Community Services - Regular Meeting

Alright. What have we got? Okay. Are we ready?

Hello, people joining us online. Can you hear me okay?

Hi. So let's start with the roll call.

No? Yeah. Okay.

You got a thumbs up? Perfect.

Alright. Alright.

And then Wait. Hold up. Hold on. Just a while you're here, folks online, if I switch to sharing screen, I just wanna make sure the PowerPoints work. Can you see can I get a thumbs up? Can you guys see the screen?

Perfect. Okay. Do you want to turn to a page and see if that works?

We'll hope for the best. Okay.

They're good?

I think we're good.

Sounds good.

Thank you for coming back.

What time

did get? 01:30.

01:30.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for your Okay.

Lisa, over to you.

Call to order. Welcome, everybody. First of all, I'd like to introduce a new member. It's Elizabeth Ibanez. Did I pronounce that okay? Elizabeth just joined this month. And later in the roundtable, we'll have you tell her have her tell you a little bit about herself. So let's start with the roll call, call to order. I'm just going to go down the list. Lisa, here. Jill? Here. Leah? Here. Tyler?

Who's not on yet. Maybe he'll join us in a minute. Leticia? I don't see what's Giselle, are you on? I see the notes.

I think she is not on yet. Think that's just the

It automatically goes. Okay. We'll check back. Heather, thank you for joining us. Let's see. We've We're here. Yep. And Celeste is not here. I don't see Celeste.

She is out today.

Varna and Joyce. Thank you, Joyce. I see you online. And I don't see Leslie yet. So we're missing one, two, three, four. So I think we have a

core. Four out of 13, yeah.

Yep. We're good to go. Okay. So at this point, we want to make a call for any public comment for anything not related to items on the agenda. And please limit your comments to three minutes. Do we have anybody? Just visitors. Thanks. Okay. So I'd like to see if everyone's had a chance to look at the minutes from the October meeting. Does anyone have any changes, corrections, additions for the October minutes?

Well, all of us are called counselors.

Is that good? We're counselors. And Leslie's here. Welcome, Leslie. There's some seats next to Barbara over there. Okay. So then the minutes are approved for October. And the next on the agenda is the chairman's report. I really don't have too much. I do want to say that Jessica and I attended the county the Alliance of Health Counties Communative Collaborative Forum this morning.

Unfortunately, we had to jump off when we were just talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP benefits. But the agenda was really interesting and worthwhile. We talked about the closed loop referral system, the one that the state has and the ones that the counties have that they're implementing now. We got an update on the health care authorities, the Behavioral Health Reform and Investment Act. And there is an executive committee meeting next week.

You all are welcome to attend. I did send out an email on that. This is their fourth meeting since the bill was passed. We also had a really interesting discussion of transportation throughout the entire state, regions, and tribes, and so forth. And Jill especially will get out those slides to you because it was very interesting.

And then like I said, the last one was on Medicare. So that's really all I have. We have two more articles. Leah, you're going to do Navigating Grave Through the Holidays, or whatever title you would prefer. And then Jeremy, you're going to do the December article for us? You still want to do that on grandparents and kin? Okay, perfect. And that'll do it. So now we're up to 13 members of the health council. So we have two more positions.

If anybody knows of anyone that's interested, have them reach out to me or Jessica. And that's really all I have for the chair report. So staff update.

Hello, everyone. Welcome, people, who found us.

Were you

up in 03:30?

We were.

I'm so sorry. Just to keep it interesting, keep everyone on their toes, we're back down in one hundred ten for this room. And it seems like, belatedly, but technology is working. So welcome. I am Jessica Strong.

I'm the social services manager. I have a couple of items on the report. The first and most recent that you might have seen in the papers or on social media, we have put together an emergency food distribution. We've been referring to it as kind of making a ladder to help get people connected to food resources that already exist. So working with LA Cares and Self Help and the United Way of Northern New Mexico and a couple of other partners No worries, Jeremy.

Welcome. We know that there is the LA Cares food distribution, happens on the second Friday of the month, which is next week. The deadline to sign up for that is Sunday. To register for that is this coming Sunday. And then on so that's on the fourteenth. On the November 21 is the Santa Fe Food Depot. They come up, they are in the Immaculate Mary Church. For those in the room, I'm pointing behind us. It's near the high school. And so that left this coming Friday, this coming next week or so, if people are facing food insecurity issues without food.

So we put together a very quick call to action, and we just spent the morning putting the food bags together. Barbara was there. Jeremy was there. A couple of others were there. We had a couple of volunteers from LA Cares. And I will send photos. Jeremy and I literally came from there. But we had 125 food bags put together that will now be distributed to 10 locations. We should have coordinated. We'll figure this out.

Including at FSN. We found locations in both Los Alamos and White Rock where people can just pick up this emergency kit. It has nine to 10 items in it. And again, like in a latter kind of way to get people to the next distribution or to the next distribution point. So thank you. Anybody donated, thank you, thank you. We were completely overwhelmed. Barbara was at the beginning, before we started packing bags, she was like, well, how many do you think? And I was like, well, I had no idea what to expect. And she said, like, throw out a number.

And I was like, maybe we'll have 50. I guess my goal would be 75. And then to get a 125, the bags are like 10 pounds. I mean, like, cans of peanut butter and soup and tomato sauce are heavy. So we all got our arms workout in as well.

But, again, the idea of having distribution points is right now, SNAP in our state is not currently processing new applications. People we have spoken to who've already been approved for SNAP, the state legislature did an emergency authorization that gave people one third of their usual amount. So for a family that was getting $200 a month in SNAP, they did, at the beginning of the month, receive $67 So $200 was already not enough. Right? I mean, people kind of pieced together a month's worth of finances to cover food costs.

So obviously, 67 is better than zero. But again, trying to get people to the next point. Heather, I will get to you in just one second. I see your hand raised. So the idea was we would have distributions both in Los Alamos and White Rock, like Family Strengths Network, like the Teen Center, where people don't have to wait to come into social services and get our assistance in filling out a SNAP application that will go sit someplace. Right? So the idea was, can we do something very, very quick, take care of the community until we can get to the next step?

So When are those ready?

They will be distributed this afternoon, so they will be ready Okay. Pick up tomorrow with an asterisk that both libraries are pickup sites, but the libraries are closed tomorrow for staff development. So they will be available starting Saturday at the libraries. But all the other places will be ready tomorrow morning. Thank you.

Are we going out with the list?

Yep. Media has gone out with the list, and we'll get it out again tomorrow.

Yes. And that was in your email.

Yes. Is there information coming with them, too?

I know you're saying, like, this is still hold over until they can reach

It will be. Does it have a little pamphlet with it? It has

great prompt that I didn't even think about. Jeremy from our office has put together a calendar, and everybody is welcome to take them. We'll get it updated for December. But it has all of the distribution places here and in Espanola, Rio Riva County, including the Diaper Depot with the addresses. So if people need additional food resources, the date of those distributions is on the calendar. And then the back has additional resources, including all of the free little pantries in Los Alamos and White Rock. So, yes, hopefully, this gets them connected to all of those other resources. Great props.

Guys did a fantastic job of rallying the troops in this county. That's amazing.

Thank you. Heather. You might need to unmute yourself.

Okay. Can you guys hear me? Can you hear me

now? Hello?

Heather, you are unmuted, but we can't hear you.

Okay.

I can hear you on my end.

Interesting. You can hear So other people online can hear me?

So folks on Zoom can hear?

Yes, online, we can hear you.

Oh.

Can you

try asking again? Something isn't working on the speakers here in the room. We didn't ask anyone to speak.

Yeah. Can you hear me now, maybe?

Oh, no.

Just type it.

I don't know. Was on.

Sound is turning out.

Can you hear me, Jessica, Lisa?

Our speakers are turned on, and they're up to, like, 90. I'm worried. Can Interesting.

Hear the rest of us.

Tap that microphone thing on the on the Zoom. Sometimes that's not I think they're still working on it. Maybe they can't hear us.

On the bottom, that's Yeah.

I don't think they

see anybody.

Just select it. See that? It's to the right. On the right. Yeah. That's Woo. So loud.

Everyone. Now I just blew out all of our eardrums. Okay. Heather, one more time. Let's try it.

Okay. Can you guys hear us now?

Yes. It's red. It was red.

Go for it. So first, I want to say thank you so much for all the work that you guys have been putting in to get these packages together. But I just had, like, was all this stuff donated or was this coming out of county funds? Because I know there's, like, that anti donation clause. Yeah. So I just wanted to make sure we are on the up and up with that. And I know you guys probably are.

We Oh, anti donation clause.

What

Yeah. Good question. I'm laughing at counselor Reidy. It's one of my least favorite phrases. This was all 100% donated. So no county funds were used for any of it.

Nonprofits, people

I figured it was

because you guys are awesome and you're great, but I just wanted to

Can't

I just ask.

I'm sorry. I will say there I am not a lawyer, but there is a clause in the antidonation for care of people who are sick and indigent without actual definitions being provided for each of those. So what counts as sick and what counts as indigent is open to interpretation. But all of this was completely donated by community members. We we set up 10 donation sites in both Los Alamos and White Rock, and then a bunch of volunteers went and picked it up yesterday. So we've had two days of arms workouts, And then we'll get it out to the drop off sites this afternoon.

Also, additional funds were requested. A lot a couple of organizations, Restaurant Lourke, for example, did a matching pig and fig. So they she matched donations, and I think that they got, like, 2,000 in donations. So the community really rallied.

Stepping up. So more to come.

No. I oh.

I I've seen some of the seen some of the spots, so I figured we were all on the up and up, and I appreciate everything that you guys did. It's great. I love the fact that the community is coming around. I just had that one quick question just to make sure that we were covering our basis.

I am happy to discuss anti donation any time. It's no problem. The couple other very, very quick updates. We are nearly done in the hiring process with our new program specialist. So hopefully, I can announce that at our December meeting.

I don't wanna jinx it because it's not all the way through HR just yet. In addition to this work that we have done with food resources, I have information about two upcoming things. One is the Los Alamos crop hunger walk and turkey trot, and I have a couple of these flyers so people can join and walk 1.7 miles or two and a half miles from the middle school, which raises funds for food insecurity as well. And then you will likely get a lot more from some of us because we are going into Thanksgiving, and there's a lot going on there too. James Wernicke is president of Rotary.

He is also on the Inclusivity Task Force. And the Saturday before Thanksgiving, which is the twenty second, they do a huge food packing event, and they are looking for volunteers for that too. So I will send that, his contact information, and he had asked me to share that with everyone here. So I'll get that information out as well. Who's sponsoring the turkey truck? Turkey walk? Leslie.

I can answer questions on the crop walk.

Oh, who's sponsoring who?

Okay. So there's a small committee in town that does this every year.

The money

25% goes to LA Cares. And then the rest of the funds raised goes to other organizations that serve the hungry and needy in the nation. And it was originally started by Church World Service. But they now work in conjunction with many other organizations. And let me just say, it's a really fun thing to do

on a warm

Sunday afternoon. If it's raining or snowing,

fun. It does.

There's there's also a run associated with it. If you're a runner, you can run. So if you have any other questions,

that's not you.

Thank you.

I'm not a runner. No longer a runner. So that's all I got. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you. So we now need to have a county council liaison update. But Counselor Reidy, would you mind coming so you could be seen? If

it's Okay, can I just stay here? I think you can hear me on Zoom, right?

Yeah. You can't see when

I think it's fine. They know I think they can trust it's not AI. But you're real. Okay. They'll be able to tell it's not

AI. Pretty

quickly here. So the council, we had our strategic planning session that was the same day as this last meeting of the health council. And that was probably one of the bigger things we did this last month. So we didn't make any real substantial changes. But there was a couple of things that relates kind of directly to the health council.

So we have quality of life as a focus area. One of them, we just clarified to instead of saying improve access, it says expand access to a variety of services. So that's probably a good change. And then the other thing that was a change that's directly relevant to health council was that under quality governance, we had partnerships, community partnership organizations listed under one of the categories. So that's now been clarified that there are partnerships that are separate from intergovernmental or tribal or regional relations.

And it includes health care and other organizations. So I think that was probably a good clarification because we are attempting to work within the county. You just heard initiatives about trying to get resources out to people that are affected by the government shutdown in different ways. And so that's good. Then I guess the other things that have happened that are probably worth noting was that we had the vote on increasing the gross receipts tax the meeting before last.

And that passed, we have coming up, there was an introduction for $40,000,000 in bonds for the community broadband projects. That's coming for a public hearing next week. No, not next week. Two weeks still. So that's another big one that's coming. And then I think we have I don't usually highlight proclamations, but we had a couple of things that are worth highlighting from just this last week. So there's something called Operation Greenlight. So this is an effort that the National Association of Counties started a few years ago. And we've been just painting it now. It's a third year the county has.

So we put green lights on the buildings and it's to help recognize the contribution of veterans to the country and to the county. We have a lot of veterans that work for the county. So I think that's something good. And and what you can participate individually by just having green light in in a window that people can see from the street. And then we have coming up at the end of the month, we have a small business Saturday.

So it's great to hear about the businesses helping with this effort, but it's good to remember them. And especially during, obviously, with the shutdown and a lot of anxiety about monies, that if people can focus on our local businesses, and small business Saturday. So there is just that day, there's a tax, basically a tax holiday. But they talk to local businesses. They make a large fraction of their income during this quarter.

I just thought that that's good to remind people about that. And I know we like to support, retain, and hopefully recruiting our local businesses. So yeah, there's a bunch of other things that we've talked about. But I think that was what

I wanted

to highlight. So if you like watching YouTube recordings of counselors recruiting sessions, there's an opportunity to watch me on YouTube. It should be posted soon. If there's any questions on any of that, anti donation is something that does come up in our state legislative priorities. And I believe the wording is sick indigent. Sick or indigent. Sick and indigent.

It's caused lots of lawyerly comments about where commas go.

Right. So that's so yeah, that would be something that comes up anytime looking for direct county revenue support for whatever initiative. It has to pass that donation clause for constitution. That's all I got for today.

Thank you. So you aren't Cambershine. You were, I

need to.

I was like, if you want to see me saying similar things, I had more. It's an interview, so People can't see my air quotes. There's no questions being asked. So it's not exactly an interview.

Awesome. I just have one question about this strategic leadership session that you guys have to plan. So we've been working on our work plan for next year. And we actually added two things, one for the quality of life and one for quality of governance I can't talk today related to customer service. So are the strategic goals going to be reflected in the latest template of the work plan?

They should be. There's, in terms of the 21 that we consolidated to under environmental stewardship. But we have the same number of the rest of them. The wording changed a little bit. I wonder why we took all day to do that, whatever hours.

Yeah, the wording is basically the same. And there has been some discussion about, basically, couple of things that leads them to some changes was about under governance, the fiscal sustainability got revised to kind of reflect more a process for evaluating how we spend our money. And then the other thing that's being added is we actually went through and identified the core and noncore services. And then there was a lot of discussion about changing local business one because of what's under the county's control versus not. Right.

So that wound up not changing it after twenty minutes talking about it. So there was language to change it to reflect more the county perspective, which is more it would be that customer service part is that when you go in and you want to get a permit or you want to do some work at your house, that there's somebody available to of let you know what that process is.

Co social services is definitely service focused.

Right. And so I think that there's been an initiative county wide to get everybody trained in customer service, which is a good thing. So that's, you know, underneath the the 21, there are maybe three to five things that county manager is having staff do. So that's it's the management action plan. I'll try not to use the acronym. But it's the management action plans that are resulting of these priorities.

Okay. So we should check with Jackie or whoever is developing, updating the template for 'twenty six to see when that's going to be ready?

So it should be ready. In terms of the language that's in the list, that was ready to go. So that should hopefully get transmitted from Jackie for you all to use.

Anybody have any questions for Jessica or for Councilor?

Do we have a sense or a vision or a goal or whatever, now that you've gone through the first round of food support and there's no talk of anything coming back on before the end of the year, do we have an action plan that says, you know, we're going to have to raise enough food for 150 people every week, the next six weeks, or whatever it is. I'm just you know me and my charts

and my numbers.

I have have it in my head. I'm just

No, no. It's a really good question. The short answer is no. And I will say, as a data nerd, what we've been saying around the office is, like, we're kinda winging it. We we didn't know how much we would get in donations. And so even to even when pickup locations were saying, well, how many kits do you think you'll bring by? And I was like, maybe three or maybe 20. Like, just didn't really know. So this is kind of our first take on

it. And

so we'll know a lot more in a week or two. I will say that in talking to Lynn at LA Cares, she is anticipating what they normally have, 75 to eighty, eighty five families, a doubling of this month. And it it does tend to spike November and December holidays, etcetera. Kids are out of school more, you know, so on. But she's expecting a doubling partly due to the shutdown, people who are furloughed, or just the uncertainty of not when you only have a once a month distribution Right.

Do you decide, I'll go ahead and get it this month because I don't know if I'm getting furloughed on the fifteenth? Right? We talked a lot about in this kind of quick plan that we put together making it easy to repeat and likely having to do it again the December. Same, we have not heard anything from the state and certainly nothing in the news on the federal government side that SNAP will be fully restored in time for the December 1 distribution. And our understanding is that the emergency authorization from our state legislature was only for November, that they would have to make another declaration for December.

And given Thanksgiving, I don't know. I haven't heard yet whether or not that is going to come. I have been very grateful for how quickly our state came together to get a third payment out, but we haven't heard anything else for December. So the answer is we will likely be doing this again into December. And then future months, I don't know.

We don't currently have a plan to do it every week, but to do it the December and then same second Friday is LA Cares. Third Friday is Santa Fe Food Depot. I will just say, kind of given where social services sits, there's a huge piece. I feel like SNAP has gotten a ton of press that cuts to SNAP or the pause in SNAP. But the other piece that affects nearly all of the people that we see at social services is LIHEAP is also paused, which is the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program.

And so we are also which helps people with utility payments during the cold months when utility bills are highest. So that is also not currently happening.

Will they put a pause on turning people off if they're putting a pause on?

So the way it works is if your account is currently paid up to date, then you can apply for a program to not have your heat turned off. It's moratorium on shutoff notices from November 15 through March. So we help people with those applications, but it's not automatic. You have to apply. If you did it last year, you have to reapply this year.

And so a couple of us have been talking, donating food is very tangible. And last year, our utilities program, which is the utilities assistance program in Los Alamos is separate from the LIHEAP that gets federal funding, so people can apply to both. It's tangible to donate peanut butter. It's harder to conceptualize how would I help my neighbor with their heating bills or something like that.

Feel like the people that are behind

are running behind, so they're not going to be caught up.

So the county does have the supplemental, which by the way Heather is paid for fully out of donations. And the Inclusivity Task Force had a presentation on that this month. So if you want to hear more about it, you can go to their presentation. But the gal from the county spoke about it. But also LA Cares gave out 26,000 last year in utility assistance as well.

So they do and self help does as well. So there are several different programs. And then the other thing I was going to say, because at the end of the Affordable Care Act, people's medical insurance is going it's like quadrupling. So it's just like a triple whammy with the furloughs and the snap reductions and, you know, the holidays and then all of this energy, all these energy challenges. It's just everything.

Heather, did you wanna jump in now that we can hear everyone online? Yeah.

So I am a troop leader for, Trail Life and American Heritage Girls. And our boys actually, went down went and cut and split wood and that they've been selling it. But I think they have some extras. So if there's people in the community that could use wood to help heat their homes, please let me know because I could get some teenage boys to to get wood over to families.

That's great.

I will have Jeremy contact you tomorrow, Heather. That's wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you. So

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Well, this kind of ends the business. Oh, go ahead, Bob.

Some. Thank you. Sure. First, I wanted to thank the community

for your Totally. Your extreme

generosity this morning, and especially the people that gave big things of peanut butter, big things of meat, protein, protein, protein, beans. It was wonderful, instead of all just crackers and pasta. Crackers are great because kids can can put peanut butter on crackers, and they will get something. But that was it was overwhelming, really, in such a short period of time how much we were able to get. I talked with the school superintendent as far as somebody was asking you were asking about the appointment.

We, right now, have roughly 175 individual students that are eligible for SNAP. Some of them are from the same families, of course. Everybody that wants it is able to get a free breakfast and lunch now at school. So they don't go without that or have to stand in a separate line and get discriminated against kind of like that. Everybody gets a free breakfast and lunch.

There is a sharing table at each school for prepackaged snacks, if you will, like peanut butter crackers, granola bars, fruit apples and bananas, that sort of thing. Individual little boxes of cereal. And then they have a refrigerator for little cartons of milk. And so kids can take extra if they want. If they know there's not going to be anything at home for dinner that night or maybe over the weekend, they're able to do that.

Right now, there's no backpack initiative. And I know that we were talking this week about whether, especially if this becomes a protracted problem, that there might be a need for some sort of backpack initiative for weekend food that the kids could take home with them. That's not anything that's a brand new project. That's not anything that's come to any fruition other than conversations and that that's not currently happening at schools. The banks.

I wanted to remind people in the community about the support and help. If they are worried about not meeting their mortgage or any other commercial loan or something, they should prepare their paperwork with the bank before they're behind or before they're going to need it. So they they don't have to activate it, but they need to go in and talk with the bank and sort out why they might be in jeopardy of not being able to pay their mortgage or car loan or whatever and fill out the paperwork and get it ready. So if it comes to pass, they won't be able to meet it. The paperwork's already approved.

And then it just is easy peasy for them. And most of them I've been in the newspaper already with articles about how to do that, and that it's zero interest, or skip a payment, or those sorts of things.

Lots of community rallying to

Yeah, they won't negatively impact their credit.

And then I guess the last thing I wanted to say, we've been through these kinds of things before, but never quite so protracted in time. We've only had maybe one other time since the 1960s that we've shut and only for a couple of days or maybe a week when it happened. And this could be long. Hopefully, they'll vote this afternoon before they all go home because they want those airplanes. But no walk.

On that. Anyway, our community is in a good situation compared to most of the neighboring surrounding us. We can all pretty much, other than maybe some of our younger kids and younger families, whether one check missing. But if we get to where there's two checks that haven't come, then we might have the middle of our community kind of living check to check. And we might see many more.

Again, to your question about how much were we going to need. And the next checks, we've already missed one check. If the next ones come and don't get paid, and we're going into December, that could be pretty tough for our community. So, yeah.

We connected with Smith's grocery stores up here.

I was going to go today, actually. And

I'll go Speaking of

new projects. It's just they have a level of food waste every Every day. Yeah. If we could close that gap and have a place to funnel it, that would be a big step. Because that is a big grocery store. And if they knew they had a source in a way, they'd stop throwing in

the trash bins. Thank you, Barbara. I have a quick question about the school lunches. So do kids pay for them? Then the kids everybody.

The entire state.

Everybody that wants And all levels. Element, elementary, and high school. It's all in The United States. Okay. Thank you.

There's nothing provided for holidays. Yeah. And schools closed for rotation or anything like that. Okay.

Thank you, everybody. This is a great discussion. So I want to make sure we have enough time for our presentations. So right now, I would like to call on Leah Blackwell. And Leah has been on the health council for about a year. Me too. Yeah. It's December. Anyway, can you just do a brief interdoc? Just tell about yourself, and then thank you for for coming.

Do I still have about a half hour, or should I go?

I say take take your time because I can do mine another time.

Yeah. Take what you need.

So I'm Leah Blackwell, and I'm a member of the Health Council. I'm also the chaplain at Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service. And I'm a grief group facilitator through Golden Willow Retreat up in Taos. And we have a grief support group that meets here in Los Alamos on Tuesdays at 3PM over at Rivero Funeral Home. And we're currently on a two week break, but we'll start up our next six week cycle on November 18. And I'll talk a little bit more about this, but everyone is invited to that because we are all experiencing

grief in different

ways, and we honor all types of loss through the Golden Willow Model. And there's no registration required, so if you want

to pop in and check it out,

it's wonderful. And I've just grown so much for being a part of this group. So, yeah, if you'll hit my next slide, Jessica. Today, I'm going to Yeah.

Folks online, because I can't

see the chat. Did the slide advance for you? We

can't hear you. Why does the audio oh, I got thumbs up. Okay. So now we can go back to

All right. Are you

all good?

So I'm going to be talking a little bit about grief and loss. What is grief? What does it look like? How can we move through it with purpose? And how can we support others who are in grief? And I think it's especially important with the holidays approaching that we increase our awareness of how grief and loss affect all of us. And with that knowledge, we can develop a greater skill set in just helping with this aspect of being human. So I want to start with a meditation, if you're comfortable with that. This topic today, grief and loss, can be really heavy, and it can bring up emotions that are difficult to sit with. So to set the tone, if you're comfortable, we'll just take a few minutes to ground ourselves.

So if you'll begin by getting into a comfortable position, just take a minute to make any adjustments that you might need to feel just really comfortable right now. And when you're ready, just close your eyes gently. So we're going to take a deep breath in through your nose

and release through the mouth.

And again, taking a deep breath in, slowly releasing all the way out. We're just gonna set our intention for the next few minutes to shift from a state of doing to a state of being, allowing your attention to focus on your breath as an anchor that continually returns you to the present moment. So as you continue breathing, allow your belly to be soft

so you

can feel it expand as you breathe in and contract as you breathe out. Continue breathing deeply, and with each exhale, feel your body relax. Notice any areas of your body that might be holding tension. Just try to soften those areas with each exhale. Maybe it's your shoulders, your eyebrows, or your scalp.

Just allow that tension to melt like wax over you. Imagine feeling the warmth of it rolling off. Notice that what is left behind is soft, at ease, and aware. And just sense deeply that when we care for the moment, we're caring for ourselves. I'm going take a few more deep breaths.

When you're ready, you can open your eyes.

Thank you. And if you're

still awake, we're going talk a little bit more. If you'll hit the next slide for me. So I want to start by defining what grief is and differentiating between loss and grief. So I really like how Golden Willow maps this out. They define loss as any time that a person's foundation or perception of reality or safety has shift, cracked, or shattered.

So the most significant example, obviously, is the loss of a loved one. But it can also be the loss of a job, a relationship, changes in mobility or health, even the loss of a cherished or long held dream. So grief, however, is the natural healing process of the psyche in response to the loss. It is a dynamic and evolving experience that looks different for everyone. But at its core, it's how the heart and the mind respond to the absence of something or some someone or something that provided meaning, security, or joy.

And it's a universal experience. We all have to go through it. And I want to point out that even if you haven't had a significant loss of a loved one in your life so far, you have experienced loss in a multitude of ways, right? And therefore you've experienced grief. It's just unavoidable.

In digging a little deeper into our experience of loss, Doctor. Ted Wyrd, who's the founder of the Golden Willow Retreat Center in Taos, he writes about loss being an integral part of the human experience from the time that we're born. From the moment we come into this world, we're thrust into discomfort and change. We were once cozy in the womb, and now we're hungry and naked and totally dependent on caregivers. So from our beginning moments, we have lost our sense of reality and we're forced into a new one.

This continues throughout our lives in the form of change. So it could be early on a parent's divorce or a move. It could be as simple as leaving home to go to kindergarten. All of these life changes can elicit a grief response. And we're often just completely unaware that we're experiencing grief. Really the foundation of grief literacy and understanding begins with acknowledging that life is grief and loss. And when we sit with this, we can start to embrace grief as an essential part of our lives. So it's an extension of love. It's the ongoing expression of love for something that was precious to us. So next slide.

So our modern understanding of grief is rooted in the work of Doctor. Elizabeth Kubleras, who developed the five classic stages of grief in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. So this was originally developed to categorize the stages of grief experienced by the dying, but since it's been expanded upon to include the larger experience of grief. So those classic stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Next slide, please.

And what I really like about the Golden Willow model of grief is that they've reworked these five stages into more kind of palatable language that gives us a little more agency in the process of grief. Some of the wording in these stages almost sound like accusations. I can hear someone saying, Well, you're just in denial. Right? And it isn't really helpful.

So I think our language is really important when we start to define our experiences. I think a slight shift in connotation can bring a lot of margin that's really necessary when we're in pain and navigating that. Doctor. Wyatt's work starts by adapting the language with changing the word stage or phase into aspect, which I really like. And this is important because we now know that the aspects are not linear.

They can't be checked off a box and proceeded to the next. Where stage or phase kind of imply that you're going to be done and move on to the next. I also can just hear my mom saying, like, as a teenager, like, you're in a phase. It can feel demeaning. So we and we know now that we can flow in and all of the in and out of all the aspects, like, in a matter of moments.

But I want to point out that there's some truth in the progression of the aspects from a big picture standpoint. So for example, denial, or as Golden Willow calls it, insulation, which we'll talk about in a minute, It's very commonly experienced right after a loss, especially when it's sudden. But the point, I guess, is that we can't expect for it to disappear completely, even after we feel we've been through that initial aspect. So one of my favorite quotes by Carl Jung is that, Emotions are not meant to be conquered. They're meant to be understood.

And I think this translates especially well for an experience of grief. And again, with the whole language thing, you may have heard the phrase by Doctor. Dan Siegel name it. And that doesn't mean conquer, but it means awareness, agency, participating within the experience. So back to the original five stages, I want to give you the verbiage that Golden Willow uses, because I think it's really useful in rebranding grief and allowing some of that agency. So like I said, denial is reworked into the term insulation. Anger, he calls protest. Bargaining is instead connecting the dots. Depression is surrender. And acceptance is acknowledgment.

So I think

it's the

next slide time. I'm not sure.

I just want to jump in. I love that language so much because I think people are so familiar with the steps, the stages, but thinking of it as insulation, that you're protecting a part of you from that loss, that love and how that plays through. I just think his rewording of it is really beautiful.

Yeah, and just recognizing that this is natural. This is what our bodies and our souls are meant to be. Yeah. Okay, next one, I think. Yeah, so denial is insulation. Like Jessica said, it's our psyche's way of protecting us from the enormity of the loss all at once. So we're acknowledging that something enormous has shifted. And it can be impossible to fully process at first, right? And so insulation is kind of our psyche's way of buffering us from the initial blow. It's the soul's way of going inward and taking care.

So it's almost like a recovery after a surgery or an illness. It allows us time to adjust to a new reality. It can also allow us time to take action, like notifying others, planning services, taking care of red tape. And then we want to be aware that some of the complications can occur when we start to isolate and still insulate. Yeah, hallmarks of this aspect are shock and disbelief.

So next slide. So protest instead of anger. Those are similar, but it may be our first true feeling after the loss that anger can act as an escape valve for really intense emotions. And with everything in this topic, our most important thing is that we acknowledge the experience. And complication with this aspect can occur when protest becomes resentment, and we can get stuck in that sometimes.

So next slide. So bargaining is reimagined as the brain's way of connecting the dots. So I really like this quote. The brain strives to connect the dots to make sense of the loss. It continually processes the events of the past in an attempt to make the future more predictable and thus safer. So the bargaining aspect is the brain's debate with the illusion of control. So with that come persistent thoughts like if only, what if, I wish, etcetera. We might mentally try to change the outcome by reenacting the parts leading to the loss. And signs that we might be stuck in this aspect are intense feelings of guilt or blame. So next one.

Depression is reworked as surrender. So it's important to differentiate this one from clinical depression. This can lead to clinical depression, but it's different. This aspect can be when we finally start to feel a true sense of what has happened, when all efforts to avoid the pain of our reality fail, when our debate with the illusion of control and bargaining is exhausted, when denial is no longer working, we surrender to profound sorrow. So some of the feelings we can have are just utter powerlessness over the situation.

And we want to be mindful that this can open up unresolved grief. So a lot of memories and things that we haven't really dealt with can come up. And so that's something to be really mindful of. And then moving on to the next one. So acknowledgment. I really like this one over the word acceptance because acceptance kind of implies that we're okay with it and we may never be okay with it. Acknowledgment is choosing to look at the loss based on and say, I hate this, but this is real. Coming to terms with what happened and acknowledging that this is part of our story now. Okay. So next slide.

So how to support others in grief. This is really an extension of what we do for ourselves and acknowledging what we just went through, but it looks a little different in that we have to put ourselves out there, which is hard. It's a little risky, right? And we just often don't know what to do. And we have great intentions, but we're at a loss. And that's because the truth is we can't fix it. The worst has happened. And I think one of the barriers we face to supporting others is the fear of saying the wrong thing. I've been there. And the fact is that we can and often do say the wrong thing.

But we shouldn't let that fear stop us from being present with others and acknowledging the loss. So I read an excellent NPR article that had some great suggestions on what to do and not to do when supporting a grieving friend. And the first thing that we want to do is acknowledge loss. It can be so much more painful to a griever to have the loss go unacknowledged than it is to accidentally say the wrong thing. But let's talk about a few of the wrong things to say.

One that really stuck out to me was any statement that begins with at least. That was really interesting to me. Kind of trivializes somehow, what has just happened to someone, there might not be a bright side. So we want to let them lead. If they're saying at least, okay, we don't want to start with that.

We want to acknowledge, validate. Refrain from offering suggestions or advice on how to get over it. And then I just want to say to my dear friend and mentor and fellow council member, past council member, Jen Bartram, when she was training me to be a chaplain, I was so worried about saying the wrong thing in these delicate situations, right? And she said, Leah, do you know how to say you're sorry? And then you're just fine.

And I think going into any delicate interaction with the knowledge that we don't have the answers is a really good place to start. You could even start by saying, I really don't have the words to express right now how deeply I'm feeling for you. And so where we really want to begin is from a place of friendship and active witnessing or presence for others. So I'm sure you've heard of the term active listening. And really what that boils down to for me is putting everything aside in the thinking mind, which is so hard, and opening your heart and attention to someone.

So it's the nature of the mind to be consistently anticipating what's next. Right? So in attending to someone, we're often thinking about how we're going to respond instead of really hearing. Not only to what they're saying, but how they're saying it. What's their body language? What's their tone? Do you sense anger? Do you sense sadness? And just asking yourself, how would you need them to show up for you? So some things that are good. I think I hear you saying that. Clarifying questions. Again, not offering suggestions or ways to get them out of it. And also not equating everything they say to your own experience. So we want to empathize without co opting someone else's story.

Okay. Honestly, so this might all seem terribly basic, and that's because it is. We already hold the key to presence and true friendship and support. It doesn't take a degree in counseling to provide a lifeline and a safe space for someone in grief. It really just requires presence. So I think it's next slide. Yeah. Okay. So this is a really interesting book that I came across, a story that someone shared with me recently. It's about a man named Shoji Morimoto, and he lives in Tokyo.

And it's just a fascinating example of what presence can look like. So I'm gonna read a little story about this. Okay. So he says, I rent myself out to do nothing. Shoji Morimoto has a master's degree in physics, lived in Tokyo, and was, in his own words, an ordinary quiet guy with no special talents. But one day, tired of his jobs that didn't satisfy him, he posted a tweet that changed everything. I rent myself out to do nothing. I can be with you, listen to you, accompany you. I don't cook. I don't clean.

I don't give advice. I simply exist with you. He did it as a joke, but the next day he had over 500 messages. A woman asked him to accompany her to sign her divorce papers. She didn't want to do it alone. A young man leaving the hospital after an operation asked him to walk home with him in silence. An elderly woman invited him to eat. And what exactly do you do? A journalist said. Nothing. I'm just there. But sometimes being there is everything. He doesn't give advice. He doesn't intend to change lives. He simply becomes a silent witness to the small struggles that people face.

Today, he has over 4,000 clients. They call him the man who does nothing.

But deep

down, Shoji does what many don't know how to do, to be present. When asked if this made him feel lonely, he replied, no, I need company too, but without masks, without expectations. Just two human beings sharing the same time, without wanting to change each other. So sometimes what heals is the simplest. Someone who doesn't come to save you, but to sit beside you as you weather the storm.

So from a BBC interview, they say, One of the most common things he sees is simply needing a person to be there with no strings attached. So here's something that happened in my life that speaks to this experience of presence. I was grieving the loss of a dear friend and really just really struggling. And a friend of mine was really present for me. So they called me up one day and said, hey, do you want to go to the grocery store? I was like, no, not really. And they said, great, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. And I'm like, okay. So we went to the store, and I said, you know, I really don't feel like going in. They were like, no problem.

I bought you a soda. I'm gonna leave the car on, and here's the tape deck. Listen to some tapes, and I'll be right back. And then we'll go on some errands. And that was exactly what I needed. I just needed someone to be here. Not necessarily suggesting that we kidnap friends. You get the idea. So I want to touch base on some ways we can move through the holidays when we're grieving and how to support others. I don't know if I have another slide.

Will you check? You have one more slide.

Oh, have one more slide. Okay. Resources. No, no, It's good. The holidays. So we know this time of year can be really challenging, right? The good news is that there are some active things we can do to help each other and ourselves. So first of all, changing our expectations of what the holidays should look like. It's going to look different. So maybe some practical things are having a meal at a different location, a different time, trying a Friendsgiving, just thinking outside the box.

Commemorating our loved one can be really powerful during the holidays. Making a donation in their name, setting up, for lack of a better word, an altar or space where we have pictures of them and a candle and we include them in what we're doing and we talk about them. And then going back to acknowledgment of the loss when we're trying to support others who are grieving. This can be helpful during the holidays, even if the loss was some time ago. Reaching out and saying, Hey, I know this time of year might be a real challenge for you after losing a

lot of fun.

Even So though time has passed, this can be really validating and offer a lot of comfort. So also offering concrete ways to support others is more helpful, often more helpful than open ended offers, like let me know if there's anything I can do. And there's nothing wrong with that per se, but it can lead the griever to feel like it's now their responsibility to find something for you to do when they already have enough going on. Things like inviting them for that meal, that shopping trip, offering specific help like, let's write Christmas cards together, come over for a hot chocolate. Especially as the light is changing, we find ourselves a lot of time in the evening.

What do I do now? Well, let's have someone over and listen to records, whatever it is. Picking up and delivering a meal and saying, I'm going to bring you a meal. Concrete things like that might be really helpful. Wrapping up, in trying to understand more about our experience of grief, I think we have to be really brave by beginning to face our own fears about loss.

And when we move into a deeper understanding, we can begin to allow ourselves to experience the full spectrum of grief and emotion and pave the path toward healing. So when we allow the aspects to ebb and flow as they naturally occur, though it may not feel like it, we are healing. So grief is like observing the ocean, right? Riding it like the tide. Sometimes the water just tickles your toes, and other times it hits you like a 50 foot wave.

Allow it. Surrender to it. You will surface. And I think healing, like life's greatest lessons, is not about a destination, but a way of being, receiving and acknowledging. So thinking that someday we'll be over it or done grieving isn't realistic, though it does get easier to bear.

I heard someone say that grief is like a heavy stone we carry. And though it never gets lighter, we grow stronger to carry it with more ease. So as we contemplate grief, bear witness to it in the lives of others, and sit with our own, we can strengthen the muscles that help us carry it. So I think I have a slide. Okay.

So these are some local resources. The organization I'm with, Golden Willow Retreat for, goldenwillowretreat.org, they have we obviously do our in person group, but they have Zoom meetings at various times during the week on their website, and those are awesome. I've participated in those, and they're very similar to the in person. It's just, you can have a little more in an office, if

you want. You don't have to have your

screen on. For kids, there's Gerard's House in Santa Fe. They're specifically a children's grief center. And then All Ages, the grief center in Albuquerque. And just a little plug, we are going to be starting a grief group for kids in the spring for our community here in Los Alamos. So that's something I'm really excited about. And then if you will join me in just another little grounding exercise. I really appreciate you guys being present with me in this talk. I know it can bring up a lot, and I'm just happy that I got to share this space with you. So we're just gonna close our eyes again and just take a few deep breaths in.

I just want us to kind of thank ourselves for being willing to be here in this space. We're opening our hearts. And if you can visualize moving back from your heart into your head, you've embraced some tough stuff in the past few minutes together. We're gonna move into our day and use our thinking mind again. Just kind of envision that spirit kind of moving back. Take another deep breath in and out.

When you're

ready, you can open your eyes. Thank you so much.

Jessica, do you

want to have

questions from Leah? What it's up to you?

I think we do questions for Leah. Oh, there. I lost my mouse. Sorry. Couldn't get it back to the

Let's see if anybody else

has Yeah, let's do questions or comments for Leah, for sure. And then I'm happy we can move mine to next month when we are talking about the

work plan and loop it Sure. All

That works. Yeah. Thank you so much. Lastly.

So we had a question. I have a question. Do you have a Can I

go first? I'm just wondering what that means when you say you're chaplain. Because I come from a tradition where that means three years of seminary and then a lengthy internship learning about the ins and outs of supporting people. And then I'm in this town, and I run into people. And one man said, oh, I'm the chaplain for the police department and the fire department now. And it makes me uncomfortable when people use that word chaplain. And I don't know what that means for you. I don't know what denomination you come from, what angle you approach it at.

So if

you could just talk about that.

Absolutely. That's a really good question. So it varies by organization what qualifications you have to have. So I know like a hospital chaplaincy, you have to have that degree in seminary and endorsement by a denomination. I'm a hospice chaplain and I'm a chaplain for all. So I have some training. I have training and certification in chaplaincy, but it's not through a denomination. It's not seminary. So for me, I agree with you. I think the chaplain word is a little confusing.

We associate it with a religious affiliation. I think we need a different word for it. For me, I have a friend who's been a chaplain for years who I was talking to about this and he said, you know, what I see it as is a spiritual friend. And to me, means life. So I come into different homes and have a variety of belief systems, and I'm not there to do anything other than be present, really, and talk about meaning of life stuff. So I think it's a great question. I think we need a new word for it. But it does vary by organization. I don't know what qualifications you have to do to be a police chaplain or I don't know. But I think

it's There's also military chaplains Military chaplains. Which I think is part of active duty.

Yeah, military chaplains go to seminary. They're either of a Catholic denomination or one of the Protestant denominations or the Jewish rabbis. So they have three different

But they are considered it's not a layperson. It's a military Right.

It's a chaplain, but they have a college degree, and they're an officer usually.

They're an officer. Thank you. That's where I'm

from.

They're a person in

law Yeah.

They've gone through seminary. Probably more traditional one that Do you

work part time for visiting nurses and part time for Golden Willow?

So yes. I don't actually work for Golden Willow. They sponsor our grief group here. So I'm trained in the Golden Willow retreat model. Yes, I'm with Los Alamos Visiting Nurse Service. And they sponsor the group.

And their specialty is hospice. Yes.

Thanks for the question.

My question's a little easier. Do you have flyers? We have

child care. We have health care.

Have mental health. Have this. But we don't have a grief section.

Yeah. Really meant to do that. I am so sorry. But I can get your contact after this and send

you stuff.

That'd be awesome.

We can make connections, which is like

how health council works. Yay.

Do

we have any questions online, you guys? I see Art? Art, is there a hand? Does anyone have a question?

Can I ask a question of Joyce? If you're still on, if you're able, is there a chaplain at the hospital here that's separate from visiting nurses?

No, we do not. We used to have a hospital chaplain many, many, many years ago, but now we do not have anybody here. Sometimes it's really a challenge to try and find somebody that the patients are comfortable with and that fits their need. We have a few, yeah, that I think people will call, you know, just offer to call. But, yeah, there's definitely a gap here.

I mean,

it's hard to schedule. I mean, these things aren't on a schedule.

So this is resiterion.

Yeah. And they're a big name hospital. And they will, if we have a request, because we have more than one

there, we can ask They can go between locations.

Perfect. If

it's an accident or something that you're not anticipating.

Right. We would just

put up a request and say,

hey, can you support? Yeah.

And one thing to your question, I see myself kind of as a facilitator. So if someone is deeply religious, I might liaise between them and their clergy or reach out to their church. But usually if they are, they don't need me. They don't they already have that connection, that deep connection with their faith community. And so, yeah, it's really interesting job. I love it.

Can I ask a follow-up question? Yeah. Can you meet with what we often see at social services is we get calls from an adult child who doesn't live here for an older adult who is in the community. And the person calling doesn't know about the resources available. So would you be available to the family of Absolutely. Dealing with the grief, even if the person themselves has a

We've got a lot. We were just talking about this too.

We get referred people all

the time for just resources and talking through what their options are.

Let me know. Thank you.

So what has emerged, obviously, is that there's no chaplain at our local hospital. If this group is the mandate is to take care of physical and behavioral and mental health, what would it take to encourage LifePoint to arrange for that?

That's a good question.

Is there a representative here from the hospital? Joyce. Joyce is the representative. Ask ask Joyce.

Yeah. You know, one other thing, was just trying to look and see if they still had I know they used to have, I think they rotated call between the clergy personnel in the community. And I was just trying to see if I could find that call rotation. I'm not sure if that is still available. But there there is definitely not, you know, anything that's very easily accessible.

And you guys are in transition right now too without a minister.

Yeah. Yeah. We have an interim, CEO right now.

Well, there's also the ministerial alliance that may have some influence over the issue.

They may be connected to running

a church and state.

We get built

Because it's a for profit company.

When we get built Yeah. We'll have one. Yes. So because we're Christus is faith based. So they're nonprofit, and they will have that available once we get up and fully running. But that's eighteen months down.

What if

you're at the other hospital and you want to chat with them CHRISTUS?

You know what? We work with the medical center is very I go over there all the time. We send patients there all the time. We work together because the patient is the most important thing. So if LAMC has something to offer that we don't have, we are happily sending them over there, or I'll call over there, and they set things up for me. And we work together to get the patient whatever care they need. So we're not going to if I know that they have something we don't have or vice versa, we're going to make sure we work together to get that done.

Thank you, Leah. This is awesome. So I'd like to take the last fifteen minutes and just do a quick roundtable since we're going to put off the presentation. And I'd like for Elizabeth first, our newest member, to tell us a little bit about herself. And welcome.

I don't need to watch everybody else's. You're to be the president.

And just tell us about yourself, anything you want share.

Thank you. So I'm I'm really happy to be the newest member of

the council.

And

I currently live in Bandelier, so I've been a part of the community for about two years. I am attached to Death Valley National Park. My husband's

a Bandelier ranger, so we

live in Bandelier. But my work is actually long distance for Death Valley. It's special project for Bandelier. And I've been here for about

two years. We tend to get

re stationed fairly often. So we move around a lot. But we've just fallen in love with the Los Alamos community, and

we would love to stay

here as long as that is possible for us. So with that in mind, I started looking around for opportunities to get involved

in the community and sort

of plug in the Park Service. We tend to end up in very insular communities because we live where we work. So our neighbors, our bosses, our friends, our babysitters, dog sitters. And we end up being a little bit insular. And so this is just an opportunity for me to come out into the wider community and work through some issues that are really meaningful to me. And having sat in on this group's meetings for the last few months before I became a member, it was really clear to me the level of passion and dedication and everyone's benefit in taking care of the community. So that made a really strong impression on me.

I'm just happy to be here. You're welcome.

Thank you, Elizabeth. Welcome. Let's jump online real quick. I feel like sometimes you guys get left behind. Heather, do you wanna give us an update? What have you been up to?

Things have been crazy busy. Some scouting things going on with camps and just service hours through for the community. We have kids going and serving lunches up mountain and other things during the day. With November coming, we have Veterans Day next week, and my husband is a vet. And our troop is actually putting together a veteran ceremony Tuesday night.

And we have about 10 different veterans coming to speak to about 87 kids about military service and all of that fun stuff. And I've been following along just with everything going on with Snap and everything and seeing all the emails going through and trying to plug in and figure out where my family could help the community the best we can. So that's pretty much it. Just, I I was working the polls in the month of October as well. So, that was that was fun.

Well, you. And thank Josh for his service too.

Thank you, Crystal. And thanks, Heather.

Thanks, Crystal, for joining us. Do you wanna say hi or do you have anything to tell us?

Oh, just everybody knows what's been, what we are being pressed for from our councils, and I'm sure the councils are feeling it. It's really stressful, and it's a lot of redundant work, and I see that, but I did not create those forms. But, yeah, that's where we're at. Ask Jessica. It's laugh or cry.

You gotta laugh. It's true. All the reporting.

It is.

Thank you, Crystal.

It's so redundant. But thank you, guys, and I will see you guys soon.

Thanks. Take care, Crystal. Thanks for being with us.

You too. Bye bye.

Leticia, what's going on with the clinic and everything?

Leticia, I don't know if you can unmute.

Joyce?

Would you like to give us an update? And then Leticia when there she is.

I'm here. I'm sorry. I've had a very busy day in my clinic today. I don't really have anything to update you guys on other than we've been really busy here.

I bet. I bet.

Since DOH is gone, we're seeing a lot of kids now.

For vaccinations or just

No. Or STD testing, birth control, that kind of stuff.

Reproductive health kind of stuff.

Yeah. Because I don't have I don't have vaccines here.

It's the other

I don't have vaccines in this clinic.

What's

We have to send them elsewhere.

And what's going on with the courts? Are you, able to meet with some of the folks? I know that was an issue last month or the

month before.

With the

With the courts? With the With the detention center.

Detention center. Yeah.

No. We have we only met when Jessica met. We all met together, but, no, we haven't had any any progress there either.

Well, thank you for what you're doing. I know it's really important.

Well, you're welcome. And, yeah, we'll just keep doing what we can do.

Thanks, Leticia.

Thank you. Joyce, you wanna give us an update?

What's

going on? Hello. Yeah. Just a few minutes. So, yeah, we are going through transition here with our new, change in CEO. Tracy is gone, and we have an interim right here right now. So, you know, we'll see. The interim is supposed to stay until we get a new CEO, which that could be three months, it could be a year, who knows? So but we did have an amazingly successful flu vaccine double clinic. I guess we had to do two because our vaccines didn't come in, the drive through clinic, and we ended up giving over 700 vaccines total to the community, which I feel like was a really good outcome.

We have not done that in several years. And I just was involved and led the United Way for employees here. We had a fundraiser. We haven't done that really organized before, so we had a silent auction, which people really enjoyed. And we I think we had over 500 plus $600, something like that, which is a good start for, you know, our first employee fundraiser for the United Way.

So trying to get more people involved with that. And I know people would be interested in giving, you know, to the food banks and, you know, whatever they can do, especially on the holidays. We had a very successful food drive last year as well, so we can definitely help with that. And I just wanted to say, I think it was Leo, think they worked, you know, really well. I think that's due to our case manager department here.

They do really well going into every patient's room and talking to them about their needs, that kind of thing. So they are really able to connect people. I'm just very impressed with them and that they have that one on one contact with the patient. But that's a So quick update. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you, Joyce. So in the room, Marna. Hi.

We've been

very busy and very short staffed. We're we're the doctor and me and the front desk right now. So we've got a lot going on. And then Celeste and I have still been working in the background. We had an emergency. I was supposed to meet with her yesterday, but we had an emergency at the clinic. So we're going to meet next week and just kind of see where we're at. But hopefully, we're moving forward on getting a list of resources, not only on paper, but in the computer and get it to where we can easily sort through based on needs and what services they're

looking for. Did you get a chance to look at the Connect Santa Fe? They have that online.

Yeah. You sent you sent me that. Yeah. So we've the information from them has been added, but I've added it a little bit differently because I wanna be able to separate out what's local and what's

Jill, hi.

I got

nothing, friends of mine. Oh, come on. Keeping up with something you've been doing.

No, but I want to comment on your presentation quickly. All of us are going through grief right now because we've lost what this part of the world looks like. We don't know. And so it'd be really nice, I think, to figure out a way to put something online for the health council to really open all resources because you have people that have never felt this much fear. And that's not good.

It just isn't. The only other thing is toy drive. New Mexico, Northern New Mexico toy drive, which now is the largest toy drive in the state, 8,000 kids signed up this year, And our biggest supporter had to pull out.

Is that the marine one, or is it a different one?

We are larger than the marine.

It's a different one, though.

Yes, it

is. Who's the sponsor?

Actually, it's a nonprofit stand alone. A group of us stepped in probably five years ago. It had been the Santa Fe Fire Department, and they got inundated with COVID stuff. And so we So Tyler was real involved. Yeah. So we've and Tyler still is really involved. We Not

a person, not a

Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm just gonna I'm just we're gonna see a lot

of that. So let us know what you need

from them. I need tools. The information. Give a flyer?

Yeah. Give us dates and deadlines and stuff like that.

I I can I can do it? Thank

you.

I'm confused about toy drives now. I see the one at Smith's, and it's Toys for Tots.

That the Marine That's the Marine Corps.

So what is yours

then? So we choose all the nonprofit organizations that support kids that usually don't get Christmas around Northern New Mexico. And now we've been pulled into Albuquerque and I think Los Lunas. Although I'm not sure about that one. It is a it's kind of an we choose the nonprofits that really don't have anybody to sponsor them, so to speak, for Christmas. And it's just for kids, and it's just toys. It's not anything else. It's not clothes. It's not huge. It's a nice.

Yeah. It started when we took it on, and I don't see Tyler on. He knows his data better than I do. But when we adopted them up here, it's just literally a group of real estate brokers.

Yeah.

And we just said, okay. Let's figure this out. I believe there were maybe 150 kids on the list in 2020. Yeah. We are now over 8,000. So

where are the dropout places and So most of the

financial institutions will pick up their boxes this week. And the the retailers, really not so much. But they there is a website called I wonder if Mexico told and it'll tell you where the pickup sites are. Yeah.

I'll add that flyer to the packet. Yeah. Yeah.

Perfect. Thank you, Jill. So Leslie, what's up with you?

So I'm Leslie Walstrom. I'm just still trying to figure out how this committee works. Yes. I'm looking forward to hearing more about actual public health statistics in

this community.

There's somewhere there's been a lot of crises. No food, and there was the mental health push. By the way, I took the ABC training. I don't know if anyone's keeping track of who on this committee has done that. Was it

the one hour or the eight hour training?

No, not a trainer.

Oh, it's just the one hour.

It was actually one hour and close to twenty minutes for questions.

Is the league thinking about still sponsoring a class on that? No. They're not going to do that.

No feedback from league members. Took it and maybe one other person.

I took the trainers. And I know a couple other people have taken the eight hour class as well. In fact, I think Margie online, our new school board commissioner. Margie, did you take the eight hour training as well?

I took the hi, everyone. I took the eight hour youth mental health first aid training is what I did. And I also

did the

one hour ABC training.

Okay. So

the trainers The trained trainers keep track of their list and then submit them to the Santa Fe Community College where they are tracking our numbers.

So just to be perfectly blunt with those in the room, there's a certain number of people who will commit suicide in this town every year, unfortunately. There's a larger group of people who are suffering from food shortages, and that both are horrible. But I'm also concerned about things like vaccination rates and what the state is doing as far as joining maybe a different state or a West Coast compact for public health issues and new advisements for vaccinations since we can't trust the CDC anymore or our national

health organization?

So let me tell you a little bit about the health council. We are just an advisory board. We don't have any authority to create new programs. Have a little bit of funding. That comes through the county. So we are just an advisory board. We support social service. Social services is a county department, but it is not a public health office. It outreaches to members of the community, basically, in need. And that was actually the presentation that Jessica was going to do today.

But it's

a good idea for a future

JEAN ask more questions then. I'm concerned that there doesn't seem to be a public health office operating in this county. What's going on with that? Why they never

JEAN That's correct.

JEAN Why do they never put out a press release saying, we're closed, directly related to the health of this community. And social services is also. But this advisory board can play a role in advising social services to get more help from the Department of Health. Why are they closed?

Okay. So there's So

what does this committee's role in I mean, should the county council be aware that the Department of Health is not open in this county? This woman, Leticia, said she doesn't have vaccines. And so where are people going? I'm just raising this question.

Me just my mind. Weighing the Department of Health versus Leticia. Leticia is up. And Leticia, you're welcome to jump in any time here. It is a clinic. It's a public clinic. Yes, Clinica del Norte. They have one in TOS. They have one, I believe, in Espanola. Joe Gallegos partners, they share the offices together. And she was the public health nurse. She has since gone and has not been replaced.

That's We don't have our clinics are not in our clinics are in Edrito, Abiquiu, and Ocaliente. We don't have one in Taos or Espanola.

Okay.

We are contracted with the county to provide services here, but we cannot carry vaccines here because we're not here five days a week, and they need to be monitored very closely for temperatures. And that was when DOH was here. They were doing the vaccines. They're not here now. So I don't have control over having vaccines here because we aren't we don't have VFC in our clinic.

And you're there two days a week. Correct? Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Yes. Seven to five.

But she's where? She just She's

next to social services. There's a whole office

of She's Los Cunascas Del Norte who are at various communities, but also here?

Yes. Correct.

Okay. This is the

health comment. So what we've been doing is sending kids down to our Powaka School Based Clinic to get vaccines when they need them.

If I may, so Leslie, it's a great point. The staff that was at the public health office at the DOH part, they're in the same physical location and they share the same physical location Oh, but have different sorry? Sorry, let's see. Oh,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm multitasking,

but I'm using your I apologize.

They haven't they don't have the staff for our office. There are our understanding, we call every two weeks or so to check-in, that there are multiple nurse vacancies at public health offices all over the state, and they are working to hire more people. My very off the cuff is that nurses are in high demand in lots of places and uncertainty with the federal why would you work for something that you're not sure the funding is secure if you could get a nursing job someplace else? So our understanding is lots of public health offices across the state are looking for additional staff. And so I don't mean to make an excuse, but we don't have much sway in demanding it get staffed.

People are going to other places. This is rural health in a nutshell. If you don't have the staff, where do people go? But to your earlier point, we could absolutely ask Jeremy Espinoza, who is from the Department of Health. He works at the Santa Fe office. He could pull together public health stats, vaccination rates, etcetera, etcetera. He, I'm sure, would love to give a presentation. And I say that because he's a data nerd in epidemiology. He loves this stuff. I'm putting him on the spot.

So there difference.

Yeah. So let's put that as a future presentation.

So there is a difference. The public health office would have epidemiologists. They would keep statistics and so forth. What we have is a public health clinic with a nurse that's hands on.

I'm not trying to create

Oh, no,

no, no. But I was like, oh, no, that's not my presentation. Accusation. I'm just Oh, no, no, no.

But we never had a public health problem with epidemiology.

But I think it's key to the truth. Oh, no, out

of time.

Because he feels like we need to. One more. Can we get Barbara real quick? Barbara didn't get to Well, you had Oh, I

pretty much said already.

Yeah. But if you leave, then

we don't

have more.

Okay. I just would like to put it on the table for the future. And Jessica, you and I can talk about it, The backpack initiative in regards to the kids. The schools don't feel like it's a need.

It might be a real need.

As we were proactive today with those bags get something going for the have the plan at least.

I I have thoughts for that. So to cover the two week holiday. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

No adjourned. Thank you.