County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Rouge to start speaking of good food And you can share with us a little bit about your grant.

Last question.

Hi, I am Sachi. I am co-owner of Cote Rouge.

And I'm Jamison Christopher, also co-owner of Cote Rouge.

Cote Rouge is a breakfast and brunch and dining restaurant that we currently have. It highlights and gives honor to the historical Tuskegee Airmen, one which is the use of the grandfather. who is from our lab, we also conduct an execution. live course dinners, live entertainment, and our project here is gonna be called The Passport to Cote Rouge, which will be a broader expansion of that pop-up dinner. We are going to do a series of four pop-up dinners, and they are all of different cultures and cuisines. First one being Japan, second Spain, third will be Different culture. We also, the last one will be like the grandiose final one and that will have more like multicultural where we're going to invite local artists, just as we house local artists in Cote Rouge as well. this will be each one will invite about 60 people the last one will be 120 people and with this it encourages them to stay within our hotels because this is a dinner and it lasts until about 10 30 at night we are asking for 35 000 for the grant majority of that will go to marketing press digital advertisement and media We have relationships with the Food Network and also iHeartRadio to kind of help promote this as well as influencers on social media and our local news as well.

I don't know, just to follow up, I just appreciate being here and looking for the opportunity with the tourism.

The concept is to really drive in out-of-towners, out-of-town guests from bigger cities, D.C., New York, Baltimore, California even, and these are some of the the guests that actually come and flow through to Cote Rouge currently. So it's more to bring people into our city, into Dauphin County, and to keep the locals as well and not them go out to the city and enjoy the same things that they can experience here and better actually here. It also introduces some job opportunities as well because for each pop-up, we'll have about

15 employees.

Are you open Mondays? Yes, we are. So who's cooking? I'll cook. I think that's the first big question.

Yeah, I'm cooking.

Thursday's now starting this week now, so we're going to Thursday's too.

That's awesome. I'm appreciative of your creativity, and I know you're expanding operations as well. Yes. Thank you for your investment in our city and our county, and I think this is another good vision of a way to be able to promote the offerings, and particularly your fine cuisine all over the place. Thank you.

Thank you.

thank you so much thank you guys appreciate it uh dolphin county economic development corporation cultural fests good afternoon commissioners afternoon

Hello, I'm trying to screw.

Good afternoon commissioners. I'm Ruby Dobb, and this is Faye Fisher, and we are here to present on behalf of the Dauphin County Cultural Celebration Task Force. We are respectfully requesting $150,000 like we did last year, no increase this year, to support our 18th annual Dauphin County Cultural Fest to be held on August 15, 2026. Cultural Fest is a free community event. that celebrates multicultural traditions, promotes inclusion, supports local tourism, and connects residents with valuable human services. What began 17 years ago as a small gathering for our Dauphin County employees right here in the parking lot of the County Administration Building has evolved into one of the community's most anticipated celebrations. As community interest grew, the festival expanded beyond its original scope and was relocated several times to accommodate increasing participation. Today, our event welcomes and attracts approximately 5,000 plus attendees. The festival also serves as an important economic driver by attracting visitors who contribute to local economy through spending on lodging, dining, and entertainment.

Some of the festival highlights involve cultural celebration, entertainment, children's activities, human services, and community resources. The requested funding will help support national and local artists, performers, and cultural organizations, increase visitation from outside the city, promote tourism, benefiting local businesses, provide free cultural experiences to families and individuals of all backgrounds, and increase awareness of available human services and community resources. We have obtained sponsorship funding from approximately eight organizations through our Dolphin County Parks and Recreation. We have received in-kind services from the City of Harrisburg for at least the past five years. So there is no cost to the county for park permits, setup, light towers, cleanup, et cetera. We are also partnering with DC Live for logistics on this day, and we'll utilize some of their setup for their concert series, i.e. the stage, general concert, et cetera, cutting down on some of our expenses. In summary, Culture Fest is a huge event for Harrisburg with national artists, but in addition to the entertainment, it is just as important to note that our event is a one-stop shop and connects individuals and families with essential support services and public resources. We also plan to increase our marketing strategy to increase tourism. We believe that our event draws individuals from Maryland, D.C., Virginia. However, we do have a, we plan on putting a tracking system in place by surveying the attendees for this year to find out where they are traveling from. I understand my time's up.

Great. Questions, comments?

I just, I want to thank the staff and employees who are engaged in a way that brings passion sort of representation and really has continued to keep this idea of knowing both our community. The people that we work with and being representative and reflective and meeting people where they're at. I know it started out in a way just to get to know who you're working with and now it's turned into. one of the largest events that folks anticipate each year. I think the only other question I would have, human service partners, still the same folks. We have a children's corner where we are asking kids to be engaged with their parents to discuss issues from drug and alcohol to mental health, meeting people, you know, again, where they're at. But can you give us a lineup of who's going to be there as far as the performers for this year?

Sure. This year we have... We have the, it's called, the show is called The Kings of Soul. And so we have Montel Jordan, Sugar Hill Gang, The Force MVs, and our main headliner is Morris Day. And then it's time.

So all good acts. I guess I don't know how I went from a youngest guy to an older guy, but it's a great era and a great, great lineup of talent.

Thank you.

I want to take a moment to thank both of you and the rest of your team for the great work that you've done for close to, well, at least 15 years, I'd say, on this. Correct, or is it more? 17th. 18th year. And Commissioner Hartwick, I believe you were one of the founding members of the Cultural Fest, and I remember when it was first an idea that was brought forth. Boy, has it developed into the premier show here in the region. It's a must-see, and glad... As you mentioned, it went from the parking lot here over to its current location at City Isle. I mean, it's just a remarkable event.

And we appreciate your continued support. You've been to a bunch of them.

Thank you.

Any questions?

Thank you both. Thank you.

Dauphin County Library System.

It is. The first reason we have it out here, so people come downtown, not as plaintiffs or defendants, but as a community. I liked it better there, though.

Thank you commissioners for thank you commissioners for having us. Um, so this is a dolphin kind of library system in the Craig cemetery project that is located on, um, the grounds of the country club of Harrisburg. Um, I know we've only got a short time, so I'm going to do this in kind of bullet points. kind of what we're doing. We are unearthing stories that are complex and tell a great history of both Dauphin County, Harrisburg, and it links to other counties as well across the river to Cumberland. The project is going to bring scholars from across the state to give talks. We have a six part series already in the works, three for this fall, three for in the spring. We're already developing a sister project with Basler Library in Cumberland. And the other part of this is to build the next generation of living history educators with the Linwood O'Sloan PA Pass players. In terms of what it does for Dauphin County, It adds venues. So we're going to start doing talks that we had done previously at the Country Club of Harrisburg. We're going to start doing those at the Dauphin County Library System locations. It enhances the existing venues that we have by building a living history educator group to continue what Linwood O. Sloan did with the PA Pass players and allow them to, work at the Culture Fest and Fort Hunter Days and other projects that we have across the county. And most importantly, it educates the community and it tells stories that we had not known before. So we have partners with the with with Dickinson College. We have partnerships with the Linwood of Sloan PA Pass players, we have partnerships with the country called Pearsburg, and we are continuing to build those partnerships across the state. We want to bring in scholars, like I said, from across the state again, from as far as Bucknell, that are going to bring in folks from there to come into here and talk about the history of this area. I'm going to turn it over because we've only got a little bit longer, but I want to say, Yvette, do you want to chime in at all?

good afternoon commissioners thank you so much for this time uh we're very excited about this project we are beginning to the initial phase focuses primarily on the craig family who were a very notable and highly respected harrisburg family the matriarch of that family was sal craig who was enslaved at fort hunter and the family members who are buried in the grave site on the Country Club of Harrisburg property. We are beginning to... look at where we're doing research now on the descendants of the Craig family, as well as the other family members. As Ryan just mentioned, I work for Dickinson College. I am the director of the Popleshaw Center for Race and Ethnicity. It was named after Esther Popleshaw, who was the first black woman to graduate from Dickinson College, but she was born and raised in Harrisburg. and the Popel family of Harrisburg had connections with the Craig family. In addition to that, there are so many layers to all of these stories, and the overarching frame is to make the stories, the families who are connected with the Craigs and the Endy family, which emigrated here from Haiti and were and were enslaved here in Pennsylvania. There are a number of different connections, and we are partnering with colleges and universities. We're not only looking for the scholars, but we're also searching for those family members. The Country Club of Harrisburg has been a phenomenal partner in all of this, giving us access to the gravesite. So the first thing that they would like to do is host a celebration dinner for Hannah Craig, who was who was a granddaughter of Sal Craig. And she was a well-known, highly accomplished accordionist. She lived on the mountain roughly until she died. She died physically in Philadelphia and then was transported back to Harrisburg for her burial. And the Country Club of Harrisburg wants to offer a celebration dinner of Hannah. which will invite, we finally found a woman accordion player, Lin-Wen and I searched all over, we finally found one. And And as we continue to do research on the descendants, and the research is being conducted now by students at Dickinson College, we are also working with Penn State. We're solidifying our work with them. And we also have a connection with Bucknell.

So in terms- I apologize for interrupting, but we have to stick to our schedule.

I'm sorry, honey.

All right, questions?

Sounds like a great project. I'm interested in hearing more about the history, particularly because I've heard of the history. I don't know if I know the actual stories of the history. So keep me apprised. I'd love to be a part of those conversations.

Absolutely, and if I can just make one more comment, there will be a family reunion once we, at the country club, once we have a critical mass of descendants. Great, thank you. And it will be open to the public.

Thank you both.

Thank you.

All right, next up we have DBH Harrisburg, LLC. which is here for two different grants so we'll we'll begin with grant one and then grant two so the first unless you want to present them both together whatever you want to do okay that's fine i figured they would um yeah but if there's any differentiation you want to make sure sure how you doing

yeah good afternoon commissioners thanks for having us you uh you mentioned dbh harrisburg and it took me a second to recognize that that was actually us we were purchased by diamond baseball holdings a couple years ago um when when they purchased from mark butler's estate who was the previous owner so it's i haven't heard that name out loud very many times but i appreciate you guys having us We are applying for two grants, the first of which is a grant to help us fund our new scoreboard. Last year, we did receive a grant for this. It was a multi-year project, and so we're asking for... the remainder of what was a $250,000 grant, which would basically account for about 20% of the scoreboard. It's about a $1.2 million project. Now, this was completed. It is functional. It has transformed our stadium and much needed upgrade to a facility that was built in 2009 and 10. So this scoreboard is complete. The scoreboard was 17 years old at the time. There are some photos of the scoreboard inside of that packet that I just presented to you guys. It is new, state of the art, and it really allows us to just transform our game experience, which is essentially one of the key things that we're trying to do over the next couple of years is really transform that game experience, make it as entertaining and as many memories as people in our community can have at the ballpark. Ashley, you want to, the second, I'll just mention it and then I'll let you talk about it, Ashley. The second is a grant to help us continue to do what we've asked and been fortunate enough to receive a grant for in the past, which is to continue our marketing efforts with a lot of the things that we do in the ballpark, outside, promoting, and then obviously things we're doing inside. Ashley, you want to talk about that a little bit?

So everything we do is obviously to continue to keep F&B Field, City Island, affordable family fun as we can. And our marketing is not just the traditional sense of Facebook and TV and radio, but we also look at things we're able to bring in, draw, other types of people in. We brought Bluey in last homestands. We had lots of families from all over the area coming in to meet Bluey in person. Our giveaways, our fireworks shows, lots of intellectual property type things. We have Harry Potter coming up this weekend. Star Wars right at the end of the year. All of these things to help You know, there might be a whole lot of deadheads out there that don't think to come to a Harrisburg Senators game on a Saturday night, and this would be the reason for them to do that. On top of that, we market outside of just our immediate Dauphin County VMA. We target specifically Orioles fans, and we're playing the Orioles-DeBlay affiliate, or Yankees fans, and we're playing the Yankees-DeBlay affiliate, Mets, etc., And we can see via our ticket sales reports, we do a pretty good job of driving traffic in from New Jersey, New York, Maryland, D.C. Lots of Nationals fans come in a couple of times a year to see those future stars when they're here and want to continue to be able to market those and market those players and market the things that we have to continue to be just a fun place to spend your afternoon or your evening at the ballpark.

And I think maybe when I first sat down, I didn't even introduce myself. I'm sorry about that. My name is Kevin Kolb. I'm the president of the Harrisburg Senators. I've been with the Senators for about 18 years now. And this is Ashley Grotty, our assistant general manager, and she's been with us since 2010 as well. So that's the story of the grant request. Happy to answer any questions you guys might have. Kevin, Ashley, thank you so much.

I have a question. I just want to say I've been to the field many times as my colleagues have, and it is a very professional. Set up over there, the organizations are on very well. The field is in pristine shape. Always has been still is. Who was the former GM that retired after many, many years?

Randy.

The legendary Randy Whitaker. Seeing him out there dressing up and dancing and doing everything, it was always a good show. But it's a well-run organization, very impressed, and I haven't had a chance to tour the new – know what it's called but the new uh yeah the clubhouse that's that's over on the side that does that look i was told that what was going to be and it was going to be first class amazing and i know mlb uh made all the facilities upgrade it did they raised the standards pretty high on us and we were able to get that um

to get that project finished and over the finish line. And what I think that essentially does is help protect our ability to maintain affiliated baseball in Harrisburg for the next generation, which was key. And it was sort of an unfounded mandate that we were able to get across the finish line with the help of a lot of folks, including the county and obviously the city. So it's been a... would love to have you there uh to tour it it's really national over the moon about it i don't know if the public really knows how much work needed to be done in order to keep baseball in

Dauphin County and Harrisburg. And I know Kevin and your station and the folks that work there figured out a way to not take no for an answer and to ensure that baseball is going to be a part of this region for years to come. So I just wanted to publicly thank you for pulling together those partners and understanding the value of what a minor league team does here for tourism and for the region. So you deserve a lot of credit. I know there's a lot of partners, but I know that there were some difficult days and we're here and i'm grateful for your perseverance thank you very well all right guys thank you thank you so much all right d-e-n-m i don't know if that's denim ink uh yep mr chad scott how are you sir doing good this is

Real quick, this one is for a comedy show with the potential to do a co-op program with the Whitaker Center. As I spoke earlier, I feel like the Whitaker Center is one of the best venues in the area that's connected to a hotel where... Rain or shine, you can kind of still have a good event with the parking and nobody really be affected by the elements. But it's also one of the most expensive and also the one with one of the most the least seating. So when you're going independently to try to do something like that, you have to pass that cost over to the. to the patron, which is the reason why we don't have a lot of stuff that markets to our demographic we don't have here. So when I spoke to Mary at the Whitaker Center, we wanted to do something with Lunell. What happens when you have entertainers that come from all this market, they really look at Harrisburg as a C market. They'll skip over it because they just don't feel like the potential is there. They'll keep going. But if you give them something to... get excited about, they'll come. So when you look at the list of entertainment and shows that come through the Whitaker Center, again, when I spoke earlier, it's disproportionate. So you're always going to see my angle as like, let's balance this out for the entire region. We don't have enough of that stuff going on. especially at the Whitaker Center, and they felt good about it with partnering. And I think Lunell is a comedian that's been around for a long time that's still on the rise. It's always a little wrong for people to do that, but they constantly kind of skip over the capital market. And if you don't have the independent people here that do those things, Like, what does it really look like around here? So I really give a lot of respect to the people that actually put their own money up and could kind of lose their shirt doing this stuff. And these are the reason why I come to things like this, because partnerships, support, helps that throughout the longevity. So you don't have, you know, I think the last time we seen something that may have interest at the Whitaker Center was a Roman stutter. It's been like two years. Yeah. So I want to just add stuff in there. And it was exciting that the Whitaker Center was open to see that partnership and do something like that. That's the reason why I'm here for that one, to try to get a lot of stuff a little more consistent. And hopefully we can do this once a quarter. We should be four times a year, something like that, every season. But something just to add stuff, because it's one of the best spaces around here. Centrally located, and like I said, connected. So if you're talking tourism, the hotel and all that stuff, it's just all connected. It's easier. It's easier to put a well-produced event there without being affected by the elements. And that's it, if you got any questions.

Questions?

Appreciate all you do.

Gotcha, appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thank you, Jeff. Driven from within.

What's up, Shorty? There's no Micah down.

How you doing? Micah Davenport, my name. um driven from within and we're actually looking for 45 dollars um to help with our outside of basketball programs um we're working with the students now with entrepreneur skills which we are teaching them actually um you know from financial literacy and regular literacy literacy as well you know helping to have agreeing groups and um you know, working towards like nutrition, like capabilities and other traits that, you know, they may be able to go into outside of just trying to go to college to play basketball. We're also having nights where we're just basically just talking about crimes and keeping them off the street and what other things they actually could possibly get into outside of joining any street gang or anything. um on top of that we're working with them to just you know being able to stand on their own and um you know working on their self-confidence and um not worrying about everything that's being taught told to them by outside um entities um so there's those are the bigger things that we're working on now um what driven from with that So that's basically the gist of what we're looking for.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Davenport. Real quick question for you. I see on here as well an application, the youth basketball tournament weekend and the flag football league, correct?

It is, but I'm more so looking, not looking for money for that. I'm looking for the other things. The basketball stuff is technically being taken care of. So I'm not looking to get anything on that. Do those bring in out-of-county teams? Yeah, we get them in from New York, Philly, Lebanon, Lancaster, Maryland. We got a couple coming from D.C. as well. So for the basketball, the football, we're still branching out. So what we'll be getting is Lansdale down in the Philly area. Okay.

You're looking for 4,500 of the 8,000, you know?

I said that was not good before I started work with some other things that will be.

The reason I asked us is you you talk about what you're going to do in the impact of providing the young people in our community and I actually would support funding this from other sources within the county and I'm just going to say right now it's a tourism because you look at the human cost of what you're doing potentially saving lives and the impact on when families and children with these kids that aren't getting the message that you're out there delivering as a role model from the city back here in the city, I think is pretty impressive. So thank you for what you're doing.

No problem. Thank you. I mean, I've known you for a long time. I know you've done drug and alcohol programming. I know you've done other programming for us, and I know that you have a passion to serve our kids and our community. So whatever you're involved with, I know you're going to try to do it with the best intention of the kids we serve, and I appreciate you being a part of the solution. No problem.

Thank you.

All right, thanks.

Next up is Coach Rawson. Next up is Dwenaman African Dance Community. Hello. I don't know if I said that right.

You did.

Hello, how are you? Thank you. How's your son?

He's good. He told me to tell you guys hi. Okay. I was like, I don't want to mention that.

Her son was an intern for us.

Savion. Oh, Savion. Savion, yep.

Oh, okay. I love Savion.

Yes. Okay. Good afternoon, Dauphin County Commissioners. My name is Lark Daniel, and I am the Artistic Director for African Dance Community, and we have been serving Dauphin County in some capacity for over 10 years. Duenaman is actually an Adinkra symbol that comes to us out of Ghana, and it represents humility and strength. We are now operating as a 501c3 in Harrisburg, dedicated to uplifting Dauphin County through cultural education, health awareness, and family-based programs. Did you know that drumming increases intellectual development, social interactions, as well as reducing stress and anxiety? In alignment with our mission, we create inclusive spaces that create diversity and promote wellbeing. Our flagship initiative is the SoulFit Festival and Series. These programs have drawn hundreds, featuring women's health and empowerment events, special drum and dance initiatives with master instructors and guests coming in from Guinea and Mali, West Africa. We have also provided diverse community projects and weekly classes bringing in people from multiple surrounding states, counties, which foster connection, education, and joy through culture experiences. With increased funding, we can expand this benefit by one, offering more educational health seminars, partnering with healthcare professionals. Two, this will allow us to buy more instruments so that we can actually offer more weekly afterschool programming of drumming and dance classes, which help us to provide musical education programming, which helps keeps our kids busy and off the streets because they need something else to do with their time. Three, raise awareness about topics that often go unspoken. This investment will deepen our reach and broaden our positive impact. I'm going to pass the mic to Ms. Ramona French, our board president.

I am Ramona, and it's good to be here. So listen, over our tenure here in the Harrisburg area, we've welcomed thousands throughout the city through our series events or our performances, with 40% of those people traveling in from other areas to participate with us here. We've had hundreds of vendors, artists who participated, who've come here to do the series, but they do tourism. It helps with the business growth in our community here, but it helps build the community pride. Our participants eat at our local restaurants. they patronize our hotels, they go to our gas stations, and you know that right there is gas stations, along with shopping and visiting places of interest in Dauphin County. Here's the thing. This project aligns perfectly with what we're trying to do to make Dauphin County a catalyst for growth and tourism. Your support would help us transform our community, draw in visitors, empower residents, and position Dauphin County as a beacon And I like beacons as a beacon of culture and wellness. I like it.

Thank you. Thank you. I know all the partnerships over the years, and I know you've done stuff with Parks and Rec, Cultural Festival. Yes. Expansion to healthy nutritional pieces have been very helpful to a number of folks. So appreciate you.

Thank you. May I share just one little thing? I just wanted real quick, something that is impact to me, right? I know we look at numbers and all the great things, but impact to us is the kids that we actually get to share these programs with. When we hear back from the teachers that say, hey, you were just here and we were asking the kids, did you enjoy them when they came? And they literally put down their lunches and start showing the movements and playing on their body the literal beats that we just taught them that day. I just wanted to share. That's impact to us. And we just thank you for allowing us to have that.

That's what drumming does. It just calms the nervous system. It heals. You guys need to come out and drum with us, I'm just saying. Thank you.

I know I have, and it is definitely therapeutic.

Yes. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

Tell Savion I said hey. Is he still acting?

He is. He's coming out on his music.

Good. That's awesome. Eastern PA hockey. Eastern PA hockey. LEV venue LLC. Or ELEV. Sorry if I said it wrong. Feel free to correct me when you get up here.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

It's Elevay. Elevay, sorry. That's okay. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Tiffany Portee, and alongside me is my business partner, Tina Hunter-Davis. We are the owners of Elevay Venue LLC, located in the heart of Midtown Harrisburg. First, we would like to sincerely thank the Dauphin County Commissioners and the Dauphin County Community and Economic Development for the opportunity to present our tourism grant request of $28,500 today. Elevay was created to be more than simply a business. We are a restaurant, bar, and private event space designed to contribute to the continued growth and revitalization of Harrisburg while creating a welcoming destination for both residents and visitors. Even in our early stages, we have already seen the positive impact Elevate can have on tourism and local economic activity. Recent private events at our venue have brought guests from as far as California, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Maryland, North Carolina, York, Lancaster, and surrounding regions into Dauphin County. Many of those visitors stayed in local hotels, they dined at nearby restaurants, and they shopped locally and explored midtown Harrisburg during their visit. As we continue to grow, our goal is to help increase overnight stays attract private events and celebrations to dolphin county encourage spending at local businesses and contribute to the continued investment and positive activity within the midtown quarter the requested tourism grant funding would support tourism tourism focused marketing efforts and exterior improvements including enhanced outdoor seating gathering areas landscaping decorative lighting and seasonal accommodations that would create a more welcoming and visually appealing destination for visitors these improvements are designed not only to attract guests to elevate but to encourage them to spend more time exploring dolphin county and exploring nearby hotels restaurants attractions and other local businesses we are proud to be investing in harrisburg and committed to being a long-term community and economic partner within dolphin county Thank you again for your time, consideration, and support. We truly do appreciate the opportunity to share our vision of Eleve with you today.

What's your address? Where are you located? You're in Midtown?

We are. We're 1500 North 6th Street, directly across from the Federal Courthouse.

I just always saw, and I know there's been some plans. For the bus station, or the sort of transfer station across the street to be outdoor public. Use space, you know, is there sort of talking about planning and vision. Because this is sort of your world and envision how these things could unfold in public spaces. Has there ever been a study done or have you taken a look at potential opportunities for public venues throughout the city and the region and how those may be developed into helping to promote tourism?

We ourselves haven't, but in reference to what Elevate has in mind, the previous owner kind of had the outside set up. for like the outside of front and the back. So that was our concept that, especially during the summer and the spring months, a lot of people love the outside cafes, just that sort of seating environment. So that's kind of like what we had in mind of how it was previously designed.

Because I'm thinking, you know, for all the downtown revitalization discussion about the city and making it more walkable, friendly, safer, open, have we given thought to sort of your concept? There's just been outdoor space right next to the new coffee shop there that's a little small outdoor space, but more for concert venues, small little gatherings. I mean, I think that would really assist in opening up Harrisburg.

I was going to say, I love the idea. Thank you for that idea. And we have the space to do that.

Great. And thank you for being here and being a part of it.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. Elite Soccer, LLC.

to support anybody that spells greg three g's

Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is John Gregg. I stand before you today as a longtime resident of Dauphin County, high school graduate athlete of Central Dauphin High School, former collegiate player, national champion, member of two different soccer Hall of Fames, former professional player for the Harrisburg Heat, former general manager of Harrisburg City Islanders, a longtime soccer coach, father of two female soccer players from the area, and a son of the best soccer mom in history who was actually the first person to bring Girls high school soccer to Pennsylvania back in the late eighties while the girls still had to play for boys. I'm honored to be in person standing here today to address and bring to the awareness of the big 22 all female high school soccer sport for a long time. I've known about the big 33 football and from right here learned about the big 26 baseball and over the years of. coaching girls soccer and placing over 120 girls into the college game on soccer scholarship myself. Single-handedly, I've run the programs for Elite Soccer Academy, which I founded a number of years ago. I wanted to bring an event to the area, wanted it strictly to be in Dauphin County and have something for all of our female athletes because there's currently nothing out there. I'm seeking $15,000 in grant, just like the big 33 football game. It is a Pennsylvania versus Maryland concept. And actually only six of the 30 plus soccer players that are coming into the area are from Dauphin County. Everybody's from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or surrounding areas of Maryland, so that we're bringing a number of people into the area. uh offering them hershey park tickets uh local businesses i have a uh hotel company that's placed um different locations of hotels for people to reside in while they're here for the area they're coming mostly friday night spending all day saturday and hopefully stay and doing hershey park with the tickets that they're getting uh for sunday's activities we've also partnered up with the hershey soccer club that is running a large soccer tournament that weekend And they're helping promote it to the teams from Long Island, New Jersey, greater metropolitan New York areas, as well as their Maryland, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh soccer teams. I hope you'll take the application in consideration or across the support to help support the players. And since the application was submitted, we've actually added a second game. that's being held before it at Penn State Harrisburg on Saturday the 20th. That is an uncommitted game. So any players that are high school ages that are not committed to college soccer, they have an opportunity to come play for a grouping of college coaches that are going to be in town that day to recruit them. So over and all, we're going to have about 60 to 70 female soccer players and their families at Penn State Harrisburg this coming Saturday. And is this the first annual? This is the first annual, yes.

I mean, lots of people from outside hotels. Obviously, this could build up and get bigger, too. It doesn't have to be one game. It could be more as it continues to build. I think you've got a good concept here, and obviously you're an expert in soccer. So it's good to see you kind of at the driver's seat. So I don't have any questions.

Would you let us know who's joined with you other than Greg?

I would introduce myself. I'm Matt Ealy. I'm a support mechanism for Coach John. I've been doing the fundraising.

And Matt's daughter plays for me too. And Greg Cook, you guys always all know, but Greg's a nice little tie for me because he was actually my general manager when I played for the Harrisburg Heat back in the day.

remember when you uh first came to us with this idea within the last two years and the connection happened right away with you and greg and from there it took off and involved everyone knows about the big 26 i mean there's about the big 33 and you decided uh why not uh do something for the girls which i think is a great idea and i wish you the best i think it's going to take off and be a really really successful event into the future thank you very much

I'm just glad we have something for the young ladies. I mean, we all promote everything else at Daughters of Blade Soccer, and we now currently have the national champions for the second time in like four or five years. What is it? U18 girls that we had in here to honor for this year being national champions. Remember, it used to be all Southeastern Pennsylvania. like areas that had all the best soccer in Pennsylvania. I think Pennsylvania is now getting recognized as having some of the most elite soccer anywhere. So bringing the tournament here makes a lot of sense, and I'm glad we're doing it with an eye to the young people and giving them an opportunity to show.

Thank you. Harrisburg Heat are coming in later. I know they just won a championship this year. I'd love to see you and some of your former players play the current players sometime. You might have some hamstring issues, but...

I don't know. My 18-year-old brain doesn't work well with my 56-year-old body anymore, so it might be a bad thing. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Thank you all.

Thank you all.

All right. Female athlete news.

You got a female athlete news? That's good. That's good. Yeah.

Yeah, that's perfect. You planned that, right?

That's what we planned.

We had it all laid out.

Your strategy shows. You're welcome. My name is Jana Benskoder. I'm CEO and founder of Female Athlete News. We launched in September 2022. We have over 180,000 readers. We have a marketing side and then we also have our media side. Our media side goes out and covers obviously girls and women in sports, specifically field hockey. Field hockey is very well known in Pennsylvania, central Pennsylvania specifically. In our second year, we broadened out and we went into more of a marketing and event to balance out what we were doing in our media. Our motto is caring beyond the story. So we went into the events route and thank you for the past two cycles. You have funded the PA Field Hockey Senior Cup. So to date, we've reached over 400 athletes that made us available to them that they didn't have to pay. So it wasn't pay to play. They showed up, they paid a de minimis amount. to enter, but the athletes had their jerseys and their socks paid for, and thank you for that funding. So now I'm really obviously very excited, and I can go on and on and on about where we're going, so I'll try to keep it within the next two minutes. We are the only company in the United States that has Fika Gear Hockey Fives boards. They are from the Netherlands. Around the world, Hockey Fives is taking off, and USA Field Hockey has stepped back from having the event because they are focused on LA 28. So they're looking at their men's and their women's teams being out there. So Female Athlete News, we were in the background talking to our business partners in the Netherlands and across the United States. There were two sets of Hockey Fives boards in Arizona. When I initially submitted my request, we still respectfully asked for $20,000 to help support the growth of Hockey Fives. Just being here and listening to the collaborations that potentially could take place, there are limitless ideas that are floating in my mind. We were able to – we got the – Support to receive the boards that were in the United States, so we didn't end up paying the tariffs and that was a wonderful thing. Uh, the sticking point right now is that a lot of people want to buy the boards, but with the tariffs, it is making it difficult for corporations to do. So, with, um, with our relationships, they supported us and they entrusted us with the boards this week. They will be assembled and then we're going to rent them out to colleges, coaches, high schools, clubs. um organizations anyone who's interested in sharing the sport boys and girls a lot of my partners are very interested in getting into inner city and helping them learn how to play the game it's a four uh four on the field one in the goal 5v5 it's a really fast-paced game where you're enclosed in all the boards and it's constantly running so if you want to wear your kids out and put them to bed early it's probably a good game to play Um, so we're seeking the 20,000 dollars for the FICA boards. Um, and then. We're going on to our 2nd year at the chocolate cup at in the net. Palmyra is Dauphin county adjacent, but we drive our traffic to Hershey park. Uh, we bring in athletes from Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York. We're talking to a lot of people upstate New York right now, um, who are already talking about bringing their daughters down. so that they can also visit colleges while they're here. So they're going to make a weekend of it. And I'll try to wrap this up as quickly as I can. With the Senior Cup, we estimate that we brought in revenue of about $75,000 to $100,000 in the first two years. This year, we moved to Conestoga Valley because it has grown so much that we needed a third field, and we're trying to expedite it in one day. The Chocolate Cup will be two days, so we're looking at, if we bring in 24 teams this year, we're looking at 300 to 500 rooms booked in Dauphin County or surrounding area, on top of gas, transportation, HIA, etc., So we're estimating that last year with the chocolate cup, we probably brought in about 30,000, seven adult teams to kick it off once we start getting this out to youth. they start learning how to use it how to start playing hockey vibes and learn all the rules we anticipate we'll see that uptick in attendance so we'd like to make the tourism here in dauphin county possibly collaborating with like uh the senators or soccer and eventually also i'll just end it with this come up the pro league for hockey fives but it all starts with this first step so that's a thank you to all three of you for the last two rounds that we received also in tourism dollars

So is Hockey Fives a version of field hockey?

It is, correct.

Just like a different version of field hockey?

It's like rugby, volleyball, basketball.

And are all of these events that you referenced Hockey Fives or are they different?

PA field hockey cup was obviously our first set that we did uh that is you know uh rites of passage for seniors graduating high school going off to whatever their next chapter is and like celebrating what they accomplished in that sport and then the chocolate cup was last year and uh we didn't put a request in for that this is our first request for it we didn't have the boards last year we have the boards this year and that's a different event okay good and do all the events happening in the net or do some of them happen in different locations i mean that's the possibility it could um there's a lot of energy behind it so just for a reference point in south korea they're having a youth hockey vibes event they're having k-pop live uh i put it on our social and it was like over 200 shares in k-pop payment owner k-pop yeah are you telling you how much he knows yeah yeah So you're good. They're having that event in September.

He's going to start singing for you in a second. Let him go. Do you want the music on now?

What? Do you want me to play the music?

No, don't, don't, don't. We don't need any tangents, any rabbit trails. We'll never get to all of them. But, no, I mean, I think there's a fair – it's fair to be said that even if it's at Internet driving into Hershey, it's still in the county. No, this is this is good.

So the hockey fives thing is something new that's kind of taking off and you're trying to be on the ground floor of it for the research I've been doing to to ensure that I'm not getting off course here is down at Spooky Nook where indoor any given Saturday indoor didn't take off right away either. It took like 10 or 15 years. One of our sponsors, she showed me the numbers of attendance on a Saturday, and it was 10,000 people on a Saturday that went to indoor. Just indoor, not basketball, not volleyball. It was just field hockey.

Yeah. Youth sports is massive.

So my question would be, are you planning with Greg cook in our sports. Team with, uh, coordinating and the 2nd thing I would say is. You know, even though there's a lot of subsidiary revenue that's coming back to Hershey and donate to Hershey, if you're going to make a request for it, just from my specific perspective, you're going to make a request for something that's in another county. It would be great to have a collaborative partnership. so I mean are those is that County like is Lebanon County at this case um giving any of their tourism monies and are they are they aware that this there's an opportunity here uh that it's Spooky Nook that um could generate such significant activity well we wouldn't we we're trying to bring that same type of Vibe here and not use Spooky Nook so that's why we want to use in the net and as far as still in Lebanon

sorry not in the nets cooking up sorry i got that mixed up that's in lancaster right right um the lebanon one i to my knowledge i don't think they have tourism grants do they

I would suspect everybody has the ability to generate some hotel tax monies.

I don't know if they... Can I just comment on that real quick? I think they do, but we use In The Net, and Greg on... We love to have our own.

We had this conversation.

Yeah, we need a facility. But there are, the majority of the events that happen at In The Net, we get all the hotel stays here because it's just over the county lines, and we have the hotel base where they don't. So we support a number of events that are actually taking place at In The Net. We use it as one of our facilities because we don't have one here.

and when you say right across the county line you mean it it's literally like 300 yards 300 yards i mean i have no troubles collaborating with anyone i feel that even like this made me excited because like looking at what they're doing with k-pop like bringing more culture to the event would be awesome i can tell you from experience my my kid did travel hockey and travel baseball and the tournaments in the net and click lewis all like 90% of those teams from Jersey, Connecticut, Philly, staying over Pittsburgh. They were coming and staying in Hershey hotels and going to Hershey Park. It's just, it's just the way it was. But the tournament itself was physically located in Lebanon County.

So shows the mic for our own facility. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next up is friends in Midtown. I'm just gonna go back up as we're starting a new hour. Eastern PA Hockey. Oh, okay. Friends of Pennsylvania Farm Show Foundation. Come on up. Just for those of you who weren't here when we started, as we're starting a new hour, I'll just remind everybody when you come to the mic, You'll state your name, and then you can begin sharing. You could hand off any literature that you have prepared if you have any prepared. You'll get three minutes to kind of just summarize your application or share any information that you think is relevant. We are on a time crunch. We have hundreds of applicants to see, so we're trying to keep it to five minutes. So if you anticipate more questions, feel free to summarize shorter, but we're trying to keep them each to five minutes. So, yeah. And there will be a three-minute timer while you're going.

Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, county commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for your time and thank you for your past support. My name is Jerry Reichert. I'm a special advisor of the Friends of Pennsylvania Pharmaceutical Foundation Incorporated. The Friends of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Foundation exists to stimulate, support, and educational programs, incentives, and events relating to the annual Pennsylvania Farm Show. At the foundation, we know the importance of keeping agriculture in the forefront of the community's eyes and strengthening our youth in becoming future ag leaders. Bringing over 500,000 visitors to the Dolphin County through the Pennsylvania Farm Show is just one way to achieve this goal. In just one week, the Pennsylvania Farm Show, through the support of our foundation, brought over $67 million in economic impact to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, with most impact being the direct to Dauphin County through taxes, lodging, recreational, retail, transportation, food, and beverage purchases. During the week of the Farm Show, 6,223 attendees stayed overnight, and 18,671 hotel reservations were made. Visitors from the Commonwealth, bordering states, and all the called Dolphin County home come to Pennsylvania Farm Show. Those attending the show help support over 8,800 jobs. Through your funding from this grant, our foundation can not only successfully reach the youth who become our future agricultural leaders, but supporting the economic economy of the Dolphin County. The events and programs geared toward younger youth draw large crowds, generate community engagement, and bring increased attention to the region. In the handout you received, you'll see the impact of our foundation's making through the help of sponsors, friends, and, of course, your grant funding. i would be honored to receive the dolphin county tourism grant to help boost the local economy and shine light on what makes dolphin county so special thank you for your consideration open any questions jerry this is a no-brainer it is i'm in the farm show we know how many people come through for the farm show from all over how much uh it impacts

tourism, how much it impacts local small businesses. Um, I have no questions. This is an obvious one for me. Thank you very much, sir. Any questions? Nope.

Can I also just note that Friends of Farm Show does a great job of putting a full page ad in their visitor guide every year for Dolphin County.

That's great.

That's fabulous.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Future Stars Tournament Baseball.

How you doing?

Good, how are you? Good, thanks.

Thanks for having me. Here's just a schedule. Thank you so much.

whenever you're ready. Okay, thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for having me. My name is Neil Weber. I'm one of two owners of Future Stars Tournament Baseball. We're a 21-year-old company running youth travel baseballs here in Dauphin County. Had a ton of success over the years, bringing teams from all over the Mid-Atlantic up to Canada and everywhere in between to our area for competitive youth baseball. Started out as 10U to, excuse me, 16U. It's now 8U to 18U. And we're here actually because We're looking for funding through your grant program to help us continue to grow, reach out from a marketing perspective. Our costs have gone up quite a bit recently with umpires and help, and it's just, we would love to continue to grow. Our hotel economic impact is well over $3 million annually. And we're committed to 17 events. We'd like to get closer to 20 if we're properly funded and have the resources to do that.

Where do you guys play at?

We play at F&B occasionally when available. Dauphin Field up on the top of the hill there. Stabler, McNaughton, Kauffman, Susquehanna Township High School, McDevitt High School, Brightville Park, all three fields, Lower Dauphin High School, four fields, and also Lawnton on Derry Street occasionally. You use all of them? We do. And we do have some fields in some other counties, but Dauphin County is primarily home for us.

You've got one coming up this weekend.

We do. 60 teams. Then the following weekend is 94 teams.

60 teams. How many from outside of the county?

I would say over 60%. And as the summer goes into later June, July, and August, that number continues to go up. It seems like Long Island, New York. I mean, we're selling, yep. We're part of moving thousands of Hersheypark tickets.

They're all overnight?

Oh, yeah, it's usually about three days, three nights of stay.

You know what this makes me think of just out loud? You talk about having fields for this, which sounds like trying to have logistics is a nightmare, but kind of having them all over the place allows for all different places to benefit while you're bringing them in, too. So there's advantages to having one single location, and I think there's probably advantages to not.

it's funny you say that we we've used palmyra high school i coached there for five years um the price became quite exorbitant for a long story short they're not as conducive to having weekend tournaments the pizza shop guys a friend of ours he's jumping up and down because the teams aren't there anymore so we we do definitely have a strong economic impact um throughout the county

It's another no-brainer for me. You can keep going if you want.

And managing those fields, though, to have them all over the place, that's like herding cats sometimes, too. I've participated in these tournaments in the past, just a well-run organization.

The majority of the rooms are in Dauphin County. I would assume that they stand. You direct them to Dauphin County hotels, I would guess?

I do. We work with about 45 hotels in Dauphin County based on their availability.

Feels good story to you guys, because you might not know. In his playing days, he played here with Harrisburg Senators, made it to the big leagues, pitched his own running backs. And he's one of those guys that we see, you know, oftentimes Hershey Bears, Harrisburg Heat soccer players, Harrisburg Senators, baseball players. Set their roots here. And Neal's a local guy known as Ray's his family here, and is, you know, a successful player.

mr greg that was just here shaky freddie cassivi mark freer neil were you a lefty it was i thought so still him that didn't change yeah right yeah thanks follow mr douglas i think good thank you so much neil thank you appreciate your time gamut theater

Let's not do that.

Hi, good afternoon. Melissa Nicholson. I'm the executive director and one of the co-founders for Gamut Theater Group. We are a nonprofit theater located in downtown Harrisburg, and our mission is to tell classic stories in new and exciting ways and to preserve history and cultures through storytelling. Today, we are putting in an application for tourism for our Free Shakespeare in the Park. So currently we are in our 33rd year of producing Free Shakespeare in the Park. And it has grown tremendously over the years. We are known for a high quality professional production that is made available to anybody who wants to come and see it. We have 30 years of survey data amongst our audience because we always go out and survey the audience beforehand. We know that 45% of our audience comes from Dauphin County, 46% from the rest of the central Pennsylvania area, and about 9% from out of the area. We consistently have visitors from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. We have become regionally known as presenting Shakespeare in a very dynamic way. And so we have a pretty large following. In addition, Free Shakespeare in the Park has many community programs associated with it. We do a food drive that benefits the Bethesda Mission each year. We also do a mentoring program with the neighborhood children who often come by to watch rehearsals and then they come to watch shows. And we also utilize local business for catering at the park. And this year we added a number of women-owned businesses that are set up to display and sell wares there at the park during the show. In 2008, we had lost funding from the city. The state arts funding had shifted to a different focus and Dauphin County came in and stabilized funding for this event, which we were extremely grateful for. And so we just hope that your support will continue as expenses are going up, as you know, everywhere. and including security for the park and all those kinds of things. I believe we are a good resource for the city. I know City Parks and Rec always says they don't worry about anything when we're out there from early May to the end of June. We are good stewards of the park and we always report things that may be going amiss. So I'm open to any questions if you have them.

I think I speak for the board. We love gamut. You guys do an amazing job. I was there on opening night of the Shakespeare. Can I ask, has the city partnered at all in providing any funds for Shakespeare in the Park?

The city has not provided funds, but they do provide service if you will they provide space for us for storing our scenery and things that we need um free of charge for using the park or is it no we are not charged for the security but we do have to pay for security um mostly because for years the park rangers were understaffed and we couldn't rely on the park rangers and so we went out and got our own security which is harrisburg city police offense

have no questions anybody thank you thank you so much gratsboro parks and rec or yeah parker greater harrisburg area naacp 22.

hello how you doing thank you good afternoon i'm alicia allen and this is an executive committee mr robinson committer and joe robson the treasurer and on behalf of greater harrisburg area naacp we are excited to have the opportunity to come before you today just to share a little bit about our request for the tourism grant again for 2026 and our freedom fund dinner is our 72nd annual freedom fund dinner is more than a significant celebration it's a cultural and economic engine every year the event draws attendees from across pennsylvania and neighboring states people who come to experience the spirit and history and the hospitality that david county can provide and when visitors come they don't just stay just for the dinner itself they stay in the hotels they dine in the restaurants and they shop in the areas but the dinner shines a spotlight on dolphin county as a place where the culture the history and the community kind of converge together because we do promote other opportunities with social promotion partnerships with local organizations and the event elevates our county's visibility it kind of tells the story uh how vibrant we are how diverse we are how welcoming we are and what makes the freedom fund dinner especially powerful is the diversity of the audience that it attracts it's our civic leaders the entrepreneurs the educators the artists the families uh the people from every background we always have president's award dr franklin uh alan always has a president's award and a community service award recipient every year and that diversity kind of strengthens our reputation to be inclusive and forward-thinking the impact is real but beyond that numbers the freedom fund dinner builds a long-term partnership and it brings together owners community leaders and visitors who go around to collaborate and invest and engage back in dolphin county we're excited that the pennsylvania state naacp conference uh has asked us to host this year's 2026 state convention that's going to be the second week of october shortly after our freedom fund dinner october 10th so they have already secured a hotel in dauphin county so we know that it would be at least if not 220 attendees in addition to our freedom fund dinner event that is on october 10th so we're excited to know that that has already been secured uh the event is already being advertised and we also held uh for our second quarter we hosted the second quarter convention conference for one day at Penn State Community College. So we were able to secure that, and those coming from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and areas were able to stay in hotels locally. So our Freedom Fund dinner, perhaps the most important, is the event that instills pride in our residents. So we're excited that you have that opportunity.

Well, thank you very much. I do have one question I've been asking kind of a variety of people. How do you track attendance metrics? Only because we want to make sure a lot of people that are running events, especially like one-day events, are, you know, connected to tools, and VHH has a lot of those tools or can connect you with those. Just because for future applicants, we want to make sure, like, when the event happens, they're tracking where people are coming from, because then we can get like detailed reports of like this many people were from outside of the county, this many people were from outside of the state, this many people stayed in hotels. Just one of the drivers of this money is back to hotels. And some of the one day events, it's a little hard. It's one thing if you have people here multiple days, it's like, well, obviously they got to stay somewhere, right? So I'm sure there's people who stay in hotels for this event. I'm just curious how you're currently tracking that. And if you need help tracking it to make sure to connect with VHH about that.

well that would be great um we normally recommend hotels we give those that are coming from out of town because i am co-chair of the freedom fund dinner for the last 12 years now so what we've been doing is those that came from connecticut last year we recommended three hotels we always provide three so it gives them a variance of price uh our keynote speaker this year is coming from philadelphia so we have the divine nine he is a divine nine person so uh we know philadelphia those representatives will be giving them three hotels to choose from uh our other um representative that's going to be uh coming from pat is one of our honorees this year so we know that he's already asked where can you know what can they do where can they stay um so i track it because i do have a spreadsheet that we track i know those sponsors i know those community and the families then contact us but certainly there's always room for another way to track a better way to track it but i know the percentage and right now it's about 25 percent correct we've considered going to a hotel versus ask me conference center we do pay to secure that facility every year but the good thing is we have our meetings every month there so we try to outweigh the cost of 2035 they charge us for just that one day event uh outweigh it with being able to have our meetings there twice a month every month or two meetings for that time yeah i want to touch on the afro academic cultural and

Technological Scientific Olympics. I remember Kaba Brunson was such a big player in that for many years. Now he turned it over to Merrick. Is it Merrick Green that's doing it now? He was here earlier. Joe, big sponsor and big supporter of that.

We're excited about that.

The impact that that has goes far beyond the county. These young people that participate in that are the best and the brightest here from central Pennsylvania. And I remember just paying that a couple of times and just caught just the looking cob his eyes as he would discuss it and then getting to meet that time with the Milton Hershey School president. Pete Girt, and I'll never forget, he said, Calvin, you're challenging us? He said, yes. He goes, we're going to be right there. And he's put the kids from Milton Hershey, and they are so successful in that, too. So he laid down the challenge. Milton Hershey took it, and it's been great. But Central Dolphin. Stilton, Harrisburg, McDevitt, everybody's sending kids in there and participating. So please say a thank you to you and your team for backing that and supporting that each year.

What a great competition. We are excited. We just had the awards ceremony. So we had 14 recipients and we had it this year. The awards ceremony was held at First Lion Baptist Church Bed and Out with Reverend Dr. Franklin Allen, his pastor. So they were very excited. We did it there to keep the cost down. And We had 14 students that now will be 10 of them are able to go to national. So we are supporting that in full as a result of our freedom from dinner and other sponsors that are supporting. So we're excited.

Might add also that our historically over the last 15 years or so, we've been inviting our keynotes have typically come from out of town. So we had, so Cozart, the movie star was here from school days. He was here one year. He had, uh, uh the late great joe madison our keynoter one year and of course our presenters coming from philadelphia this year he's a professor at the university of pennsylvania and prior to that he was at princeton so we've got uh so because of that kind of reach we're exposing people to to our region when we're able to attract national speakers, national speakers to Harrisburg. So that's the other benefit to this event is that we do raise some awareness about Central Pennsylvania when those speakers travel distances to be here.

And we also use funding for our veterans, so we a tiny house project deliver. A veteran bins, we gather those up as well as backpack school supplies to our kids.

I just want to thank you all for all the partnerships and please give our regards to Dr Allen as well. We appreciate his partnership and being able to continue to advocate. for the black and brown community here in dolphin county and do it in such a great way to advance those needs and causes so appreciate you all and look forward to supporting you again and we thank you for your time all right okay thank you stop greater harrisburg section of ncnw what's that the virginia

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Sure. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

you approach the bench like you're an attorney good afternoon my name is mary powell and i'm here in representation of the national council of Negro Women at the Greater Harrisburg Section. The organization was established in 1935 by Mary McClure Bethune. She was the president of the Bethune-Cookman College in Florida. And our chapter was formed in the year 2020. So we are relatively new. Since that time, in the last four years, we've had a scholarship program where we put the emphasis on nursing students and not first-year students, but students who are in their program because oftentimes scholarships go to first-year students. And then there might be a drop off due to financial need. We make it a point that our scholarship goes to second or third year students. In addition to our nursing, our support, our scholarship support for nursing students, and we generally give out two scholarships in the amount of $1,000. As I stated, our section, they call chapters. They're chapters, really. But our section is relatively new. We also, we participate in the Brethren Housing Program. That is a housing program here in the city where women who are transitioning back into society, they Oftentimes they have children and there's not an environment that welcomes them in terms of making the transition through the brethren. We have adopted an apartment. We have permanently adopted an apartment. So we are a partner with that organization and we provide everything that they need in the apartment. We furnish it, we fill the refrigerator, we bring them boxes of food at thanksgiving at christmas we bring gifts we don't know who the occupant is but because we for privacy purposes but we bring gifts once we know the the gender and the age of the children so those are some of the programs that we support through our fall into jazz programs Our Fall into Jazz program occurs generally in the fall time of the year, and it's our primary fundraiser. It enables us to do the things that we do. We are looking, what I presented to you was a new proposal that we're anticipating. At this time, we are very concerned about our young people have an appreciation for civics. And we anticipate in the next year to have a program which we call Live Civics, to have it at Widener, to collaborate with organizations such as the Martin Luther King Institute, the NAACP, the Pennsylvania Bar Association, and Widener University. So those are things that will attract youth from across the area. And it will bring, no pun intended, it'll bring some civility to our area. So we're relatively new, as you're aware, but we're moving in the right direction and we most definitely make a positive contribution to the Dauphin County area.

Great. Thank you so much. Can I ask, you're asking for $20,000 in grant money. What would the budget be used for specifically, or do you have an idea of how that budget would be allocated?

If you think about it as our taste, if you think about our fall into jazz, it's a conduit for all the other programs that we look to do. For our civics program, we plan to have students involved, high school students involved. In addition, we plan to have keynote speakers focused on civics. concepts such as the Constitution, United States history, the First Amendment, immigration. We plan to have programming that really addresses some of the civic voids in our community. so we will so the but the budget will be used i would assume to support the luncheon event that that works as a fundraiser for all those programs yes because the organization in the past year or two because of the establishment of our section we have been able to bring in uh the state uh we've had state meetings which means individuals members there's i'm going to backtrack there are over 600 chapters slash sections across the united states there are four sections in philadelphia one in harrisburg and one in philadelphia um in pittsburgh and they we have the state meetings here we have the day in the capital our day at the capitol here in April. So the fact that they have an opportunity to come to our fall into jazz and take an opportunity and use that time to number one, they stay overnight. Number two, they make plans for how will our state conventions that we have here. So of course we have the fortune of being the state capital And that's a driver, obviously, but it works out well for Dauphin County. Thank you, Mary. Thank you very much.

Appreciate you. Great to see you online the other day.

Oh, as well. Thank you.

Have a great day. Growing Every Mind Incorporated Youth 10X Better. That would be... Jane clouds. Halsky Entertainment Inc.

Thank you.

good afternoon my name is tyler i'm gm of xl live over the past couple years excel live has established itself as one of central pennsylvania's premier live music venues we attract visitors from all over pennsylvania the mid-atlantic and across the country We've hosted a lot of impressive and diverse artists, featuring Teddy Swims, All Time Low, Black Pumas, Coheed and Cambria, Jesse Murph, Alexandra Kay, Stone Temple Pilots, and many others, as you can see on the list that I provide. Not only do we do touring artists, we remain committed to the community by regularly hosting free performances featuring the local and regional artists in the area. It allows for the emerging artists that are local, accessible entertainment for accessible for the local area that's free and at no cost to the customer. We've also partnered with numerous nonprofit community organizations, hosting fundraising events, awareness campaigns, and public gatherings. The local fire and EMS, Casa, Toys for Tots, regional food banks. During 2025 alone, our events attracted more than 31,000 attendees from outside Dauphin County alone. Those visitors have come and, in total, have generated $6 million in spending throughout the community. The impact continued into 2026. For the first half of the year, we've already documented 17,000 attendees from outside the county, generating an estimated $3.2 million in additional visitor spending. These events generate a local tax revenue. Just in 2025 alone, we paid nearly $119,000 in amusement tax revenue, and for the first half of 2026, we've already generated $71,000. We had our biggest month to date last month, paying almost $29,000 just in the month of May in the amusement tax. This helps us not just for concerts, but it's an investment into attracting the visitors and local spending, supporting small businesses, creating measurable economic impact in Dauphin County. We see many of the local restaurants have a big uptick in their sales locally to us.

My name's Phil Dobson. I'm the owner of XL Live. I just wanted to top off with a few things. One thing to mention is a lot of the artists, when they come in, part of their rider is they want hotel rooms, and we provide those. Could be five, could be 10, could be for two nights. And that's in addition to any of the customers. And we get many, many people that come to see touring acts at our facility because it's more personal. It's up front and close. And we have people that will travel, you know, 500 miles to come to some of our shows. You know, performing arts is a tough business. There's no doubt about it, but it does add a lot of quality to the quality of life in the county, and it provides a lot of jobs. Thank you.

I've been to a couple shows there. It's a well-run professional atmosphere, and your staff is amazing. I've been there three times at least. The most recent one's been, I think, two years. Warren Ziders was there. And then my brother-in-law contacted me. He wants to go see Rainbow Hidden Surprise, who I've never heard of, but...

That's not us. That'll be on the riverfront.

Oh, that'll be on the riverfront? Oh, I thought you said they were playing at XL.

We have played there before. Actually, my daughter said, you've got to get Rainbow Kitten Surprise. And I'm like, Rainbow Kitten Surprise? Are you kidding me? And it sold out in two hours. Interesting. Interesting.

Well, again, professional atmosphere, well run. are you working with uh frank schofield and this team or these or just in we worked with them when they were he was with harrisburg university but harrisburg university has uh stopped uh with their concert series i just noticed you listed here um just some of the things going on cities riverfront festivals delphi county concert series that would be what that is a study that we invested in and it included all of the local music venues so that's not just for our benefit that was done for also

capital city musical hmac at the time we all chipped in and uh provided some information for that i mean you list these economic impact here is pretty significant thank you

Tyler, you do a great job every time I'm out there at the venue, which is, you know, pretty regularly I like to get out there. Saw the GZA show, brought my son. That was great. You guys always do well running those shows. Can't believe you didn't put Marc Rebier on the list. How didn't you put him on the list? I'm just kidding. That was an amazing show.

I just wrote down all the rapper and great concerts you had that you didn't even have listed here.

I have a ton. I didn't have enough time. Yeah, I know.

You don't have enough paper, right? You guys do it. Put Vanilla Ice on there, buddy. Did y'all rule Fabulous J to get you? Oh, Fabulous was it?

Oh, man, I missed that one. Well, you guys do a great job. Can I just ask a question? I know, I think it was not this summer, but last summer and this summer we're going into. You guys did some outdoor shows on that outdoor stage. Is that still something you're going to be doing? I think I saw... I don't know if it was like Coheed or somebody was, or there was some like.

Well, we had more insiders. We had Coheed and Cambria. Yeah, Coheed and Cambria. That's the one I went to. However, that construction has really hindered.

One of the problems that I have right now is that PennDOT has taken a lot of my parking as a temporary construction easement. So because of that, it's very difficult to park enough cars.

I had to park really far away for that.

But once PennDOT moves on, which I'm hoping they'll be out of there this year. Okay. we'll be able to start going back to our outdoor concert.

That was actually a really unique place to have an outdoor concert. Cause like, I mean, you're right under the bridge kind of right there and it are under the interstate.

Very industrial.

Yeah. Very industrial vibe, but we don't bother anybody. No, no, it's great.

All our neighbors are, you're in the cut Phil. You've remained in the cut for years, my friend. I appreciate it. Is there anything we can do to help you besides this request? I know you have a lot going on.

Well, actually, the county building, if we could park some cars there sometime. For what? For our bigger concerts. When we start hitting 1,500, we start running out of space. Oh, you're talking about the—

1,100 cameras. Yeah, that's actually where I parked when I had to walk.

Look, I think making a formal request, that's actually managed by our Industrial Development Authority. But having some sort of overflow parking arrangement is not beyond the question. That's what I'm talking about.

I'll gladly lease a spot to you, $250 a day.

Don't pay him for it. But the IDA may be interested in having some sort of arrangement. Yeah, that would be awesome.

That would be helpful to us. Any other issues, Phil? No, we're good. We're golden.

Could I get the economic impact study that you have? And then secondly, the hotels that you contract, do you have someone you use in the county for your contracts?

When we book them for our bands, we work with the Crowne Plaza directly. We're also working with Hotel Indigo. On our website, you can see all the local hotels, the Hilton, the one that's down by the Farm Show Complex, all the ones that are just locked.

Thank you.

Thank you both. Harmony Horizon Alliance. Harrisburg Alumni Chapter Delta Sigma Theta. I see them in the back, hey.

Good afternoon. My name is Monica Chisholm and my name is Dana. On behalf of the Harrisburg Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, we are honored and deeply appreciative of this opportunity to share our vision. Today, I want to discuss how our organization is dedicated to providing vital assistance and support to the Dauphin County community through impactful programs guided by our sorority's five-point thrust. which are economic development, educational development, international awareness and involvement, physical and mental health, political awareness and involvement. Many of our signature public programs, such as King's Who Cook and Purse Bingo, consistently draw substantial foot traffic to the area, engaging between 300 to 500 participants per event, which is held each year. But today I stand before you, or sit before you, and to ask for your support and partnership for our upcoming fourth annual youth symposium in previous years this program successfully focused on critical challenges such as gun violence human trafficking voter registration advocacy and leadership this year our fourth annual youth symposium will center on citizenship leadership community involvement civic engagement and character building This comprehensive all day event will be held on October 22nd, 2026 at the Harrisburg Area Community College Student Center. The symposium curriculum is intentionally designed to achieve five core goals, highlight and tackle the critical real world issues impacting today's youth, provide a secure forum to build problem solving skills through open, authentic conversation, link students with essential community programs and professional mentors, equip our youth with the knowledge and tools to advocate effectively for themselves and their peers, cultivate the leaders of tomorrow to ensure the future economic growth of our region. The Youth Symposium targets 100 students each year from across the surrounding areas. This dynamic day will feature inspiring keynote speakers, interactive breakout sessions, and engaging panel discussions. Every student will leave equipped with a robust toolkit of resources tailored to our 2026 theme, empowered to lead and ready to serve. The Harrisburg Alumni Chapter believes that a thriving community begins with its youth. In an era where character education is often overlooked in the traditional classroom, our program steps in to fill that gap, teaching students the true value of citizenship and their inherent power to effect positive change. When we talk about regional promotion and tourism, we believe that a healthy, engaged citizenry is the absolute best advertisement for our region. By investing in our youth today, we actively reduce community negativity and build an informed, vibrant population that inspires others to visit. live and invest with Dauphin County. Furthermore, while traditional leisure tourism relies heavily on individuals deciding to visit on a whim, a youth symposium creates intentional, guaranteed foot traffic. So with great intention, our goal is to build a larger forum of students, parents, educators, and community leaders, many from outside the immediate area into the heart of our community. Our chapter fundamentally believes that investing in the present builds a strong foundation for the future. Empowering our youth is not just a social responsibility, it's a powerful, lasting engine for economic development and regional vitality. So on behalf of the Harrisburg Alumni Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, thank you for your time and your consideration. Your continued commitment to our community.

Thank you any questions I've attended the event on multiple occasions at Harrisburg Community College. It's well attended and the messaging is Outstanding and the youth are there listening whole time. They have a lot of bunch of a bunch of different speakers come in and It's been very important So, thank you

We look forward to you attending this year. You're welcome.

Send us an invite.

And next year, hopefully, we'll be in for the Kings and Cooks. Well, Marcy got on me. We're not attending this year, so we'll make sure we reserve the date for next year.

You did so well at Super Bowl. You're famous now.

Yes.

Thank you, ladies.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I'm going to go back up through our list as we're at the top of an hour, just for those who maybe weren't attended until we called out the name. Eastern PA Hockey. Friends of Midtown. Gratzboro Parks and Recreation. Growing Every Mind, Inc. Harmony Horizon Alliance. All right. We're starting the 3 p.m. hour, and I recognize we're starting that 18 minutes early. So just for those of you who maybe weren't here at the top of the hour, last hour, we'll call your name up. You'll come up. You'll state your name. You'll have three minutes to share on your application. And then the goal is we can wrap it up within two minutes of questions or so. That's kind of the goal as we have hundreds of these we're getting through. We want to make sure we know you have a lot to say about your application because it is your baby and you want to tell us all about it. But the more condensed and concise you can be, the better, the faster we can get through it. And if we do have questions, we'll be able to get more of that information because that might be the more relevant information for us. So Harris Harrisburg area riverboat society.

Okay.

That's my mother who lives with us.

It's all right. You're fine.

I'm glad you clarified time wise. Yeah.

Yeah. And you'll have a three minute clock here to reference. It'll be, it'll be counting down after you say your name. That's fine. Take your time. Don't say your name until they grab a seat.

I'll wait until they call us out. it's not rick it's down across the box okay all right i think we're ready for you okay good afternoon commissioners um thank you so much for allocating um your time for us to make our presentation before you my name is deb donahue and i'm currently serving as the chair of the harrisburg riverboat society i previously served on the board from 2016 to 2022. During that time, I served four years as chair and also during COVID. I was asked by the board in October of last year to rejoin the board as a chair after the sudden passing of the previous chair. With me this afternoon is Tom Farr, who was also a board member and serves on the chair of our operations committee. as many of you probably know the riverboat has become an iconic part of the harrisburg skyline for 38 years during years 2024 and 26 they did not run my understanding was because i wasn't on the board then that there was a sewage tank that had to be replaced and in 2025 low water levels even though they tried numerous times to put the boat in the water it didn't happen just since uh may of this year uh actually memorial day weekend when we started you can tell that harrisburg loves us our facebook views went up fifteen hundred percent many folks um come to the river every day that you know bicyclists joggers and the guests have the best views of harrisburg of the our bright and unique and resilient boat we want our guests to also take in a ball game go to dinner downtown or book a hotel room as our founders would say mike treffin the riverboat is the people's boat we serve all segments of our community our cruises include children veterans, Sunday worshipers, music lovers, theater, and more things that we're having special this summer that are kind of a surprise. Our successes. In 2023, that was the last year that they sailed before this year, we hosted 21,000 passengers, including 1,300 active military and veterans. We hailed individuals from 52 of the 67 counties. 40 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada. For Memorial Day this weekend, we had two veterans cruises with dinner. It was wonderful. And to date, we just, again, started sailing Memorial Day weekend. We've posted over 1,000 passengers and counting. So we've just begun. One last thing. I can go quickly here. The River School was something that is unique for us. We provide over $5,000 worth of free educational voyages to students in the Harrisburg School District with a certified teacher that teaches all hands-on activities and on weekends too for kindergarten grades up through age 12. So, any questions?

It's good to see it back in the water. I was driving the other day and saw it in the water. Do you guys get any support from the city of Harrisburg for tourism money? I'm sorry, could you... Do you get any support from the city of Harrisburg for tourism money?

None whatsoever, other than i'm tom far by the way i've been an operations director mike treffin put me on here 15 years ago and they will not allow me to leave so i'm still a board member what we do is we do have if you remember where bowers marina used to be over on city island we have a program set up with the city that we will provide educational programs to the city of harrisburg students provided that

they do not charge us rent for the area that we we we don't rent it it's a parking area so that's the only agreement we actually have a subsidy for where you're working what else do you have we also have if you know where the log cabin is commissioner we um again i was not on the board when this happened but we have um partnered with the city we are getting a federal grant that we're going to start rehabbing that um

log cabin in the spring and we're doing it in conjunction with dauphin county vo-tech we're going to help um so it's a teaching tool for them too i'm more interested in tourism money because this is a tourism icon and it's in the city and it's not getting city tourism that's all that's all i was trying to understand there's no real funding if i could just mention one thing

That's going to be happening within the next two years here. Okay. What's going to happen is you're familiar with like the wine trail, the chocolate trails that take place. We're going to have a boat trail. And it's going to start in Riceville, PA with the Chief Uncas. If you're familiar with that, the electric boat down there that used to be from the Bush family. All right, then it's going to move up to Harrisburg. So this is going to be like different boat areas that you'll be able to go to coming from other states or as tourism. So you'll move to Harrisburg prior to Susquehanna. Then you're probably familiar at Sunbury now is building a river boat. It's going to probably be the capacity about 200, 220 passengers. It's going to be probably to a degree competing with us. But if we can develop this trail starting in Wrightsville, Harrisburg, Sunbury, and then it'll end up in Williamsport, PA with the, if you're familiar, the Hiawatha Riverboat up there. So it's going to bring a lot of tourists. to Pennsylvania and to our particular area here. It's going to be very helpful, I think, for Harrisburg. It'll be a boat trail instead of a wine trail, chocolate trail, ice cream trail, a boat trail. So we should be very proud of that. And I want to say one other thing. Every state has a boat. The history of Harrisburg cannot be told without mentioning the pride of Susquehanna. Thank you.

I'm just wondering, because I know how many repairs that had to be made. I know there was a significant amount of investment that occurred. Who were the partners that assisted you in trying to get this back into the park? Well... Who are partners you're asking? I thought I had a meeting with some folks when I wasn't on the right.

Right. Okay.

And they were, they were talking about the extensive amount that the U. S. Coast Guard is requiring the upgrades, the. internal investments that were required, and it was not in the water for a while. Right, for that year, 2024. So how did you get those resources and get back in the water?

Well, we went to Craig Eschenauer. You're familiar with Eschenauer's sons. He's been a big benefactor to us, and we appealed to him. He happened to have a welder over there that can weld nautical materials Maritime welding. He's certified in that. And Craig gave us a good deal instead of $29,000 to put this gray water tank in underneath the men's room. He gave us a better deal at around $18,000. That was just a matter of a number of us board members putting up money of our own and trying to raise as much as we could. You figured out a way to piece it together. We did, but we do have a lot of credit that can attest to that. We're paying down.

I've only been back as a chair. We're getting there.

That's good to see it back in the water. Thank you. That's what everybody's been saying.

Visit us.

Yes, we will. It was good to be back in the water.

If there's something special happening about us out, we would love to come. Thank you so much for all the work you all do.

Thank you. It was an honor being here. Yeah, thank you.

You've never been on it, Eric? Oh, my goodness. What would it take for us to do a dolphin caddy? Oh, my goodness.

Just call the office, and we'll take care of it.

Yeah, we'd love to do that.

Yeah, it would be fun.

Yep.

All right, thanks.

Next up, Harrisburg area YMCA. Okay. You're saying you're okay with that?

Thank goodness the river's only at a foot and a half. Harrisburg Board Game Alliance.

Only if it gets close to Dock Street, Dave. Harrisburg Delta Education and Community Service Foundation. They're on their way. That's okay. Harrisburg Downtown Improvement District. Simple. Yep, we'll get there. Harrisburg Grassroots Summer League.

Hello.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

My name is Don Ross. I am the founder and director of the Harrisburg Grassroots Summer League, a league in the city of Harrisburg where we're serving... close to 350 kids through the game of basketball, teaching life skills, and some of the things that you would want people to display in the city of Harrisburg and surrounding communities that will improve tourism. We bring in teams from as far away as Williamsport, outside Philadelphia, and then for our hasheen mcintyre day which is a former player of mine a student who was murdered north carolina high point graduate um partnership with day service um event people uh we bring in thousands for that um day from all up and down the east coast these connections and they do Raise money for stem projects and different community events in the city. I've partnered with the county for. Many years worked closely with Brooke. To make sure that, you know, the kids in the area. Have a positive outlet for. You know, things to do and places to learn from. Um, as far as. The product I can, I'm not going to waste your time, but I can list lawyers, doctors, head of destination, DC, who's involved in bringing the world cup to DC and March madness and all those kinds of things. So, uh, there's a long history of, um, producing people that are positive. And, um, like I said, the. I think that all of you know the benefits of having well-rounded youth that turn into people that make places a better place to live. And I've had a good experience with it, and I've always had support from Dauphin County. Mike and George have been great for me. Justin, I hope that that can... I hope I can build that kind of relationship with you. And I know that last year was the first year of this summer league and Mike was out and he saw the amount of kids. And I've got all that here. If anybody wants to see it, I have a stack of almost 200 kids, you know, schedule and different things that take part in.

And primarily second to eighth graders? Is that what it says here on my packet?

Second to eighth graders, and I did add a high school league, but the schools are paying their way for the high school league. Gotcha. Actually, all they pay for is the refs. We're not making any.

Is it multiple days, or is it one day? Is there hotel stays at all attached to this, or is it more come and go?

Williamsport, some of the Philly schools will do it, but the big day, the playoffs that we have, people come into town from all over. Great. And like I said, it's for one of our fallen former players. Like I said, a bunch of his classmates and that they throw the 7-1-7 Community Day and the Hashi McIntyre event is part of that.

Where are these games played at?

The regular season games are at Harrisburg High School. I'm a teacher and coach at Harrisburg High School. The school has supported me. I do have to pay for insurance and stuff like that for the use of facilities, but. They allow us to take care of the custodial and security stuff like that on our own without a fee. And then the city helps us out with skills sessions for the kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the parks. But they, and they help out with the community day as well. But we don't receive any funding for the league. The league is part of a, I don't know how to say it, three-pronged attack to get our kids on the right track. And in the youth leagues, we have kids from, all the way from Steelton, Middletown, Hershey, all over the place. Colonial Park you just I can run through the addresses on sheets I have yeah you just answered it yeah I was gonna mention you mentioned the wing of sport Philly lower dolphin Hershey Stilton central dolphin kids are coming from all over people up at fishing up Clark Street they come down a lot a lot of

And it's the impact during this time of year with the youth from all those locations, hundreds of kids playing, and it keeps them off the streets and out there playing a team sport. And they get to meet Don and other mentors, coaches, teachers, Harrisburg School District and elsewhere. And I think it keeps the kids focused in the right direction working on team sport too. I just want to find out how he ties his flags.

He's one of the most prolific trout fishermen in all of Dauphin County. Actually, all of the region. This guy got a game in the trout.

George, you couldn't have given me a better call.

It's true, though.

My son wants to go fly fishing. I said, I don't know nothing about that. I never did that in Indiana. They got my number. I'll take them.

He does it.

and he he knows all the honey holes everywhere he just broke his arm so i don't he might not share it good deal well thank you so much there's no more questions sir do you want i have a proposed budget well i'm going to leave a schedule for you guys because i would love you can leave whatever supplemental material yeah yeah you guys to come through please send us invites too as oh absolutely and these guys will tell you i put you on the spot with kids so they're going to have questions great great thank you so much thanks for all you do i think might get dunks on them

Next up is Harrisburg Green Alliance. Harrisburg Heat Pro Soc. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Harrisburg Green Alliance. Sorry, sorry. I didn't see anybody coming up. Good afternoon. Yep. My apologies.

Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here.

so Harrisburg Green Alliance is a new nonprofit organization just received our 501c3 last summer we have a mission to work on projects that are going to retain and attract residents businesses and tourism based on a conservancy model it seems to be a nationwide movement for mid-sized cities private public partnership so we want to work closely with the city of harrisburg um you know they're got their hands full with basic services what can we do to go above and beyond um help paris get the next level um we have a board of 18 members currently we've done a lot of strategic planning we have a good relationship with the city and county we've met a lot of different neighborhood organizations have those communication lines open on public input on everything that we're doing and our kind of initial step is let's look at the assets that we have here Susquehanna River, of course, is probably the greatest natural asset. Riverfront Park running along that corridor. So we're kind of looking at let's clean up our front porch. As people enter the city, you know, the entrance on North Front Street. through Riverfront Park down the entrance on South 2nd Street. Let's take what we have, enhance, clean it up, enhance it, fix some infrastructure, add and repair lighting throughout the park.

And, you know,

start with that clean up the entrance that's going to benefit residents draw on tourists and and help the region overall so our application specifically was looking at we have a you know a large corridor project that we're looking at that i provided information on um for this grant specifically we were looking at punkle plaza and medians on forster street So Kunkel Plaza, central gathering place, all the festivals, very visible. We have support from the Kunkel Foundation to improve that area. Should have construction-ready plans this week. Going to start with the plannings and beautification with a second phase looking at the lighting and infrastructure that's needed there. Um, Forrester street mediums, it's just 1 of the busiest corridors into the city. So, we just think those are 2 key locations to start with. Make the improvements there, but again, we. We want to stretch that through the whole riverfront.

Great Thank you. Do you have city participation with any tourism money?

Um, where we have a meeting coming up with the mayor, give her an update on where we're at. Again, hoping to have those construction ready plans. They're doing final visit today. Should have those in hand and then we'll be meeting for next month.

So just like if I was to summarize this application, it's beautification of our city to really give tourists who are here and obviously the public who enjoys it every single day, you know, the good vibes of better lighting, better scenery, all of that, that lets them leave this region and know and have a better experience. And that's the justification for tourism, in my opinion, on this one, right? Yeah.

thank you yeah beautification safety is definitely a key factor in this um of course your street median specifically just the visibility um you know and it's it's it can be very busy and congested um so yeah i think you know the safety with beautification make people feel more comfortable make it more attractive they'll be more enticed to spend more time exploring the city that's great

i just want to say thank you i mean i remember over the years how many civic organizations used to play a role in um taking their part and stepping up to do something about you know ownership of the city ownership of certain areas within the city and you know things don't work without folks that are willing to step forward and you know sort of make these things a priority i remember how many civic groups used to be 20 years ago that were sort of contributing to the vibrancy of of the city and now that I don't see it so you're this sort of uh exciting um sort of based uh initiative where people say you know what can I do about it well you're showing what you can do in small pieces uh as a civic group to become engaged in being a part of the solution. And I think that's the only way truly things will ever turn around. It's not going to happen through some sort of government leader or some sort of overall, you know, something coming down from heaven it's going to happen by independent groups getting involved playing a specific role knowing what their lane is and doing it in cooperation uh in tandem with all with a specific intention of trying to see the community and the city be a better place so i want to thank you for taking that initiative for me to understand like who are your board members i'm not familiar with your organization so uh dave shankweiler is our chair got it okay he used to own central penn business journal and so he's traveled a lot to different

obviously cities throughout the country got it capital cities of the states that kind of was his inspiration understood he got together with local business leaders and residents he has a home uptown harrisburg and basically said what can we do you know what can we do is to help the city and this is where we kind of explored the conservancy idea and it came from and i will say long-term maintenance is a very key piece of our organization as well. We're not looking to clean things up, enhance it, and walk away. We're budgeting for five years maintenance up front, and at that five years, again, we're hoping to have kind of partner organizations for different areas. It's going to be a long-term renewal maintenance plan.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Your ask of $10,000, is that enough to accomplish what you're looking to do here?

so we actually have a four million dollar the project overall okay is four million um again just kind of looking at those two pieces of forrester street and kunkle we have some funds in hand uh to help with plans we have some funds in hands to help with kind of phase one for plaza for the plantings um the department of general services is ready to step in and help us with forester medians there's a nursery who will give us um either free or highly discounted plannings for the medians so we have some willing partners ready and able to go so we think this would be a good start yep fabulous thank you so much thank you

For those who have entered the room, just to say how the process is going, You'll come to the mic when your name of your organization's called. You'll state your name. The clock will start with a three minute timer. You'll have three minutes to kind of just share anything about your grant application that you would like to. You can keep it even under three minutes, that's fine too. We'll ask questions that are relevant to questions we might have about your application specifically or just curious about your project. We're trying to keep them to five minutes each if possible. And some of you might have came in and your name was already read because we were ahead of schedule Your name will get reread here in a little bit once we get through the list Harrisburg heat pro soccer Bring it up Oh

Even at the championship, we had to bring this first championship 30 years.

Might as well take a picture of that. Yeah.

If you want, you can take a picture. We'll get one with you with it.

Nope. Awesome.

It's, um, as you guys know, he was firm as a Hershey impact. Uh, back in 1988, Dr Rex bought it, moved it to Harrisburg in 91. Um, I had a midlife crisis and sent it by in a Corvette convertible. I bought a soccer team. Part of the reason was John Wilsbach ran it and he needed help and it was dangerous. So I took it over. I live in Maryland, so it's a bit of a drive, but it's a passion of love. And, you know, we've been successful, but it's tough. We were at the farm show and now at Hershey, we don't get concessions. We don't get parking. um but one of the things we do is we're very focused on a lot of the things that you guys are looking forward to the hotel tax everything else so a lot of things we do if you don't mind like to hand these to you guys thank you

I see you got Wilsbach in the picture.

Yeah, yeah. I was able to get him to be the announcer for the championship out in Omaha.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, so he was excited. I told him no matter what happens, he has to be down on the field. But one of the lot of things that we do is because I've been Maryland we draw Maryland teams, we do youth tournaments. And what we do is invite young teams to come in, we charge $300 for the tournament, we give like $300 in tickets, they get the rest of our game that night, they get medals for winning, they're guaranteed three games, it's really cool. But it helps us sell like anywhere from 600 to maybe 100 tickets a game. And a lot of those teams are coming from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Philadelphia, Delaware, and a lot of them stay over. But if you'll see on the bottom, I highlighted all the things that we do as a franchise to help bring in employees. dollars into the hotel. So personally, I have to buy 10 rooms a night for every visiting team. I also have to buy rooms for the refs. Visiting teams usually will still stay an extra night. That's on them. A lot of times they'll get extra rooms. But the tryouts, we do two or three of those a year. We work with Matt over across the street. Actually, I just texted him to see if he wants a picture of the trophy. And also, Mike was kind enough to hook me up with Randy over at Redline, but they're in the process of being sold. And then we did some stuff with Quality Inn over in Shipoak. Is that how you say it? But we work on other ones as well. We try to do partnerships with hotels where we can get a code and try to steer more people their way. But we've been pretty successful bringing people in. Our goal really is we just hired someone today to help us with not just sales, but with more groups coming in, especially these youth groups. Right now, today, we came out of society where it was like everyone gets a trophy. Now they don't get anything. So what we do is we do parade the champions and these tournaments where parade the champions. We call all the teams that came in first and second in the youth leagues around here. And then we invite them in and we give them medals. It says the heat on the front, champions, all that stuff. The kids love it. The parents love it. But it's a great way for us to bring even more people in. And we reach, like I said, as far as we have kids from Chambersburg, Carlisle, Maryland, all over the place.

Tell us about your new venue.

So Hershey has been great. You know, it's pretty cool to play in a historic building. We woke up at his hundred. It's a little different. There's no elevators. So definitely get my work out there. This year, it was kind of a last minute move to get there. And we had to switch to M2, which is still pro, but a different division, shorter season. We're waiting to hear back when Hershey gets their dates from AHL, if they can give us enough to play in M1 again. We need 15 dates to get 12. But this year, the six dates they gave us were three weekends in a row. One was Easter weekend, the other was spring break. So in all candor, we lost money. It was tough. But we're very optimistic about this year. We've already got a number of big groups that want to not only partner with us, but we also talked to a lot of youth groups about wanting to come in. So we're excited. It's a cool venue.

When does the season run?

Typically December through April. But we do camps off season. We have actually a camp starts on next Monday. We're doing a partnership with a club called Hawk Rock. So we partner with youth clubs and then we do some of our own. And then sometimes those kids will come from far away. But we also have hotels for that because a lot of our players live out of state. So we'll bring them in and house them for that week while they're running the camps for us.

Questions, comments.

Go ahead. Sure, let's do it.

Why not? You want to just want to put it on the desk and we'll just take a picture of us standing here. Make sure you get inside. Which one is that? Put the picture and send it to us. Eric, come on.

It's your side job.

Mike smelled it.

Congratulations. Thank you. Be careful.

Harrisburg Kennel Club

Good afternoon.

Hello. My name is Roseanne Deutsch, and I'm the president of the Harrisburg Kennel Club and also chair of the Blue and Gray Cluster Dog Shows, which are held every April for five days at the PA Farm Show Complex. Based in Harrisburg since 1935, For the past 91 years, we're a member club of the American Kennel Club and one of their 253 member clubs in Pennsylvania. Our dog shows are held under the umbrella of the Blue and Gray Cluster, with Harrisburg Kennel Club being the host club and in partnership with Lebanon County and Mason and Dixon Kennel Clubs. Our shows are one of the most well-attended AKC dog shows on the East Coast, held in high regard for more than 68 years, held at the Farm Show Complex. This April, our dog shows brought in entries of almost 8,000 dogs. The five days of shows translate to potentially more than $4 million brought into the local economy for our event, according to AKC's financial impact statement. Large spectator gates can generate additional revenues for the Harrisburg area, and this year we had 660 spectators over the five days. local area businesses gain revenue from exhibitors and spectators including hotels restaurants gas stations airports veterinarians catering services ems etc with our shows being held in harrisburg area attractions and harrisburg and hershey are well known to our out of state and international travelers who frequent a lot of the tourist attractions in the areas and some exhibitors actually extend their stays beyond our show dates for vacations. Our shows do conflict every year, though, however, with Georgia and Rhode Island shows on the same dates, and exhibitors have flexibility on where to attend. So it's important our events are the most attractive and most affordable. We're fortunate to attract exhibitors from far-reaching areas all across the United States and internationally. Affordability is key for good attendance, and we work hard to try to minimize our fees for our exhibitors so that we do not have a negative impact on attendance and a negative impact on the overall revenue to the Harrisburg area. We appreciate being a past recipient of DCED's tourism grants, and it has had a positive impact on our budget, enabling us to continue to afford to hold our shows at the Farm Show Complex. and it's also helped us to maintain reasonable exhibitor fees, thus attracting more entries. Thank you again for your past support, and thank you for your time and consideration of our 2026 application.

Thank you so much, Rosent. Any questions? Um, do you have an estimate of how many hotels stays? This is a long event, you know, 6 days. So I would assume there's a good amount of hotel stays. Obviously, there's some locals. Actually, I know somebody from Lebanon county who comes over for it. They go home, obviously, because they're close enough, but I would assume. you have a good number of host hotel stays with this event i don't know the exact number of that but we fill them all up the one thing i would say is please work with vhh to see if there's a way to track that data work with vhh uh with sharon see if there's a um an application that you can use or some way to survey your audience only because those types of metrics will be very helpful and not just like for us but for other grants you might want to go after um because that kind of ability to show the draw power that you have to the region from outside um it's obvious you have it like because of how long the event is and because there's a number of people coming from outside the region but you can there's there's tools to actually track how many people stay in dolphin county and hotels and that's the kind of stuff that um

only further strengthens your applications in the future but this is a great event so thank you thank you i don't have specific for dolphin county but i and i can give you these i have akc impact statements where they did surveys um you know across the whole united states and in pennsylvania okay and so that's where those figures come from yeah with the uh revenue brought into the economy

If I could ask Sharon, Sharon used to be in charge at the Farm Show. From shows you have, the Great American Outdoor Show is the largest show, not just in Pennsylvania, it's the largest outdoor show in the world that's there. You have the Pennsylvania Farm Show, you have the Motorola Show, you have the Horse Show. Where does this rank? Is it in your top 20 overall throughout the year or?

From a size perspective? An impact. Yeah, I'd have to actually look at that. And it's definitely impactful, again, because it is so many days. It's a lot of people that come in. Not so much from a spectator perspective. As you noted, 600 attendees isn't a big number. But the exhibitors that come in with 8,000 entries, they do get a significant number of campers because they have so many dogs that they actually keep in the campers and all of that. But it's still a very significant number when it comes to hotel stays within the county.

The campers were only a little over 100. So for the large number of exhibitors that come in, it's really quite insignificant, actually. But in addition to exhibitors, we also have our judges that come and stay, all the other services that we hire that come from out of the area.

But it is the most critical component of tourism, which is heads-on beds. Yes. Oh, absolutely. These individuals are coming in, they're staying there, whether it's

And that's why the RVs are not the majority. It's very, very small.

They count, too, because they're coming here and they're filling up. And it takes a lot of money to fill up the gas tank in one of those RVs.

Oh, yes, it does. Yes.

Oh, yes.

Yeah. So, I mean, when we were actively showing for the past 40 years, even though we were in an RV, we would still go to restaurants and stores and all that. So even though they're staying in their own kind of private little home, they still visit, you know, other area businesses.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, you can bring those on up and we'll take them.

I have some photos here, too, if you want to see them.

Whatever you want to provide us, we'll take.

You see that new business in Homestown that's selling doggy ice cream? No. They only serve dogs. Interesting. I'm telling you, I drove past here the other day and they had people waiting around the corner.

Harrisburg Regional Chamber in Creedick.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ryan Unger, President and CEO of the Harrisburg Regional Chamber and Critic. And I'm going to talk today about the intertwined nature of economic development and tourism. We track the ROI of the investment. We appreciate the long-time support of the Dauphin County Commissioners as part of our regional public-private partnership. Last year's investment in Critic generated around $6.1 million in regional partnerships. economic development activity. It's about $90 back for every dollar invested in their work, and it's across all the investments from businesses and public sector alike. We know that when a company decides to relocate or expand, the site selector will evaluate the region, and they read the same signals that a tourism reads. Is it downtown alive? Are there restaurants, hotels, things to do after 5 o'clock? This is a place where talent wants to live. And over the past year, we've worked with our partners at Visit Hershey Harrisburg and the business community to strengthen tourism assets throughout the region, including Hershey Tavern, and still investments in support of a KIZ tech company called Golf Back, located in Hershey that assists golf courses with scheduling softwares. And we know beyond the direct business assistance, we've secured about $1.7 billion in supporting nonprofits throughout the Dauphin County, including Penn State Health, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Catholic Charities, the Latino Hispanic American Community Center, Logos Academy, Valley Youth House, and YMCA, both Camp Curtin and downtown as well. We're also working with a partnership, including the county, the city of Harrisburg, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and others to support downtown revitalization efforts here in Harrisburg. And the early returns are positive. We want to public engage with 4,400 individuals completing an online survey. Focus groups have been held. And this week, public workshops begin throughout the city. And we've continued to deploy business support in that effort as well, including grant support to Harris Town, opening Cornetta Park across the street and the newly opened Denim Coffee, receiving a business loan, opening their largest location in the first floor. We know business travel and leisure travel fill the same rooms and the same restaurants, and that's why economic development and tourism should work closely together. Last year, I had an opportunity to have a conversation with a site consultant in New York City. During that conversation, The first thing he said is, I visit Harrisburg and Hershey every single summer. I attend lacrosse tournaments and stay in downtown Harrisburg. And I love walking around downtown Harrisburg, and I love visiting Hershey and going to those tournaments. going to those tournaments. And he decides investment decisions for Fortune 500 companies across the globe. And I'm excited to hear when I sit down with him in a year, what he thinks now of his trip this coming summer of downtown Harrisburg and the changes we've made. Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan. Obviously, I'm on credit, so I see the value in this. I have no questions.

No question. I just want to make a statement. Ryan, since you've taken over, you have some big shoes to fill and you filled them rather quickly. Your ability to reach out to small business large business looking forward to the future you're a forward thinker i like how you're moving your offices downtown and you just have you've done a wonderful job creating new partnerships and folks speak very highly of you and your team so keep up the great work thanks for sure here here thank you ryan thanks guys thanks harrisburg symphony association

hello good afternoon you hear me is the green light on yes that's then you're good i'm matthew heron executive director of the harrisburg symphony we have been playing at the forum for 96 years and for the past 30 years we've been playing outdoors around July 4th holiday in several communities the centerpiece of which is our Harrisburg concert that originated on a barge in the Susquehanna on the Susquehanna and sometimes it was at the stadium and of the past maybe six or eight years we've been at reservoir Park and the Douglas County Commission has been extraordinarily supportive of this event for many years I think that's Nebraska

Pardon me?

Douglas County, Nebraska. I think you meant Dolphin County. Dolphin County.

Why did I say Douglas County?

It's Omaha. I have no idea what that means. It must be... That's okay. Dolphin County. In any case... And we're requesting support again. This naturally generates tourism, this event. But in fact, we maintain a very broad and intense sort of six-figure marketing campaign throughout the year. So that I would suggest that everything we do advertises everything else that we do, which advertises the county and advertises the city. At the July 4th concert, we offer special ticket deals for our seasonal programs at the forum. We know anecdotally that a lot of people come from out of town for those concerts. And we also generate tourism by our nature. 90% of our musicians are not from here and are not based here. And we book 1,500 to 2,000 hotel rooms a year for them. And they spend money while they're here as well, in addition to what our audiences spend. I would like to think that your support will continue. And of course, we naturally invite you to be part of the event as you have been in the past.

Great. Does city tourism money support at all? Do you get any city tourism money? Do you get any city money at all? No. Do you get any city subsidies at all? No.

Keep up the great work. I mean, the impacts and the numbers year in and year out.

Thank you. And you continue to provide quality performances and shows. Could you give us just an idea of upcoming events that we may be interested in? In addition to this one? But you usually have sort of some, you know, it's not all symphony music. Correct. There are obviously entrees in different genres.

There's Broadway and rock and R&B and Motown and all of that. At the Forum, we start the last weekend in September. But I will give you brochure. I've just brought the materials about this particular series. This is in summer, and everything else is online.

Awesome. Fabulous.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That's okay.

It is in Omaha, Nebraska.

All right. I'm going to go through the entire list of individuals who did not, who were not here when we read and Eastern PA hockey. Friends of Midtide. Okay. Gratsboro Parks and Rec. I just want to read it one more time so they all got their chance to be read full time. Growing Every Mind. Harmony Horizon Alliance. Harrisburg Area YMCA. Come on up. And you didn't miss your portion, just to be clear. We started about 15 minutes early, and there were people here, so we just read through the list. So just want you to know, you did not. You were here on time. We were just ahead of schedule. We wanted to make sure to keep moving through that.

Good afternoon.

How are you? Yep. Whenever you're ready, yeah.

Hello, everyone. My name is Shawnee Whiteford. I am the new community events director at the Harrisburg Area Climate CA. Welcome, um, almost hit my earmark so I'm very excited to be here today. Um, today I am here representing the race series for the, which has been a cornerstone of the local community for the last 54 years, fostering fitness community and a love of the sport of running. The race series is made up of our 6 races, the happy half the Harrisburg mile, which is coming up in exactly a month today. The milkshake mile, which is our 1 of our newest races, the Harrisburg half marathon and 10 K are hot dash and the Harrisburg marathon half marathon and relay race. All six of these races are held in Dauphin County, with four of them being directly in downtown Harrisburg, on the riverfront, and in City Islands. In 2025, we saw approximately 5,360 participants, with the majority of the runners bringing two or more spectators with them day of. 20% came from out of town, with runners joining us from 41 states and 12 countries, including Panama, Germany, India, and Kenya. We estimate that each year 945 participants spend the night in the local hotels and Airbnbs and are looking to partner with these businesses to continue to track this progress moving forward. Each year we do partner with 20 or more local vendors ranging from food to signage to swag. In addition, we also partner with the city for the transportation, the police department, the EMTs, and so on. 2026 we're on schedule to have 6 300 participants which is an increase of 17 from last year as we continue to grow we look forward to working with better partnerships in local businesses and ensuring that all of our out-of-state runners are encouraged to visit the large list of fantastic hotels restaurants and activities that dolphin county has to offer great uh being that many of these maybe even all of these take place in the city any city tourism money

No, not any.

Any city subsidies?

No.

Okay. I'm a big fan. I did the Harrisburg Mile last year. It was a little rainy and wet, but other than that, it was a good time. Is it rainy and wet every year? Is that how it goes every year? I got poured on. I was like, I can't really sprint all out on this pavement. I'm going to slide all over the place. So it gave me a reason to slow down. what was that there's the request in for better weather this year so we'll send those prayers up and see what happens but uh yeah so we're a month away from that i bet my buddies are gonna get me roped into it again but uh but no you guys do a great job putting on the run it was a good it was a good time so thank you for all you do and i know there's um a lot of these are ones that people look forward to so

I just appreciate all the Y notes. And their running events are, I think, a staple of downtown. It would be great to have additional partnerships. Have you approached the city about support? And what are their answers?

It's okay. It's your face. Yes.

But are they saying they have no tourism monies? Have you asked them specifically for tourism support?

Yes. Okay. They do have tourism money. Just yes. Yeah. Well, I, for one, see the value that this brings a ton of people downtown spends a lot of our local. Do you have any metrics on how many of your runners are from out of the county?

I do, actually. I don't need that.

I'm just saying those would be helpful metrics to make sure you're in your application. I haven't looked at your application.

Those are the kind of metrics I've been telling people.

I've been telling people today to just really be good as you're doing these events, covering the metrics to try to, you know, survey your audience to find out if they're from out of county, out of state, if they're staying in hotels, you know, trying to direct them to Dauphin County hotels, obviously.

You're quickly becoming...

austin qualifier that's that's what i heard yeah yeah yeah we're 25 in the entire country the list of like 300 the harrisburg marathon is number 25.

That's great. That's great.

Folks come from 41 states. And that's one of the things that we've talked about adding to our post-race survey that we do is, did you shop local businesses? Have you stayed in local hotels? Where just to get some more of that actual data, we can estimate based on the folks that are coming out of state. But being able to actually really pinpoint that is something that we've already added to our survey for this year. Great. So if you do the mile, you'll see it.

Great. Thank you. Sure. Micah, if you want to come up and do pulse, we'll do it. We'll get it. We'll get it off the list now. Perfect. Right here. Thanks so much. It looks like pulse is slated to go tomorrow at two o'clock, but we'll get it out of the way now. If you're, if we can make it quick here. Yeah.

I was presented.

Oh, my God, Davenport. Face 2024, November 9th. Had a sudden cardiac arrest, which left me breathless for 22 minutes. um after that they used the defibrillator to actually bring me back to life um took me to the hospital where i was in the coma for three days um coming out of the coma and when you know i've been to a physical joined each other again i started looking up the reason why um they really didn't have one but it also sparked me to um To do what I'm doing right now with the boss. So, our global boss is, um, is called is. The acronym is Players Undergoing Lifesaving Education, which we will be teaching CPR. We will teach them how to work the defibrillators. We will teach just basically signs of knowing within yourself, you know, not pushing yourself too hard. You know, as athletes, we are taught to, you know, push yourself harder. But it's, you know, a fine line that we have to start learning how to walk. When it comes to that, and then we also working with all our coaches to get certified and certified. As well as parents, just so we will be more so proactive and reactive. When it comes to supporting 1 of our own, whatever happens, we're working with. You know, some other things just like a built awareness for it right now. So we're having a 5 K next year. Actually, a full eventful weekend that we're actually planning to put together. Which will deal with a 4 hour segment over here at the Tiffany school. We'll be using the park a lot and having different stations for the kids to come through. more so grade to middle school age groups. That night we will have a Heart and Soul Gala, which is basically like a speaker ball to present, you know, just to, you know, presents a couple of awards and to make sure, just to have a fun night more so. As well as Friday night, we will have a summit and it more so deals with the, mental disability around it when it comes to either a parent or someone that lost a relative from that or the person that suffered from it and trying to get through it. So we will have counselors and things and we will actually have a discussion going on that Friday night. Then Saturday will be the 5K run and then Sunday will be the 5K run in the gala and then Sunday will cap it off with the kids event. Question.

Didn't know that happened to you.

Oh, yeah.

When did that happen?

It happened November 9th, 2024. I was coaching down at Spooky Nugget. Just winning the game, shaking hands, and that was it. And, you know, do I... Let me be clear. I don't remember. So this is what they told me. I lost about... five, six weeks of everything that I do have no clue what happened. And not even down to driving down there to the tournament. I didn't remember anything at that point.

We've seen a lot of athletes, basketball specifically, growing up. I grew up around basketball. Mm-hm. I'm forgetting the name of the real star that died either in college or high school. Yeah, Len Bias. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was Hank Adler.

Yeah, I mean, so what Dager said, cardiac arrest, that's what... you know, happened with myself. But it also goes to Hamlin up in Buffalo, the football player. Bronny James is actually the same, you know, went through the same situation as well. Yeah, yeah. The Hamlin, that's Hamlin, yeah. And it's just, you know, as I research it, it's more and more common. We're actually working with the Peyton Walker Foundation that's here. Oh, that's what I was going to ask. You know, so we're working with them. So with them doing the screenings, my people that I start working with, I send them to her for the screenings. It's just one thing that I know, you know, basketball, you get the physical, you know, they're not going into a depth, you know, physical or your heart. So with that program, it's like an hour and a half time frame that they spend, you know, really checking your heart out to make sure it's okay to compete. And, you know, so that's the... the bigger side you know so we're partnered with uh with a lot um have you thought about actually being um seen and tested have you thought about partnering with any of the area hospitals this just seems oh well right now sponsor like we i told i did talk to upmc okay and that's how i actually got in contact with bay and walker um so we're going you know we're partnering there um have um meetings coming up with uh penn state great um you know to do some community things for them and more so just um like i said my portion i just i gotta educate everyone on it so that's what we're working on well that's good work getting screenings for these athletes is a good thing so

All right. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you. With that till tomorrow. Yeah. If I would have known that's what you're trying to do, I would have got you in earlier. I'm sorry. You had to sit here the whole time.