to ask you a question about pg e, the city, and the workforce . Go ahead. Okay. Its a very important, despite whatever connection supervisors have to the city union that the pg e workforce remain a 1245 bargaining unit. A unit that has use to working together, without a lot of divisions, craft, trade and department. Whatever divisions come up are settled within the union, rather than dragging city officials, and managers into it. I think also, from a political point of view the city unions have nothing necessarily to gain out of this. 1245 has significant to lose. If they face losing it they become a formidable enemy, as they have been in every effort for public power since 2,001. I think it is very important that not only did the transition be smooth and generalized way, but that it remains a 1245 bargaining unit. Supervisor peskin thank you for those comments. Ms. Hale, i suggest you might talk to mr. David. Good to see you again. Next speaker, please. Hello supervisors, a Community Organizer with the sierra club. The sierra club supports the takeover of pg e infrastructure, only if the city would commit to dramatically increasing the local build up pace since the new Renewable Energy, and efficiency upgrades. We urge that San Francisco makes the creation of new Renewable Energy resources part of the takeover proposal. Thank you for the opportunity to comment. Supervisor peskin thank you, next speaker, please. Thank you. Senior policy analyst for 350 bay area. It is surreal to be having this conversation having voted on public power every chance i have had since 1999. The whole city family is isnt working together towards this, and having reviewed the preliminary report, have thank you very much for the analysis. The quality of pg es infrastructure, as ms. Hale mentioned, looking at a deeper analysis on the quality of the infrastructure. I know none of us want to spend billions of dollars on a lemon, or infrastructure that will immediately require huge Capital Investments on top of the bio. To that point because, it was mentioned that the buyout would cost a few billion dollars. I just want to highlight, since 2013, advocates for Community Choice on Renewable Energy have been pushing for a citywide local build outs of, efficiency and demand response that was originally estimated at 100 million per year for ten years. Which adds up to 1 billion area that got laughed out of the room, every single time it was mentioned. That would have resulted in 50 local Renewable Energy, and 50 nonrenewable local energy for 1 billion. Estimated. The idea that we would be buying potentially faulty, and garbage infrastructure for a few billion dollars while i am not opposed to that, i think we need to put into perspective, what we would consider spending money on what is considered a laughable idea. Lastly, we really do need some kind of public oversight, besides a an to appoint a board if to have a system like this. That was mentioned before. I want to back up supervisor haney that we want to see governance change. Supervisor peskin thank you, next speaker, please. First of all, youre not going to get first dibs on becoming an owner of equipment of pg e. Pg e owns their Insurance Companies multi quadruple billions of dollars, is that clear . That is why they might want our money . No, the persons in the Insurance Companies get first dibs at the property. The best way to take care of this problem, yall ready you all are ready on the right track, you have to build your own system to distribute your own electricity to the city and county of San Francisco. Get rid of pg e altogether. How many more examples do you need to demonstrate that pg e is not dealing in good faith, and by the same response never had intentions of reaching a legal agreement on this matter. About this contract agreement that you referred to, in may, if that contract was signed by pg e and they made a deal with the city, that is a breach of contract. If they pulled out and did not keep up their end of the bargain, understand me. That is an additional lawsuit that should be filed against pg e. Pg e has been busted by investigator that showed that well over several years ago they were told about their defective equipment and the electrical wires, and the electrical poles could cause a fire hazard. They did not do a damn thing about it. That is further proof. A minimum of 89 people have lost their lives in that fire, that took place, on the other side of the bay. Its disgusting. About you, talking about you want to take over their system, and their defaulted equipment is a waste of money. You can start by going and gathering god damn new semi get that 21 billion that he put in, and stop rebuilding and build your own system to distribute electricity that you already didnt it demonstrated that you can generate on your own behalf. Also, sorry. Your time is up. Next speaker, please. Hello supervisors, i am a resident of district one. I am also an electrical engineer, retired, a graduate of davis and berkeley. I think i am probably the only engineer, graduate engineer in this room, of the presenters we saw today. I appreciate, mr. Peskin, you are a person with with attention to detail. That is what engineers do. Supervisor peskin i think the general manager of our puc is an engineer, but go ahead. Many people who talk about being an engineer, there are many with different flavors. My degree is in Electrical Engineering specifically. I wanted to speak to the risks, and challenges, little bit and say am probably in favor of the option that nobody wants. One of the things pg e has now is what they call a scale. The city will lose some of that. It costs that the city wont increase almost certain because of that. Im not going to go into details, but i think you understand what the scale is. Things like distribution facilities, maintenance facilities, all of the things that needed for infrastructure to support the operation are distributed along its territory and can be shared within the territory. We will lose out in San Francisco. Supervisor peskin we have some of that upcountry. May be some, not all. Not to the extent that pg e in terms of responding to largescale things like how many power lines down. Im not going to get enough time to speak. In terms of the cost, we just talked about the park escalator canopies, and the unexpected high cost, and that is typical. It is a very common thing. Im not going to go into that any further. Finally, about the employees, it has been reported the employees already saying if theyre only in San Francisco they will lose the ability to transfer out. They will be competing with tech employees for their salaries. Supervisor peskin thank you. No, sir. Are there any other members of the public who would like to testify on this informational hearing . Seeing none. Public comment is closed. Ms. Hale, general manager kelly, godspeed. Any additional comments from Committee Members . We will be hearing from you quarterly about the red, yellow and green lights of which i think around that long list you last furnished us which was pages long. Everything else was predominantly red, little bit yellow. If anybody out there, from pg e is watching and they have legions of lobbyists, Governmental Affairs people, would you at least be decent to the city on that issue. This is amounting to extortion. This has nothing to do with the rest of the conversation we are having. Why dont you stop that nonsense with that. We are adjourned. Clerk is there a motion on the item . We will continue the item. Bett. San Francisco Department of ett. Environment is a place where climate hits the street. We know that we dont have all the answers. We need to support our local champions, our local community to find Creative Solutions and innovations that help us get to zero waste. Zero waste is sending nothing to landfill or incineration, using reuse and recovery and prevention as ways to achieve zero waste. The Grant Program is a Grant Program specifically for nonprofits in San Francisco to divert material from landfill. Its important to find the San FranciscoProduce Market because theres a lot of edible food that can be diverted and they need positions to capture that food and focus on food recovery. San francisco Produce Market is a resource that connects farmers and their produce with businesses in the bay area. I think its a basic human right to have access to healthy foods, and all of this food here is available. Its a matter of creating the infrastructure, creating jobs, and the system whereby none of this goes to waste. Since the beginning of our program in july 2016 to date, weve donated over 1 Million Pounds of produce to our community partners, and thats resulted in over 900,000 meals to people in our community, which were very proud of. Carolyn at the San FranciscoProduce Market texts with old produce thats available. The produce is always excellent. We get things like broccoli, brussels sprouts, bell peppers. Everything that we use is nice and fresh, so when our clients get it, they really enjoy it, and its important to me to feel good about what i do, and working in programs such as this really provides that for me. Its helping people. Thats what its really about, and i really enjoy that. The work at the Produce Market for me representing the intersection between environment and community, and when we are working at that intersection, when we are using our resources and our passion and our energy to heal the planet and feed the people, nothing gets better than everything is done inhouse. I think it is done. I have always been passionate about gelato. Every single slaver has its own recipe. We have our own we move on from there. So you have every time a unique experience because that slaver is the flavored we want to make. Union street is unique because of the neighbors and the location itself. The people that live around here i love to see when the street is full of people. It is a little bit of italy that is happening around you can walk around and enjoy shopping with gelato in your hand. This is the move we are happy to provide to the people. I always love union street because its not like another commercial street where you have big chains. Here you have the neighbors. There is a lot of stories and the neighborhoods are essential. People have they enjoy having their daily or weekly gelato. I love this street itself. We created a move of an area where we will be visiting. We want to make sure that the area has the gelato that you like. What we give back as a shop owner is creating an ambient lifestyle. If you do it in your area and if you like it, then you can do it on the streets you like. Working with kids, they keep you young. They keep you on your tones on your toes. Teaching them, at the same time, us learning from them, everything is fulfilling. Ready . Go. [ ] we really wanted to find a way to support Women Entrepreneurs in particular in San Francisco. It was very important for the mayor, as well as the Safety Support the dreams that people want to realize, and provide them with an opportunity to receive funding to support improvements for their business so they could grow and thrive in their neighborhoods and in their industry. Three, two, one because i am one of the consultants for two nonprofits here for entrepreneurship, i knew about the grand through the renaissance entrepreneur center, and through the Small Business development center. I thought they were going to be perfect candidate because of their strong values in the community. They really give back to the neighborhood. They are from this neighborhood, and they care about the kids in the community here. When molly molly first told us about the grant because she works with Small Businesses. She has been a tremendous help for us here. She brought us to the attention of the grand just because a lot of things here were outdated, and need to be uptodate and redone totally. Hands in front. Recite the creed. My oldest is jt, he is seven, and my youngest is ryan, he is almost six. It instills discipline and the boys, but they show a lot of care. We think it is great. The moves are fantastic. The women both are great teachers. What is the next one . My son goes to fd k. He has been attending for about two years now. They also have a summer program, and last summer was our first year participating in it. They took the kids everywhere around San Francisco. This year, owner talking about placing them in summer camps, all he wanted to do was spend the entire summer with them. He has strong women in his life, so he really appreciates it. I think that carries through and i appreciate the fact that there are more strong women in the world like that. I met dandrea 25 years ago, and we met through our interest in karate. Our professor started on cortland years ago, so we grew up here at this location, we out he outgrew the space and he moved ten years later. He decided to reopen this location after he moved. Initially, i came back to say, hey, because it might have been 15 years since i even put on a uniform. My Business Partner was here basically by herself, and the person she was supposed to run the studio with said great, you are here, i started new Nursing School so you can take over. And she said wait, that is not what i am here for i was by myself before for a month before she came through. She was technically here as a secretary, but we insisted, just put on the uniform, and help her teach. I was struggling a little bit. And she has been here. One thing led to another and now we are coowners. You think a lot more about safety after having children and i wanted to not live in fear so much, and so i just took advantage of the opportunity, and i found it very powerful to hit something, to get some relief, but also having the knowledge one you might be in a situation of how to take care of yourself. The selfdefence class is a new thing that we are doing. We started with a group of women last year as a trial run to see how it felt. Theres a difference between selfdefence and doing a karate class. We didnt want them to do an actual karate class. We wanted to learn the fundamentals of how to defend yourself versus, you know, going through all the forms and techniques that we teaching a karate class and how to break that down. Then i was approached by my old high school. One once a semester, the kids get to pick an extra curricular activity to take outside of the school walls. My old biology teacher is now the principle. She approached us into doing a selfdefence class. The girls have been really proactive and really sweet. They step out of of the comfort zone, but they have been willing to step out and that hasnt been any pushback. It is really great. It is respect. You have to learn it. When we first came in, they knew us as those girls. They didnt know who we were. Finally, we came enough for them to realize, okay, they are in the business now. It took a while for us to gain that respect from our peers, our male peers. Since receiving the grant, it has ignited us even more, and put a fire underneath our butts even more. We were doing our summer camp and we are in a movie theatre, and we just finished watching a film and she stepped out to receive a phone call. She came in and she screamed, hey, we got the grant. And i said what . Martial arts is a passion for us. It is passion driven. There are days where we are dead tired and the kids come and they have the biggest smiles on their faces and it is contagious. We have been operating this program for a little over a year all Women Entrepreneurs. It is an extraordinary benefit for us. We have had the Mayors Office investing in our program so we can continue doing this work. It has been so impactful across a diversity of communities throughout the city. We hope that we are making some type of impact in these kids lives outside of just learning karate. Having selfconfidence, having discipline, learning to know when its okay to stand up for yourself versus you just being a bully in school. These are the values we want the kids to take away from this. Not just, i learned how to kick and i learned how to punch. We want the kids to have more values when they walk outside of these doors. [ ] usf donates 100120 pounds of food a night. For the four semesters we have been running here, usf has donated about 18,000 pounds of food to the Food Recovery Network. Im maggie. Im nick. Were coechairs of the national led organization. What food recovery does is recover and redistribute food that would go wasted and redistributing to people in the community. The moment that i became really engaged in the cause of fighting food waste was when i had just taken the food from the usf cafeteria and i saw four pans full size full of food perfectly fine to be eaten and made the day before and that would have gone into the trash that night if we didnt recover it the next day. I want to fight food waste because it hurts the economy, its one of the largest emitters of Greenhouse Gases in the world. If it was a nation, it would be the Third Largest nation behind china and the United States. America wastes about 40 of the food we create every year, 160 billion worth and thats made up in the higher cost of food for consumers. No matter where you view the line, you should be engaged with the issue of food waste. Access edible food that we have throughout our Lunch Program in our center, i go ahead and collect it and ill cool it down and every night i prep it up and the next day ill heat it and ready for delivery. Its really natural for me, i love it, im passionate about it and its just been great. I believe its such a blessing to have the opportunity to actually feed people every day. No food should go wasted. Theres someone who wants to eat, we have food, its definitely hand in hand and it shouldnt be looked at as work or a task, were feeding people and it really means so much to me. I come to work and theyre like nora do you want this, do you want that . And its so great and everyone is truly involved. Every day, every night after every period of food, breakfast, lunch, dinner, i mean, people just throw it away. They dont even think twice about it and i think as a whole, as a community, as any community, if people just put a little effort, we could really help each other out. Thats how it should be. Thats what food is about basically. An organization that meets is the San Francisco knight ministry we work with tuesday and thursdays. By the power of your name i have faith to move mountains because i believe in jesus. I believe its helpful to offer food to people because as you know, theres so much homelessness in San Francisco and california and the United States. I really believe that food is important as well as our faith. The San Francisco knight ministry has been around for 54 years. The core of the ministry, a group of ordain ministers, we go out in the middle of the night every single night of the year, so for 54 years we have never missed a night. I know its difficult to believe maybe in the United States but a lot of our people will say this is the first meal theyve had in two days. I really believe it is a time between life or death because i mean, we could be here and have church, but, you know, i dont know how much we could feed or how many we could feed and this way over 100 people get fed every single thursday out here. Its not solely the food, i tell you, believe me. Theyre extremely grateful. Its super awesome how welcoming they are. After one or two times theyre like i recognize you. How are you doing, how is school . I have never been in the city, its overwhelming. You get to know people and through the music and the food, you get to know people. We never know what impact were going to have on folks. If you just practice love and kindness, its a labor of love and thats what the Food Recovery Network is and this is a huge i believe they salvage our mission. To me the most important part is its about food waste and feeding people. The Food Recovery NetworkNational Slogan is finding ways to feed people. 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