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muni, whether it costs you more or doesn t cost you anything. how do we do all of that in a much more involved way? education, outreach, more engaging new citizens to mentor and help other eligible immigrants navigate the citizenship application process. we think this is our next big challenge, but opportunity just beyond the work that we did which was groundwork to get people counted. and i said earlier, our diversity is not just to be tolerated. it has to be celebrated in every way, and full participation is the goal. well, i want to thank wonderful historic and new funding partners that through their leadership and generosity in this initiative, certainly sandra hernandez and the san francisco foundation have been long-time partners. she s been so helpful in many other things and many of you know she s helping me on hope s.f., provide housing opportunities for some of our worst dilapidated housing. now she s also again stepped up with additional partners. and i want ....
president since 2009. president chiu. (applause) thank you, and good morning, everyone. first of all, i want to join the mayor in thanking all the folk behind me who represent the funding community that has so wonderfully stepped up. thank you, dr. sandra hernandez and your colleagues. i of course want to thank all the amazing nonprofit social service providers and immigrant rights organizations that have been part of the fabric of why i m so proud of san francisco as a city that welcomes and protects our immigrant communities. and i also want to take a moment and thank all of you. you re taking pictures of us because i think behind us represents the diversity of our city. but we are looking at you. if you actually looked among yourselves, this room effects the diversity of the world. san francisco, we were built by immigrants. the presence of our city is successful because of the vitality of our immigrant community. and we know the future of san francisco rests with ....
dr. sandra hernandez is an advocate, a physician of philanthropic leader, a role model and definitely a ground breaker ~. she s the former director of san francisco department of public health and nationally renowned expert on health care and nonprofit sustainability. dr. hernandez. (applause) well, good morning, everybody. thank you, adrian. i want to appreciate you, mayor lee, supervisor chiu, and really all of our philanthropic partners that are launching this extraordinary pathway to citizenship in san francisco. the san francisco foundation for over 60 years has held very central to its core mission the notion that we need to engage every citizen, every resident in order to make our democracy better. and all of the philanthropic organizations that are part of this pathway initiative likewise believe that our democracy is better when everybody is included in it. the san francisco foundation is proud to be a leader and investor in this necessary work, bringing toge ....
well, today there is over 100,000 permanent residents in san francisco who are not fully engaged yet in everything that they can be doing in registering their voice. and, so, we want to announce today a new initiative, it s the san francisco pathways to citizenship initiative. its job, its focus is to work with all the community-based organizations in the public-private way, work with the foundations with historically supported these efforts to bring voice and communication to hidden communities and unannounced communities, and to bring them to a path of citizenship, and to talk in culturally competent ways what the benefits of full citizen participation are, and there are many. if you are becoming a citizen or if you become a citizen, you re going to have a lot more fuller rights. for one thing, you get to vote in san francisco. you get to vote in america. and that voting right is so precious. and we saw just a month ago or less than a month ago how we revisited how va ....
family has been here, at some point in your lineage, you came to this country, you came to this state, you came to san francisco, and part of what we re seeing today is we all deserve to be here. we deserve to make san francisco and america great. thank you very much. (applause) thank you, supervisor. many of you may not know that over 35% of san francisco small businesses are owned by and operated by immigrants today. our next speaker is a real role model for many of us, a ceo of the san francisco foundation, dr. sandra hernandez is an advocate, a physician of philanthropic leader, a role model and definitely a ground breaker ~. she s the former director of san francisco department of public health and nationally renowned expert on health care and nonprofit sustainability. dr. hernandez. (applause) well, good morning, everybody. thank you, adrian. i want to appreciate you, mayor lee, supervisor chiu, and really all of philanthropic partners that are launching this ....