And the United States offered our family a second chance. What you need to know, what americans need to know is that while rankly most of us answer the call to duty in far less dramatic ways, every Foreign Service officer runs the same risk, and very often, so do our families. They serve, too, as individuals, as communities, we answer the call to duty to advance and protect the interests of the United States. I count myself lucky to be a Foreign Service officer, fortunate to serve with the best america has to offer, blessed to serve the American People for the last 33 years. Moved by thee not testimony of Marie Yovanovich today, you dont have a pulse. This is a woman who has served in seven posts for president s of both parties over more than 30 years. Hardship posts, places like somalia, tashkent. I cannot imagine a better example of diplomatic professionalism or integrity then what you have given all of us. Those who have served with you, those who aspire to be you, and for all those
Truly a great country in which we live. We have so many opportunities to make a difference for our families and communities in states we serve in the world in which we live. Only in the United States would it be possible for a first generation immigrant like me to appear before you as an ambassadorial nominee. My parents brought me to this country in search of safe harbor, harbor that provides freedom and opportunity, dignity and respect to. The United States offered our family a second chance. What you need to know, what americans need to know is thankfully those who answered the call to duty and less dramatic ways. Every Foreign Service officer runs the same risk and very often they serve as individuals and community, they answer the call to duty to advance the interests of the United States. I count myself lucky to be a Foreign Service officer fortunate to serve with the best america has 2 off her, the last three years. If you were not moved by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch you
Long before ambassador yovanovitch came to a national prominence, she represented the United States and its interests with professionalism, dignity, and bravery in a diplomatic career that spanned 34 years. World fromross the moscow to ukraine, ambassador yovanovitchs career has been distinguished by service to country, nonpartisanship, and as you can see by her list of postings overseas, by her willingness to take on tough diplomatic assignments and to tell it like it is. Haiku up in an air force family and like the rest of my family, i was tremendously proud of my fathers military service. I benefited from the opportunity to live in other countries around the world and to travel throughout this country. But i also understood the hardships involved and sometimes the risks. The same is true of our nations formats, whose contributions often go unnoticed, the work of our professional diplomats contribute to our nations prosperity, advance our security , and make it less likely that young
The community had for the c. O. F. Raised 30,000 for playground equipment. And then in addition at this time was able to raise an additional 150,000 for playground equipment through the Public Health foundation. So as i mentioned before at Capital Committee, the grant award that was a federal grant was actually retained detained in washington awaiting some signatures for them to give us the award money. So we couldnt start the project. At the time, i started to go to all the different communities around there to let them know what we were doing with the project because some time had passed, especially since 94124 had Extensive Community outreach at the time and there was a lot of support for the project during that time. When i went out, the Community Requested to be able to have an area where they can have Community Events on a lawn, such as picnic tables, bouncy houses, barbecues, things like that. Because we had most of the area dedicated to the field, it was hard to have it along k
[applause] thank you, don, and thank you for being an amazing partner in the effort to acquire welding his all over the safety to keep them permanently affordable. Because we know that having Affordable Housing isnt just about new construction, it is about making sure that we preserve existing Affordable Housing, whether its property that we built under the old redevelopment agency, that are in disrepair, or its buildings like this where we are able to acquire it through our small sight Acquisition Program so that we can keep it permanently affordable. Those are the things that are necessary to make sure that San Francisco is a more affordable place for all san franciscans of all income levels. We have work to do, folks. The good news is that in this particular efforts, they basically kept their eyes open and saw that this was an Incredible Opportunity for the small sight Acquisition Program. In fact, even though we are celebrating 86 units here, we know that number one, we have almost