And relaxing after a school year and getting ready for the next one. It never gets any easier for students, especially those in ur schools there are groups trying to make sure students get what they need to succeed. First from the family giving tree, here is drive leader coordinator Evelyn Nguyen and franchisee and backtoschool leader lisa tran. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. We had family giving free on the show. We are a Nonprofit Organization in the south bay, and we run two drives a year, in the summer, we do a backtoschool drive which we are working on vigorously now and winter we focus on a drive. We service our local community of low income folks in need, so for the summer for the backtoschool drive we are servicing the low income students in the bay area all throughout the various schools. As we say, it never gets any easier and sometimes even gets more difficult. Yes, absolutely, rising housing costs, people find it harder to buy the basic needs. Were trying to help support them in a little way with they. What do people need to know what our program does is we look at recipients who are eligible for the federal free and reduced meals Lunch Program and those schools are the ones that we really gear towards being able to provide for and so on the flipside of that, we work with a lot of drive leaders throughout the bay area, and these are representatives who are coming from corporations, businesses such as lisas business, shes one of our first time drive leaders for the backtoschool drive and Community Groups and these folks will go out to their own communities of customers of employees to get them to come and bring donations in of supplies filled back packs. Tend one of, youre one of my favorite togo restaurants in morgan hill. How d iolved in this this because we started last year doing the Makeawish Foundation and the all of my employees wanted to do the backpack drive as well. As a togos franchisee i believe in giving back to the community and the family giving tree program is a way to do this. For the month of july, we are going to offer a free six inch sandwich, you bring in a backpack so come down to the meridian store and drop off a backpack. Where do they need to bring it . 1111 meridian avenue in san jose. Just the one store. How much is this, how important is it these businesses and these people coordinate with you on this . Its vital. I mean, without these physical backpacks and School Supplies coming in to our warehouse, it just, we would be in so much trouble because were looking to service 41,000 recipients for this backtoschool season and theres just no way we can do it without their help. We go out to garner donations by any means, the physical gifts, as well as monetary donations, but it really is more building that sense of community, working together, and you know, in focusing on the areas where we grew up in, right, like lisa and i grew up in east side san jose, it was a heavy Asian Community and obviously we know that, and we come back right around and we are giving back to the high school that we both attended at yerba buena high school, its taking it full circle. The at the jamba juice at el monte in Mountain View on july 20 let me give that information for you. Thank you. Supporting our schools, th, 1 7 00 p. M. At the jamba juice. We are partnering to give supplies. Drop off a backpack or build a backpack at the event. Thank you for being here. Absolutely, thank you. Stay with us. More on supporting our schools and family giving tree, when we return. We are talking about supporting our schools. A group that that, family giving tree. With us the director of development jake monolore and volunteer ryan yi, a recent graduate of Homestead High School and helded to the university of washington. Welcome and congratulations. Thank you. Give us an idea of the connection between the business and the community thats going on. Absolutely. Family giving tree has been working in the bay area now for about 29 years and over that time, weve partnered with the entire bay area and a lot of corporations in the tech sector and working heavily to partner with s. T. E. M. And s. T. E. A. M. Organizations that deal with arts and culture as well so we incorporate the a in s. T. E. A. M. Much more and an opportunity for to us engage not only at the corporate level through the employees but then through the Community Groups as well, and so its a great mix, and thats how ryan got involved with us as well. His mom, working at dell, and he got brought along and so its been a great opportunity for us to engage with Overall Community people through their corporate involvement as well as through just their community at. Interesting. Ryan, what did you see that made you decide you wanted to get involved . The large quantity of just everything thats going on with the backpacks, the backpack drive and the gifts during the christmas drive, that was overmi how large of an impact c help many people they serve through these times was something that may be coming back. At a personal level how gratifying is it being involved . Theres no words to describe it, because i know that im helping so many kids, even if i just help one, it makes me feel great. Since im helping so many, it makes me feel better. Yes, its kind of crucial to have people not only volunteering but volunteering with that spirit. Absolutely. Weve had the opportunity to see folks like ryan come back year over year so its wonderful to engage to see generation after ne so we have grandparents bringing their grandkids and parents bringing their kids, and we have it for both of our drives and so the beauty of our drive not only focuses on empathy and encouraging folks to understand that there say greater need here in the bay area, where there is affluence, but there are the shadows of the poverty in the shadows there so its a great way for us to enlighten folks about that, and to also give them an easy way to give back, and to engage. So whetherwareuse when theyre volunteering with their companies or through their own signups, or if its an opportunity to participate by giving actual physical backpack or making a donation online. You see ryan volunteering on an individual level, talking earlier with leytha tran from togos offering her business and contacts to help. Are you able to keep up with the command even with the positive stories . Yes but theres such a need. Theres over 350,000 children that live in the bay area that qualify for the National Free and reduced Lunch Programs, and so we are trying to obviously serve as many of the children as we can. Our goal is to do 41,000plus backpacks, so every gift and every backpack will make a difference and our goal is to exceed where were at right now. Ryan, youre headed off to seattle to go to college. Yes. Does that mean you wont be able to participate or is there a way to participate sort of Long Distance . Theres like you can do monetary donations online, but for me ill be coming back during the summer as much as possible to help out during the drives. Have you seen that maybe friends or your generation, do you see them responding to this kind of a thing . Do you see a lot of other people your age or maybe your friends joining in as well or would you like to see more obviously . More would be awesome, because theres more people sead the awareness causes, and help more people out, but through the school time, i see a lot of people helping out in the organizations and in general helping out the community. For people who want to help, but maybe have limited time or limited resources and things like that, what are some of the ways that people can kind of be involved and help without cant quite fit it in . Yes, absolutely. I think again, just coming to different events that are available to them, i know that youd talked about the opportunity for them mt up just we have a partnership that were doing with the folks at jamba juice. Right. And so coming out to that event they can learn more about the organization, find out how to just work with their schools, work with Community Partners on that level, and then opportunities to again participate as a volunteer, at their corporations, because companies actually will host onsite events for them, so they dont have to leave their offices even, because we have partnerships like that as well. And they can fit it in, right . Yes. Youre a busy guy. Thank you very much. Good luck. Yes, thank you so much. Were glad to be a part of it. Well, up next, a day of immersing yourself in the this is how driving should feel. The techadvanced nissan leaf. The best selling electric vehicle of all time. This is nissan intelligent mobility. This is and because alling of the devices onching. Freds wifi network are protected with xfinity xfi, literally, nobodys watching. Except for millions of you, of course. Wait, millions of people are watching . Yeah. Were making a commercial. If its connected, its protected with xfinity xfi. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Xfinity delivers the best inhome wifi experience. Plus, add xfi advantage for enhanced network security. Click, call or visit a store today to learn more. Welcome back. Coming up on july 20th is the chevron family theater fvat eek. Here to raise the curtain is peggy white, executive director of the diablo regional arts organization, a labor of love for 23 years and scott dennison, the general manager for the leskcher center for the arts where the festival will be held. He held that post for nearly 30 years so another labor of love. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Give us an overview of the festival. I was talking earlier how the title sort of makes it feel its all indoor theater almost marathon or something. Tell us about the way its laid out and how people can experience it when they get there. Well, its a full day of fun from start to acvities. Its just nonstop. The theater is fully activated with all kinds of activities and fun things for families to you. Oh . Like theater has been performing outside you know, in churches, everywhere, and so we close the street in walnut creek in front of the arts center and we have about 50 performances going on during the sixhour period from 10 00 to 4 00 and theres an outdoor tent, great groups who have been with us forever, since we started, the na mamo no eau Polynesian Dance Group which is spectacular and the san jose tyco drummers join us every year so thats spectacular. We have princesses and princess. We have crowning of royal ndfami princess parades, a lot of theater activities, so that we introduce young people to the magic of live theater. Theres so much we need to spar that up, because theyre our audience of the future. We ve a stage. We have artragious from texas coming in, doing huge balls in the audience, they paint on stage, fantasy form actors ensembles doing cinderella, and we have a magician, alex ramon in one of our small theaters doing magic all day long, lots of activities, fun for everybody. Theres some food, too. Its good. This is all in one day . All one day. 10 00 to 4 00. Seems like tough to fit all that in. You mentioned something about trying to make sure that young people get engaged and things like that. We were talking a little earlier how transformative it can be for people when they actually experience it. Yes. Are you concerned a little bit sometimes about maybe young people not experiencing enough so that they dont get that chance to exp and i think thats why the family accessible. Its open its very affordable. We only charge 5 ticket for the indoor shows just so we can keep track of how many people will be there but all the activities outside are free. There are many wonderful giveaways that the kids can take home and enjoy, and many are very highly educational. We incorporate s. T. E. M. And socialemotional learning. Its not only an entertaining day, its a highly educational day and engaging families in the arts and our hope is to bring them back to see performances in the future and it becomes part of their lives. I know scott and i were inspired at a young age with live theater and we hope we bring that forward to the community now. One thing i noticed and impressive is that a lot of events that i see to try to kind of encourage young people to come, they sort of make it very technology oriented, things like that. Your event seems like it wants to stick to the basics. We have a lot of technology, a lot of flashing lights and sounds and some of the performances, but theres some children who dont like that, so we have a special place where theyre told stories the oldfashioned way. Once upon a time, and show them a book, which, a book . Outrageous that were doing it. So theres a lot of Different Things for every member of the family to enjoy, and princess and prince experiences, where families can experience cinderella or snow white together, like would you at disneyland. We dont see many events like this. Is this hard to do this . Is it hard to have more of these events or do you think youll see more . I hope well see more because i think we all need to be able to use our imagination. We all need to bring different communities together to celebrate life and the arts and so i hope there will be more of these kind of things. Its great fun and its, i love seeing all grandparentseih k. Multigenerational. Multigenerational and the audience youll see the demographics reflect our communities. Its a great format. Really is. Really great fun. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you very much. We join those values there. The chevron family theater festival is saturday, july 20th from 10 00 a. M. To 4 00 p. M. At the leshe recenter for the arts at 1601 Civic Center Drive in walnut creek. A Live Performance of dancers from tahiti and hawaii so dont miss a single beat, because its up next. We are ready to go cultural here in the Asian Pacific america studio. The na mamo no eau Dance Company is here with us perform some ceremonial drum danc desrot forget, they will o be performing at the chevron family theater festival july 20th. So enjoy. [ applause ] at backdrop for my ending here. For more about our guests and their events go to nbcbayarea. Com and we are also on social media, facebook and on twitter rhandanbc. Asian Pacific America and telemundo 48 will be both at the el monte jamba juice event as well as the chevron family festival theater event doing backpacks so please join us. Now we go out with more traditional drum dancing from hawaii and tahiti. We are not used to big earthquakes like that. Our nation is stronger than ever. I feel grateful and blessed. Good morning, welcome to sunday today on thisy a good long weekend. If you lived in california, it would have been an eventful weekend. The state covers with thousands of after good morning, welcome to sunday today on this july 7th, i am willie geist, i hope you enjoyed a good long weekend