Human Services Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Alright. So we'll start with a call to order. Welcome to the 04/22/2026 regular meeting of the Human Services Advisory Board. I'm calling the meeting to order at 06:04PM. Thank you all for attending. Alright. We'll go on to roll call. Carol, will you please call the roll for the record of board member attendance? Don Sierra Walden? Present.

Brian Best? Here. Ethan Gravis? Here. Sherita Cressis?

Here.

Alisa Ramirez? Here. And then Linda Harper Williams and Madeline Smith are absent.

Okay. So the step five, with five out of seven voting members in attendance, we have a quorum. Okay. We're on to citizen comment period. It is now time for the citizen comment period. Anyone is allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes. If you would like to speak during the citizen comment period, will you please raise your hand?

Okay. We just have one attendee, and she's our presenter. Alright.

Good.

Moving right on to minutes then. The minutes from the past three HSAB meetings will be provided to the board prior to a later meeting. After Carol's vacation. It happens. Okay.

Perfect. Presentations. Now we will receive an approximately ten minute presentation by the following applicant agencies for each program for which an agency has applied for human services grant funding. Each presentation will be followed by an approximately ten minute question and answer session between board members and the agency regarding the program or application. Carol will introduce each presentation, and we'll keep track of the time. Carol, the floor is yours.

Yeah. First presentation is Centro Esperanza as the agency. First presentation is for overhead and operational cost fulfillment. We have Irma DeVora Palazios, the center director here. And, Irma, I have moved you from being an attendee to a presenter, so you should yep. There you are.

You should be able to

speak at this point. And then we're ready to start when you are. Sure.

Let me enable chat or something.

She's set up correctly.

It's okay.

And I'll set up my work phone,

and then she could call me.

Guess we should have checked it. I was like, great. She's there. Thought we were ready. Yeah.

Can't find the call.

There we go.

Hello?

That's weird. I mean, look. You can do what? I'm sorry.

Can you check on some things?

Oh, no. It's I it can't be you. I don't know what it it looks okay on this end too, so I can figure out what are you having trouble. I don't think that's.

I don't see any way to

fix it.

And the question mark. Like, the icon with the question mark? Like, the person?

Let me look. Oh, I'm echoing in my ear. Okay. One sec. I don't see how to dag gum it. It's probably gonna be the, like, list of everybody. I don't see how to change the settings.

Next to her name, the icon with the question mark.

Hang hang on one second. So it says on her end, her mic has been disabled, which is how I set up the meeting, but I thought I'd be able to let her speak once I

Well, you have her in here. Click the icon with the question mark. Yeah. But it's not saying no. I can't verify her. That's okay. Go back to the three dots and not if you make an attendee.

See, I think I thought that

Oh, that's what

it is. Where they are? Oh, here it is.

Loud mic. Here we go. Wait a minute. Arman?

Will you look at it now and see if you are able to get on the microphone? We still can't hear you, but at least we can see you. Let me let me check.

Can you make her presenter now? Does that matter? Well, that's what started off to begin with.

Maybe it's on her side now, but she was she said she's all set up.

I shouldn't hang up.

Can you hear us? Oh, she's gonna call me. So she can hear us.

Hello? But we can't we can't hear you. And I okay. Here, I'm gonna disable it again and then re enable it.

Now she's on mute. It looks like so can if she can unmute. Are you able to unmute yourself?

She's unmuted on her

end. Mhmm.

Can she just use your phone? Can you use your

I guess. Okay. So I guess we'll

because she can hear us.

My gosh. It's. I can

hear myself echoing in this phone call. Okay. Irma? Why don't we try to do it by phone, but you'll need to turn off your computer sound because I'm echoing.

K.

Now I have to figure out how to do speaker. One second. Okay. Here we go. Oh, it's not you, I don't think. I'm so sorry about the settings for the meeting. So let's see. Can somebody else time? Yeah. So we'll oh, I guess I could do it. Can do it. Okay. I'm sophisticated. Okay. Whenever you're ready, we're ready. And then let's see. You have ten minutes for the presentation and then ten for q and a. And first one is the overhead and op operational cost.

Okay.

Oh, go ahead.

K. Good evening, council members, human service reviewers, and community advocates. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Rama Palakios, Provovo Center director for Central's Pulaski Community Center, and I'm joined by our center administrator, Selena Arisid, joining as CFO. It is our honor to represent the people, the stories, and the impact behind more than a decade of service in Denmark.

Jasen Peralta is not just a building, it is a lifeline. Since opening in 2013, we have remained available year round, five days a week, serving two eighty to 300 households every month. Families countered with for nutritional food distribution, senior wellness, and health education, cultural outreach, and one on one resource navigation that helps them overcome barriers that would otherwise see them unseen and unsupported. We start because the need is real and because our community trusts us. As a grassroots organization in a dual county seat, we operate without the visibility of major funding streams available to larger urban agencies.

Yet we continue to meet rising needs with cultural competence, adaptability, and deep community relationships that cannot be replaced. Most of our neighbors face daily challenges, limited deepness, low literacy, lack of transportation, and difficulty navigating medical, dental, and vision care. As a certified Texas community health worker in Promotoras, I work directly with families to help them access health care, apply for federal benefits, and connect with programs such as Denise Home Repair and Renovation Sprint. Demand for our services grows by about 10% each year, and our community plans on us to remain stable and accessible. This past year tested that state stability.

In December 2025, the Guadalupe County United Way resolved following an investment related shutdown. This eliminated our recurring 10,000 administrator salary grant, our only designated funding source for administrative staffing. To prevent service disruptions, so let them make the extraordinary decision to continue serving pro bono, waiving all rights compensation. Her commitment kept our doors open, but it is not sustainable. And no community centers that have to rely on additional staff sacrificed to survive, especially when the tenant director already donate a 100% of her time without a salary to ensure continuity of service.

Even during the challenges, our impact continues to grow. Last year, we partnered with San Marcos, Texas Giveback, which collectively distributed nearly 9.5 tons of donations, the largest year to date. Through this partnership, this was the one that distributed it's the local families. Meaning, we maintain strong operational infrastructure, including professional with speaking oversight, a highly engaged board, and a significant amount of volunteers to be And good amount of volunteers.

Volunteer. Sorry. Yeah. You're cutting in and out a little bit. So, yeah, maybe that'll help. Okay. Thank you.

Sure. That is what responsible stewardship looks like, and we continue to expand our capacity. Our collaboration with Texas State University included a tentatively scheduled social worker internship for February 2026. So at this time, there is no student referral. Our future partnership with the Gary Job Corps Center will bring DNA students to our to assist with blood pressure screening at our health event.

And our ongoing partnership with the Amazon return to work program continues to place medical care employees at our center for modified duty assignments that support their recovery while strengthening our daily operations. Tonight, we respectfully request 16,237.56 in human services grant funding for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. This represents about half of our projected operational budget and supports the backbone of our work utility insurance facility maintenance staff support. These are the invisible costs that make visible services possible. City support ensures continuity of services for 125 plus 10 workers households each month, consistent delivery of the San Antonio retail truck, and expanded outreach to underserved partners of our city.

City funding is catalytic, and it keeps our doors open while other funding expands our reach. We also continue to innovate the partnership with Global Pet Pet Clinic and the Hays County Health Department pet distribution. We launched our virtual events on February 14 and 04/18/2026, and they're already proving to be valuable additions to our community outreach. In addition, on Thursday, April 15, Superior Health Plan representative, Eduardo Sanchez, presented information to engage participants regarding children with senior Medicaid. Superior Health will be collaborating with us to host the fall health care where they will help distribute hygiene package and expand access to preventative health resources to family and teachers.

We are actively pursuing diversified funding. In the 2025, we received 10,000 for the Denmark Design Club, 1,000 from State Market's headquarters, along with 7,300 from individual donors. These contributions reflect strong community confidence in our mission, but they do not replace the operational stability that city support provides. This is a process that is a true grassroots community center built by the people for for more than a decade. We have been a safe, trusted, culturally grounded place where families find support, seniors find connections, and vulnerable neighbors by dignity.

Your best friend ensures that the lights stay on, the staff remain supported, and the community continues to have a place where hope is not this offer. It is lived every single day. Thank you for your time, your service, and your commitment to a stronger. Selena and I are happy to answer any questions with that.

Okay. Thank you. I just wanna let Grisel know we have somebody joining us. Grisel is a city staff member. Grisel, we've had some technical issues, so I'm not really sure if you could hear the presentation well. We have my phone set up in the conference room so the board members could hear it. And so, anyway, that's what's going on with the sound. Erna, while I have you also, I would just say if you don't mind sending us your presentation, I'll make sure the board members get it so they can be sure they have every word and everything. So with that, board members, please feel free to start the questions. We're just at six minutes.

Okay. I'm glad you're soaking

here. Awesome.

Irma, I just have one question. Just refresh my memory. Presentation says it was temporarily eligible for extra h HSAB funding in 2025.

Oh, okay.

I could put it.

It may be the owl that he needs to be closer to. Like, you can know that.

Oh. Yeah.

What's the question?

One second. I got it. Hey, Joseph. Hey, Gail.

I I just had a question on why was the organization temporarily announced about 2025 for funding from this organization?

What what was I still I'm I'm missing the question. I'm so sorry. Is there a way to chat, Amy?

Oh, I I have a loud voice. He's asking evidently in the application, it said something about the organization being temporarily ineligible for HSAD funding in 2025. For salary. Oh, for salary.

Is that what you're saying?

Well, it's it's on a salary, but it also looks like oh. It was page 12 on the overhead. But, yeah, it says it's for the salary, but it looks like the board didn't give you any funding that year.

Is that because the United Way grant halted?

Yeah. It might be that.

But that's what it says here in these notes. It says temporarily ineligible for HSAB, and then it says 10,000 of the United Way to alleged misappropriation of funds. I don't know if they didn't if they were uncertain or something.

The block grant, which requires it to be inner city.

Maybe that's is it about CDBG or no?

No. It just says temporarily ineligible for HSIB, and I saw that we didn't give them any funding that year. So I can't remember if they pulled the application. That was the only question I had.

That's the only that's the only the grant that we were going to attempt to apply for was the block grant, but because we're not in a city in our city, it was not possible. It's

almost like a spreadsheet.

Okay.

Around 50. Right?

Oh, okay. So we're talking about the administrator salary. I apologize. I was looking I was looking for something. So for the administrator salary, then both of the county provided the salary, and we're no longer eligible for that because of the shutdown, the dissolution.

We cannot apply for that 20% without actually showing disbursement of staff funding of staff salary. So we would not qualify for that under your guidelines. Like, we would have to show disbursement for reimbursement. And, initially, we had our our we were tentatively getting old and hopes of receiving that, but we didn't find out until December 2020.

So maybe their initial.

Basically, I was told is they're spending this entire year's fund rate, and they may open up the application in December. And from January to May to sign visitation and then award the grant sometime in May. But there are no promises regarding that. They said, well, they've had a lot of promises regarding donations. Nothing has come through.

So, Irma, is Selena full time?

Yes. Susana has has operated full time, but normally has donated 50% of their of her time. With United Way with with United Way, they wanted to make sure that we were investing in our in our own in our own organization. And so we all started off pro bono back in 2013, and then we we built in '20 in 2009. I'm sorry.

In 2013, we worked up to getting our first Robinson County United Way grant, 2013, 2014. And we requested 50% of our salary, and then we we made that way up until last year, which was 2025. And we have not been able to gather up or have we been able to apply for any grant or staffing. So she has decided to continue to work pro bono, been in a full capacity. I already worked pro bono.

I've been pro bono since the rainstorming in 2009. And I have a remote office where I do all of the grant writing and the minutes for the center because I need to be able to totally focus on my work. So the majority of that work is done remotely at my house, and it's recognized as the remote home office. And so for the future, I'm hoping that we'll be recognized as such by the city of that market so that I can maybe be able to request for funding for my supply, my paper. I totally provide that.

It's my Internet use. It's a fax machine. It's all my office equipment. It's provided by myself. It's it's worth my time a 100%.

Anybody else have questions for that? I I do think Irma, I do think you're interpreting it correctly. Like, if we're the only funding for the position, then Yeah. There's no way to argue that it's only 20% even if it's really low. So

Yeah. Because they were gonna get the additional.

So Yeah. I calculate twenty percent zero. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. I don't have any questions here.

Anybody else? Okay. I think that's it for that one. I'm gonna change the timer, and then we can roll right into the next one. And so that'll be, again, central. This one is for facility continuity and safety support. And, again, we have Irma Palasios presenting. So

so are are the service members of the individual school individuals that we provide is the same. Provide for about 50% of dinner in these markets. Right? It will be as we do regular module, we said, Palm Beach County. But for this particular one, we had the flooding that occurred from first pipe during the freeze.

This one in March the March or February. And so that was another challenge that we have to overcome. While they're playing our toolbar, we're able we're able to still function outside of the center temporarily. I applied for a $5,000 grant from Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, the Stella Stella Grant. And we're happy to announce that they actually awarded us $8,110, which are past what we were hoping for.

I had only committed to to to provide these four terms of our loan to our UTI because of our financial disruption. And I'd like to say that that I have to come to fruition because of the the generalized trend that they're using this. We also received a considerate discount on some of the supply from. So we are now currently working on trying to do rent a car so that we can pull everything out of center so that we can have this for more incentives. So that's one feature.

So, initially, I wanted I was going to request for whatever was not covered by taking more grant for him. Did not come through at all. But, obviously, it was much greater than we anticipated. And with not really knowing where we would stand today, I submitted a request as an alternate, a security booth, and a bulletin board proposal. So the security booth would be an eight by eight form of portable building that our staff will use as a as a safety checkpoint for our clients to sign in for the programs in the event.

Most of them are driving through. Most of them are doing distribution, public distribution. A lot of our events are driving through because of the fact that a lot of them are elder elder people, and they just struggle to walk down to. So we're trying to make it as easy as we can for our clients. And seeing that we just have a brand new pavilion special pavilion with overhead canopy and three drive thru.

It makes it very feasible for us to manage it that way and then take for the next call. So we're asking today, we have the full funding already for our client. If the city of that market was also granted $5,000 additional to our other request for the security booth and the bulletin board. We have purchased banners, but I believe the bulletin board is also essential for the community as they drive through the center because we only put the banners up the week prior to the event. So that's what our request is on the second request.

Okay.

Cool. There's there's so many there's so many agency. We understand that there's a crazy for us, which now that market and the output. And we wouldn't try to ask for what we built. Is this nominal? We have to give it five. We busted off of a budget under $30,000. And that's because a lot more, including myself, I'm willing to be as personal me. But with the economy the way it is, for a lot of individuals, it's getting stronger. That's a little more difficult for me myself.

And so for the future of upcoming years, you guys don't get to see this year. You may see us requesting for a little bit more than we usually for that. That's the end of my question.

Got it.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much. And so we have plenty of time. Any questions?

I think the application was pretty clear.

Yeah. I think the

patient Sure. Yeah. Irma, I just have a question. Where's the is the center still located at the corner of FM 110 and Redwood Road?

What's the center located at?

Yeah. Where's where's the center located at?

It's on the very corner of Spruce, F G R U C E, Street and Redwood Road. Okay. Any other questions? I did presentation. I I did a presentation yesterday, and I'm still with the commissioner's court.

I'm gonna be asking for their support with the local pet clinic and also the Hays County Pet Food Drive. It's been quite successful. So I'm asking them if they will contribute towards free or reduced vaccination to help with the struggling issue that we have. It's a very rapid issue that over there in our area because of the fact that they are no need for.

K. Anything else?

Alright. Thank you so much, and thanks for bearing with the technology issues.

Thank you. Thanks for your patience.

Okay.

Let's see. I guess I'm gonna turn this. Hello. Hi, I'm glad you're

in person because we're having technology issues. Okay. So are you Mary Anne Reese? Mary Anne. Mary Anne. Okay. Sorry. I'm terrible. Are you sexy, Cortez? Oh, let's go with that. Okay. So we just finished with the second presentation, so y'all are in perfect timing. Good. And don't need to worry.

But yeah.

Are y'all good? You're good? Okay.

We're good. Oh, y'all. They got. They are great.

Yeah. They do have treats.

Yeah. But, know,

I won't like oh, and maybe I should pass this. Have a seat wherever. Oh, okay. That's weird camera that will focus on anybody who moved. So that's fine. So Well, congratulations for meeting in here. Oh, yeah. We're we're setting up. Yes.

Yeah. I feel like it's

not picking up. Anyone wanna sit over here? You wanna sit in the middle? Maybe it'll Sure. Better. Our magic camera's gonna work.

I guess I'm wondering if I touched something where I was like, just move it back. Now I'm.

Oh, you said, let's sit here.

Except Nope.

I have a vaccine.

Hey. Are are y'all kinda settled in? No rush.

I settled in.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. We will keep on moving. So our next speakers are from the agency Lifelong Learning. The program is Lifelong Learning Courses and Events. We have Mary Anne Reese here who is the founder and director and Stephanie Korczak who is the assistant director. Correct. And y'all go ahead. You have ten minutes to speak, and then we'll have about ten for questions.

Well, first of all, how many of you are new to this board? We've all been From last year? Okay. Well, I just wanted to thank the board from last year. We were y'all supported our grant then and to the council. We really appreciate that. And if they granted it, was it was all lovely. So thank you for that. Again, I'm Mary Anne Reese. I just want to let you know just briefly about our organization.

It began in 2014, and it was an outreach. I was a member of the retired faculty staff association at Texas State at the time. And that was 2014. By 2017, realized it would be better for the organization and the community if I turned it into a nonprofit, which it did in 2017. So we've been operating now about twelve plus years in the San Marcos area and have really enjoyed it.

Our mission statement has been pretty much the same since 2014, which is basically to to offer, classes to San Marcos and area residents that are both, you know, places they can explore and question in and learn from. And and a key for the older population is to engage with others. So those are really wonderful outcomes for me. That's kind of our paraphrased mission statement, but what I briefly wanna read to you is our mission statement lived. And it's written by a 97 year old member of our community that she states this, at 97, I could just sit back and watch the world go by.

But I found an outlet for my love for learning. A lifelong learning has given me many opportunities to quell my learning zest. I've appreciated knowing how beer is brewed, what a safari entails viewing the inside of the Twin Towers Memorial. We did that on Zoom during COVID. And even navigating with AI, which is a a big series we did last year for the community.

So artificial intelligence. Lifelong learning allows me to get out and about and realize that you're never too old to learn, and that's from Marilyn Gaddis in 2026. So, you know, you can read mission statements, but to be able to to hear a statement, I think that's more powerful than just a bunch of words that we can do. So I said that our mission statement has been pretty solid. It has been since 2014 to to again engage people in our community and lifelong learning opportunities.

However, this past year, things are changing. There we've got some impactful significant changes going on and will go on into the future. And that's primarily because I'm ready to retire from lifelong learning. It's been a great run. I love the program.

I love what we're doing, but there are other things I need to take care of and want to. And so one of the things that we changed, and this will be developed a little further by Stephanie, is that we've changed it from older adults, which is always our focus. But then we realized our program reaches more than older adults. It may be older adults based on the timing that we offer, but if we offer it after work and on weekends and other opportunities for adults of all ages. So that's one change, but there are many more going on.

And the reason I'm handing it over to Stephanie because I'm handing over she will when I retire at the end of this year, will be the director. So you need to hear from her. Well, thank you. I first wanna thank all of you, and you included, Carol, for your service to the city. I know doing this is not easy because there's a limited amount of money, a lot of need in our community, a lot of great programs going on.

So I know you all have to make difficult decisions, and, I just appreciate the time that you put in to to give that advice to counsel. I also I mean, Mary Anne is the heart and soul of lifelong learning. She always will be. She's my best friend of thirty five years. So it's it's very I'm very nervous about what she just said, but I feel a tremendous obligation to try to carry on her legacy in the future to keep this going and growing.

So to Mary Anne's point, we're really working hard to expand our audience, and that means topics that would be of interest to younger people, not to the exclusion of older people, but, you know, in addition to and the bulk of our classes have been offered during the day, which, of course, you know, limits who can attend. And so we're we're trying some experiments with doing more on Zoom and making the videos available to people if they can't make it to the class and doing more things right after work ends at 05:30. What that entails is we need more venues. It is simply becoming very, very difficult to schedule things at the library, which is where we hold most of our things because, it's the library. We cannot charge for those courses by state law.

You the library can't charge for any program that occurs there. And we also offer courses through the activity center, but it's just getting tough to get the space. And so one of the big pushes this year will be to create partnerships with other places where we can get either free space or reduced rates on on the rental of their space to, you know, again, broaden what we can offer and when. I'm gonna jump in. What I failed to say about the mission is that we offer free and low cost classes.

That's that's a big part of our mission. We don't wanna keep people out of jaunting us. So another big push in the coming couple years is money. If we're going to sustain this organization and grow it, we need more sources of income. And so one of the ways that we'll facilitate that is we're we're going to move to an integrated web platform that allows us to actually let people pay.

We've been doing registration and payments old school. Send us an email, send us a check, or bring cash, and that's just not effective. But we also are seeking sponsors for our courses to get you know, to brand the course with with their information, and then we'll we'll really start to hit some folks up for for money. You know, try to create us a donation program that we're we're gonna call it baccalaureate level, master's level, PhD level, and really try to get people to, acknowledge what we provide to the community and and give us some donations to that end. We we are aspiring to become a corporate nonprofit, which which does broaden the audience for grant proposals that we can't seek right now.

But we have to to get a a better footing of our finances, get a stronger group for a board. So we're a few a couple years at least away from that, I think, but that is that is on the horizon. So just some some data to show that what we've been doing this year, with a goal of trying to get more men and some younger folk, we've knocked it out of the ballpark, pun intended, with the men. 30% male is more than double what is normal for us so far this year. The baseball. And that's because of

And the beard.

We had a history of baseball. We had an ethics course, that drew a lot of men. We're offering one right now around creativity and art. And then a legislative advocacy course has has brought in men. And as you noted, we're working on for June a beer appreciation and tasting class, which I think is gonna be really cool, and then a number of summer things.

So so we're really targeting that. And when I crunched the numbers, I was really surprised to see the 30% for men already. So our our commitment to San Marcos, as Mary Anne said, we are laser focused on keeping our courses either free or low cost. So that means as we have to start to pay rent to potential, venue sites, we need outside funding to be able to keep those course fees low within a reasonable range. We do offer scholarships for people that can't afford our courses, and we work with people because we never want the fee to be an obstacle, for people coming in to learn something fun.

We want to increase our offerings and make them timely. So the legislative advocacy thing with the legislature starting to meet next year, a lot of interest in in politics and policy making. So we're trying to be responsive to what's happening both nationally and in the community. And then we also and we have forever shared community events on our website and in our main email. So if you flip the page, what you see at the top is a section of our website For an event that's occurring ten days or so away, we put the actual flyer on the website, and then you can see underneath it is the list of what's coming up.

And then our special events page is what you see at the bottom. It's it's it's scrolled that I had to cut it up, you know, to make it fit. But we we did you know, we don't capture everything, but we do try to capture those things that we think would be of of broad interest to the folks that are on our email list of almost 500 people and growing, and we wanna continue to do that. I just had a couple of things. When she talked about the beer course, it's been another one that Marilyn loved during COVID and took anyway.

It's going to be at the LBJ New Zealand. And that's one site that Stephanie's already talked to the director, and I think hopefully their board will accept just giving us a little reduced rate on we wanna use it in the evenings when they're not using it. So that's a really fine example of where we're trying to get some access so we can add more courses. And hopefully, that'll go forward. I have talked to CASA. They've got great two rooms. They they don't want. They could deny us being able to offer a course there. Not quite sure why. And same thing with Centro.

So we've really been trying to reach out to people that we know have space, but it just tough to it's you know, it just tough to get it. And I know we could use this for

a bit.

And even like the Cephas House, I know that used to be under the rec center. We have had the there, but now it's the control of the the

Calibus. Calibus.

And I think they offer, like I said, or charge about $75 or something or a couple hours, and that's more than, you know, we bring in on well, that's not true. But it would eat up a good portion because a lot of what the fees that we do charge, about five or 10%, which is what lifelong learning takes, and usually five percent, and the rest goes to the instructor. And and 20% if we run it at the activity center, we pay 20% of the total fees collected for our course to the to the activity center, to the city. So when you start charging $40 for something, 20% of that goes to the city. 5%, and sometimes we don't take any if the instructor is really needing to make money.

You know, that's we've really been conscious of of of the needs. We have several that that's really what they make a living on. So

So our request We'll bring up Go. Just real quick. We're at twelve minutes. Bill, I'm sorry. Worry too much. You just have to finish up. I know.

Yeah. I was just gonna say, so in light of all of this, our our budget request this year is $8,000 toward my stipend, which would increase to $1,500 a month, $2,000 per instructor honoraria so that, for example, if we're offering something at the activity center and the instructor just needs a little bit more than that fee comes in because we do wanna keep that fee low, then those funds would help us supplement, the difference between what was generated with fees and what the instructor, is asking for. And then the final thousand dollars is for venues. And we do give the honorarium also to people that teach, like, at the the library. Maybe it's $20 or for gas or something.

People come from Austin and Wembley that teach for us. So that's another hit factor in there. But most most of our instructors teach for free. Yeah. The vast, vast majority. So And I'll go back. Just one last statement about the finances is that since 2014 and until until last year, guess it was last year, I've never taken any money for the courses. It's just been my, you know, avocation. Just enjoyed doing it. I've come from a a life of education.

Just wanted to continue it when I retired from university. But Stephanie has made the website, if you've looked at that, the Mailchimp that we send out are so amazing and so wonderful and able to incorporate other nonprofits activities on our website and our mail outs. And that's all the work from Stephanie. We had just bare bones kind of stuff now. Now we look like an organization that that is here to stay, and we wanted to to do that. So that right now, we're she's getting a stop in of a thousand dollars a month, and that's she's doing an eight hour job for us And other entities, she works for you know, does a lot of volunteer work. Okay.

Okay. Thank you very much. We're at fourteen minutes. So but feel free to, you know, ask questions as needed and so forth. We're kinda running early anyways.

Answered both of my questions. I was gonna ask about the website and stuff who who keeps that up, so that's awesome. But I just wanted to say, was talking to Carol before this started that because I knew I saw y'all on the agenda. I recently saw it was, like, I think from a news station, like, media. It was on social media for sure, but it was about y'all's program one of y'all's programs, one of your classes and stuff. And so it was really amazing. And I was like, oh my gosh. Should be fun to film this year. And so just great work. Yeah.

Thank you. San Marcos paper has been good to us. We've had a lot of nice coverage, but it's usually after the session they come and take pictures, which is lovely. But if if we get it out before, it would be nice. But thank

you for that. Yeah. Thank you.

Questions?

K. Okay.

Thank you all for your time.

I got one one question. Did any of

y'all wanna speak for us? You would love to have them.

Just give us a

second. K.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much.

Thanks, girl. Thank you. Well

Thank you. You. We're set. We do have our next presenter online. Hannah, I'm figuring you can hear us. I'm we've had some technology issues, so we'll see how it goes for you. I'm gonna make you a presenter and see if that works. Let's see.

I'm gonna chat.

Oh, good. There you are. Are you able to unmute?

I think so. Can you hear me?

Great. Yes. We had a little trouble on the other one, so I'm glad we can hear you. Okay. So then let me just introduce you. Next presentation is for Home Center. Program's called Pathways to Home for Veterans and Disabled Household. Hannah Durantz is here. She's the executive director of the Home Center, and she'll do the presentation. So thank you very much.

Thank you all for having me. I appreciate this opportunity to present to you and tell you about this program. Home Center was established in 2020. We had been doing a lot of outreach and community activism for three years prior to actually forming a nonprofit. We spent a lot of time trying to develop our pro develop systems in the community to determine what the actual issues were that were causing an increase in individuals being unhoused.

And so there was a lot of development and research being done to try to determine what were the root causes. And one of the things that we realized was that we have a population of veterans who were really not getting a lot of services in the area, and individuals who are unhoused often fall into a category of some form of disability. Maybe they haven't gotten their disability benefits or they receive disability benefits that are much too low to provide for their housing. And so, home center, has been serving the unhoused or at risk of becoming unhoused, in Hays County. The ninety eight percent of our individuals are actually San Marcos residents.

We only currently have about five individuals who are not Hays County San Marcos residents. Our mission is to provide outreach, mitigation, and emergency response in order to reduce homelessness to functional zero in Hays County. And I am gonna share a PowerPoint with you that I have put together if I can figure out how to do that. Yeah. I'm not sure how to share this actually with because it's not giving me sharing capabilities.

Here. I'm I'm not sure. It may be partly how I set up the meeting for some reason. Oh, no. It looks like it may be working. Hang on. Oh, it is. Thank goodness. Okay.

Okay. Let me pull up my alright. There. Sorry about that.

No. That's great.

I'm glad it

was funny. You're seeing it like that. Yeah. I didn't hear all

that out. Yeah. You're showing along with the presentation, so that's interesting.

Home center is actually a housing uses a housing first model to reduce unhoused individuals, but also to prevent individuals from becoming unhoused again. We assist them with obtaining shelter. We assist them with long term housing goals. We have individuals and households that have been enrolled in project in the Pathways to Home project now for four years. We have individuals who have been just recently brought in, and they can stay as long as their income qualifies for them to remain in the program and as long as they choose to remain in the program.

We do provide, move in support to help people transition from being unhoused into housing. We provide transportation support for individuals to apply for housing, mental health services, medical care, resources from local, state, and federal funding opportunities. We help them apply for veteran benefits, and we had four individuals this year that we had assisted with their veteran benefits who did receive an increase. We've had over 20 over since 2020 that have received an increase or full benefits, and four have become stable and no longer needed our services because of that income increase. We do prioritize medical and mental health care needs, and we provide ongoing support in order for households to reach their health care goals.

And so we do transportation to assist them, but we also go into medical appointments to help ensure that they understand what their medical needs are. This year, home center rehoused 36 households who received move in support. That includes security deposits, utility deposits. We when we say we did moves, we actually moved their furniture or we take donated furniture and donated households and move them into the person's home. And so we do have volunteers that just work on our move in support.

We have spent $11,934 this year just on move in expenses, and then we also paid three paid out 3,744 for security deposits. We work with other agencies to try to get multiple agencies working together to reduce the cost of some of these these expenses. So one agency may do the utility deposit, another of the the security deposit, and then we may do the household items. It really depends on who has what funding at the time so that each of us feels a need and don't overlap what we're doing. We do offer mental health recover and recovery peer support training.

Recovery is individuals who have experienced addiction issues. We do have someone that's on part time on staff who works as a minute a recovery peer support specialist, and then we have another two staff members who are mental health peer support specialists. And so all of our staff are trained in e one of these, if not both of these. A mental health peer support specialist uses their own lived experience to share to help motivate and encourage someone else, and this gives us a different sense of empathy from someone who might be speaking to someone versus someone who is speaking with someone as someone who's lived through some of these experiences and have gone through some things that that that are similar to the struggles that the individuals we work with face. And then we also have, in the past couple of years, been providing mental health support to some of the individuals that we've encountered who are actually needing to move into hospice care or need end of life care, mental health care, because they have been given a terminal illness diagnosis, and we work them through we work with them through the process and reassure them, and we're there for them sometimes, you know, to the very last moments of their life.

Home center also utilizes community health workers. Community health work health workers, the best way to describe it is they are a liaison between marginalized communities and the health care systems. We help them navigate health care systems, advocate for them. We took courses on how to navigate medical conditions, how to improve nutrition, how to improve quality of life in many different ways. And we work with these individuals to help them to walk through each of the challenges that they face in the medical system.

We help them get insurance. We help them to get indigent health care if they need if they have zero income, that may be an option for them. We work with them to to get enrolled in hospice care. We've had to go into nursing homes. We've had to navigate end of life care with the hospital and even make some some decisions for end of life care with them.

And then also, we are supervising site for interns who work towards getting their certifications. We also do case management. We have assisted 200 we've assisted individuals with 217 applications in the past year for area, state, and federal services. Like I said, we've done disability claims. We've done food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, affordable health care, and then local services as well assisting individuals with the community action utilities assistance application.

Rental assistance would be our three t rental assistance last year with community action. And so we look at all the different area services and try to utilize whatever services we can in order to get people into sustainable low income housing and something that fits their needs so that if someone does have an income that's $1,100 a month, $950 a month, then we still can find some sort of housing for them. And we've had a pretty good success rate in getting people into housing and keeping them in housing. We do an individualized action plan that's based on their their barriers, their needs, and if it's drug issue or it's medical issues, we do try to help them navigate some of the systems to help them get the support that they need. We served a 104 households in 2025.

36 were rehoused. We had 67 volunteers who had a combined total of five hundred and thirty nine hours of volunteer time, unfortunately. We had a whole group of 50 boys who didn't who were college students who didn't even document their hours. They just completely forgot to enter them. And so we had to have a lot lower in count than we would. We had we were donated 47 beds, 23 sofas, 15 dressers, and 16 tables that were moved into people's homes. We did utilities assistance, $1,337, and eviction predict prevention was 8,089. Prescription assistance was 435. We are seeing an increase in the need for that this year. Medical co pays, $2.98.

We're also seeing an increase in need for that this year. Medicaid and Medicare combined are no longer paying the full amount, especially for our elderly Medicare Medicaid recipients who have dual plans, and now they're being expected to pay co pays that they did not anticipate and don't have in their budget to pay. And then our nutritional support was $4,220, and that's usually based on a person's medical needs where they don't their food needs are higher than what they would receive in food stamps and other benefits.

And, Hannah, just let me just say real quick. You're at ten minutes, but please, you know, just continue. Just wrap it up, you know, a few minutes, I guess.

Alright. So veteran support services and permanent stability is also something that we work on. And so this is a picture of one of our clients who is named Tripp. We encountered Tripp in 2024. He, received a HUD VASH voucher last year through us through working with us in the veterans services.

And then this year, he did get his 100% disability approval, and, we had helped him enroll in veteran support equine therapy. And this year, he was able to have enough income that he actually bought Kate here who is in his new horse, and he is very proud of his horse, Kate. She's massive. We are also a recipient of the American Red Cross enhancement program, and we were donated a van that does have dis it is disability accessible. This year alone, we've done 577 transport trip 557 577 trips with the vehicle, but out of those, 421 were related to direct client services, transporting to medical appointments, mental health appointments were the primary things, and and nutritional support.

Our team does have health care training, CPR, medical support, first aid care in order to better serve people who have disabilities. We did get training last year through the American Red Cross. We did lose one of our clients this past year, and we were we had just finished our Red Cross training and our community health worker training, and we're able to use those skills with him in his last moments. And we are facing several of our clients who have terminal medical conditions that we will be there to support in the next year. And so this has been a year of successes, challenges, and overcoming a lot of odds.

And so, you know, we, just got it they're dang we just found out that one of our clients is terminal today. Not terminal, but has about a week left. And so we, you know, we have to step up and take some on some challenges, and we do need the funding to be able to continue this work.

Great. Thank you very much for that presentation. And we still have plenty of time, so about seven minutes, you know, for counting. So please feel free to ask any questions that you have.

Hannah, just can you also just explain for the board the type of CHW training that you and your staff have?

Yes. So community health workers are individuals who learn how to navigate culturally how to navigate working with individuals on a cultural and on a linguistic level. In other I don't have Spanish speaking skills or other Spanish speaking skills. We are looking for someone to hire and have I've been talking with Promo Salud, which is our training site. The training site is partnering with us to provide two individuals this year to work with our with our group, and one of them is bilingual.

So we're looking forward to having that opportunity. We do want some of this funding for being able to hire next year someone who is bilingual. But the training is basically how to recognize medical conditions, how the body works with how all the different parts of the body work together, medical conditions that are related to nutrition or to hormonal changes in our bodies, all the different things. And so it's very specific to working with low income families in order to meet their needs and help them navigate the challenges that they may face.

And it's a state of Texas certification? It is. Yes. Thank

you.

Mental health care support is also certified through the state of Texas. And so we do have both of those trainings from Holly is our current mental health peer support specialist, but she also she was hired as a mental health peer support specialist, but she also has a community health worker certification. I also have a mental health peer support certification, but I also have the community health worker certification. And so the two of us are able to meet people's needs on a multitude of levels. And we also have HMIS training for commute for case management as well. And so we we do understand how how to do how to navigate doing assessments and how to make sure that we're looking at all the individual needs that a person may be facing.

Any other questions? Anyone? Seeing none?

Okay. Hannah,

thank you

for that.

That's really informative.

Can you send can will you be getting the presentations? I haven't asked you, but

that was a question. Yeah. I had last week.

Want Can we get your can you send Caroline your presentation, please?

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Thanks.

Can we take a bathroom break? Oh, yeah. And I could stop breathing. The chair. Yeah. You're the chair. Just saying. Right? Stopper.

Because our next they're not here yet.

Oh, let's see. Let me introduce you. Okay. I'm sure you'd like to hear it. Next presenters are for Youth Services Bureau, the Team Network program. We have with us today Julie Holler, who, as you know, has run the program for a long time, retired but still here presenting, and then Melissa Derrick, who's on the board. So y'all take it away.

Right. Yeah. We're both here today because after I retired, Melissa and friends wrote the grant, and I can attest to what happened before she started writing the Right.

I just I would like to say that we were a 50 year old nonprofit in San Marcos saving youth's lives every day. We get a lot of flack of, you know, not having that many students, but 28 or 30 a year is that much more that, you know, we're putting into our community, our community, not, you know, multi county, you know, sorts of things. And our program is also not just about the students. It's about the college students as well. We offer them volunteer hours, a lot of volunteers, you know, that they need for their their for their social I'm drawing a blank right now.

So, you know, the hours So be social workers. So they be and then we have internships, and then we also work with with the juvenile justice system when kids are they get in trouble, and it's a, like, a light thing. It's not a big thing. But then we have them come in on certain days and, you know, try to integrate them. And with the positive social atmosphere that we are trying to bring to this portion of society in San Marcos that doesn't have anything to look forward to but gangs and drugs and a bad way.

And we really help them. I mean, we help them write resumes. We help them fill out applications. We take them to a place where they're gonna drop off the application. It's you know, we teach them so many things, and and the most of all is, you know, socializing with other people and trusting adults, and there's just there's so many things we do.

Last year, we had 25 master gardener junior master gardener Mhmm. Certifications, which, you know, we that's a really proud thing for us. And they also held two events for know, to make people aware of human trafficking and what they can do about it and how they can, you know, spot the signs and then present it to other students so that they know what's going on also.

It's a it's a really good program. Mhmm. It's it's funny because it's eleven to seventeen, and then we have the university students. So they're mentoring each other, and they're helping each other get from junior high to high school into college just by you know, when kids are transferring from junior high to high school, they are petrified. Right?

But they spent the whole summer with these kids, and so, you know, they have a friend when they get to the next level. If in the summertime we do some fun things, so we take them swimming and things like that. But at the pool, and I've told a lot of people this before, at the pool, after they've been swimming for a while, you know, through the summer, you can the older kids are teaching the younger kids how to dive. Right? Here, do this, do this.

I mean, totally instructing them. But then you can hear them talking down at the end of the pool. You know, when we go to college, maybe we could be roommates. You know, and so they they have a vision of the future. You know, when they're going home after school into their living rooms, probably on a phone, you know, in their room texting and all that kind of stuff because it's really hard to get them off of those.

You know, they have an opportunity to come to YSP, and we can help them with their social skills, and we can help them we take them different places, like we'll take them to green or we'll take them, you know, to different places because we have vans. We don't stay in one place. And so they can we can take them to a bank, and we can ask the bank teller, what kind of education do you have? And they'll say, well, have a high school education. We'll take them to see where they can blow glass.

What kind of education do you have? Well, I have a master's degree in art. But they can see different kinds of you know, they don't have to be doctors and lawyers and that kind of stuff. Right? And so but they can envision their lives outside of that little bitty room that they've been staying in for all of these years, and they can have hope for their future.

And the volunteer opportunities that we have for them connects them with the community. So if we, you know, go to, let's say, packs food for school fuel, you know, we'll be there and then it's funny because they'll be working and all that and some other people that are also packing for school fuel are some of my old kids, and they have brought their seven and eight year old kids to help. And so it's like this it's just a great funky little program how things work. I have seen, you know, when we had the floods and things like that, I was out there with United Way. We were passing out water, and one of my kids rode up on a bicycle.

I said, what are you doing? He says, well, I just came to see if I could help. He says, you know, I can take water, you know, to the people down the street, and I can do this. And so they get this feeling that they are worthy, that they are part of the community, and they understand what it feels like to do good for somebody else. And so it's just it's a great little program. It's free to them. It's been free all of these years.

Since 1975.

Mhmm. Right now, we have we've had a disruption in our employment. And so but I have a volunteer who has been volunteering with YSP since 2006 when she was in college. And so she's and she's on her board, but she's gonna work a couple of days a week. We can all fill in until we get a ton of kids in the summer.

We used to have about 26, 28 kids in the summer. And then from that point on, at that point, we can have time, you know, to hire, you know, somebody that we need to run everything. And it's important for us to get somebody who has a good degree because we do get all those social work students and those criminal justice students, and we get kids from the recreation department, the psychology department, you know, dietary, whatever. And so we try to teach those kids every single thing we can. I mean, because every moment is a learning moment for them.

If I take them bowling, you know, oh my gosh, we're gonna go bowling and have fun. Well, you know, while we're bowling, they also I make them aware of the etiquette of playing the game. It's so there's teachable moments in every single thing that we do. So can I answer any questions? We do volunteer work, educational work. We have people come in and give presentations because they don't listen to me all the time or whoever, which, you know, is fine. And then we we do our our life skills training. We do some things like that. But And homework. A help with homework.

Yeah. Yeah. We have one Encouragement to stay enrolled in. Yeah.

We don't want them to drop out of school, and we do help them. You know, we have one kid this last year, but we helped him with his homework. And he came back. He's gone. Look at my grades. I said, He says, I've never had straight As in my life. I've never had an A in my life. And so it just it's

just helpful. Be the individualized, you know, care that we can provide. If we were doing this for a thousand students, like, how would we ever do the mentorship and the and and the everything? But what we're doing is is saving the kids that are really at risk, super at risk for not being part of society, part of the workforce, part of anything, and they love it. And they they you know, it's just so heartening to see it how much they appreciate when you know?

And they're getting that one one attention. You know? We have three people there. There's, you know, constantly, you know, one on one for whoever wants it, and, you know, that's what I think makes us homegrown. It was correct me if I'm wrong. It was judge Margie Hernandez. Margie Hernandez and Ophelia Vazquez. And Ollie Giles. And And Ollie Giles that started this in 1975 because they realized that there were issues going on with the students and the youth. There were drugs going on.

There were gangs going on. And so it, you know, started at South Side. And I think we're in a bit of a crunch right now because we were only given seven weeks to move out of Southside. And we didn't have time to, you know, find another place that was doable when so we thought, well, maybe we'll try the medical center and you know, out in that area. And now we're in way too much rent.

We've never had to a lot Yeah. Over the years. Had to pay rent before at Southside. So that's, you know, that's a concern for us, and we really what are we, four years into a five year lease? I think so.

Three and

a half.

And we've been able to keep it up after being tossed out and never having paid rent before.

So

We're making it. Determined.

We're doing pretty good and just trying to stay alive as long as we can so that we can serve these students that are so worthy.

Y'all were at twelve minutes, so if that's a good ending point. That was kinda like the mic drop. Yeah. So That's good. Do that. So we have about eight minutes available to the board members to ask any questions.

I do have a question. Thank y'all. My my son just turned 14 on Friday. He's going to high school next year. So, yeah, I'm in it right now. How do so I really appreciate it. I I mean, I appreciate this. I'm a former teacher. So you know? But I know you all mentioned the juvenile justice system. I'm just curious too how like, do y'all recruit students? Is there a referral process from other agencies?

Sometimes if they get a ticket

Right.

They will they'll get they'll get a list of places they can go. There's not too many places they can go without their parent being there. And so it's really difficult for those parents to get those hours in. So in general, if we have somebody who has to do community service, we we have typically two days a week where we do something educational and a volunteer project. And so on those days, if they're learning something or they're working to help somebody else, I'll give them credit for those hours.

Otherwise, they're not invited to come spend all of the days until they're finished with their hours. When they're finished with their community service hours, they can come all they want to. And those are typically the days we're having fun, when we're swimming, or we're going on an outing, or so they're pretty motivated. And, you know, they've learned the rules. You know? I don't let them just run wild. I am, unfortunately, an old lady mama. You know? And so, you know, and we don't and and so that's kinda how we work that. So Thank you.

Mhmm. And typically, nobody does any discipline because really all they say I tell all the volunteers, you don't have to discipline these kids. Just tell the kids that let's go see Julie in the office. And they're going, oh my god. She's gonna talk to me.

So, yeah, that's really and that's really all it ever takes. Any other questions?

So know you said you guys are kind of in the you said the third year of the five year lease right now for options kind of once that lease is up. Are y'all looking at the prospect of staying, or are y'all mainly looking at

We're looking somewhere. I mean, it's you know, right now, we're paying over $3,000 independent. You know? And that is And

I was

paying nothing. Yes. Nothing.

And so, you know, there's there were lots of buildings open, like, in great areas, but a lot of those people that own those buildings don't ever want to lease or rent to a nonprofit. You know? And so we we found a place, and in the beginning, it was a great price. And it was like one of the best prices. Like, it was $15 square foot.

But most everywhere in town, the minimum I mean, this is four years ago. It's $20 a square foot. You know? So, no, we are we at the last meeting we had with the board, we're already planning on looking, you know, because it's just ridiculous. You know, we we could be in a good spot. We're not a great spot for getting a bus, you know, from the school because we're either too close or we're way too far. You know? So, you know, that's we were hoping to have just a place that kids could

We did better when kids could walk from from the schools to Centro, but then or not Centro. I'm sorry. The Southside. Mhmm. But then there were the homeless people, which There were struggling.

In beginning of my tenure, I was like, I think it's kinda good for them to see that because it's a protected environment, and they're not in any harm, but yet they can see what could happen to them if they don't do anything. You know? So but, yeah, we're we really need to find a place that's closer. And we've been talking to some various organizations that are closer to the schools and whatever about, you know, sharing rent and, you know, possibly collaborating on grants and and things of that nature.

And when we're at Southside, you know, the mamas would stop bringing their kids because they would say, call me when you get upstairs, you know, and or if they were sitting in the parking lot waiting for their kids to come downstairs. It was just scary for them. So, you know, we feel good about where we are. We built gardens. You know? Got finally got a basket.

And the kids were totally responsible for it, and they loved it, that feeling of accomplishment.

They moved the dirt, but, I mean, everything.

Other questions? Still some time. Yeah.

Also, y'all mentioned school fuel. It's it's not an Apex school fuel too, so it's also been a bit y'all so not only are the students, like, to like, mentoring the other students in your program, but y'all also have, like, volunteer opportune like, you take all the students out of volunteer opportunities and stuff.

Typically have about one a week. You know, we'll ring bells for Salvation Army, or we will we have built almost every single one of those flower beds at the nature center. We have, you know, potted I mean, we've what's

it called?

When you, anyway, replanted a lot of those plants. We have worked at the nursing homes. We have, you know, played bingo. We've we do all kinds of stuff. We even just go to the park.

You know, like, after a holiday, we put gloves on the kids, give them trash bags, and we pick up every single solitary cigarette butt that we can find. And, you know, I figured it's not gonna hurt them. They got gloves, and they're gonna realize how stinky and awful that is, you know. And, you know, maybe it'll be a good thing. So, mean, I have we have taken them in the past because we try to to tell them how important the river is and how important the city is, but I have gotten some small grants, taken them to South Padre where we have gone to the turtle rescue.

Right? Taken to this turtle rescue. They they can walk into this booth and it shows what the turtle can see, which is trash. Trash, trash, trash, whatever. And the fact that they eat it cause they don't know what it is and it fills up their stomach and then they, you know, can't really get enough nutrition and that kind of stuff.

And, you know, the amputations from the boats and all that kind of stuff. But then we've also taken them to there's a the Brownsville Zoo down there is one of those zoos that are trying to encourage or or help with the reproduction of animals that are kind of like almost endangered. So there's baby animals everywhere, but, you know, they learn hard truths because even at the the zoo director's desk after we went and saw all the turtles, there was this nice piece of wood on his desk. Right? And the kids are going, well, what is that?

He says, well, I didn't know what it was till another zoo keeper gave it to me from Mexico. And what it is is it is a decoy that they use down in Mexico to attract turtles. They they, you know, tie it down, it attracts the turtles. Then people grab those turtles, hit them over the head, take their shell off, and throw it back in the water because they think they'll regrow another turtle. You know? So they learn, you know, what's out there in the world. It's, you know, sometimes on the verge of being way too much, but, you know, it it you know, just as we can do all kinds of stuff. We built tree houses. You know? We've done all kinds of stuff.

Okay. Any other question? We're kind of out of time. So that's perfect. So thanks y'all for coming in. Thank y'all. Thank you. You're great day too. Yeah.

I appreciate your We appreciate it. And letting us, you know, just kind of mean Just because, like, can I leave these with anybody? Does anybody have a place they'd like to put some of these

for them? Sweet. We have a lot

of traffic. You're welcome to probably leave them at the front desk. Even where I could, actually. Let me do that. See, because I don't know where they came from. That's alright. They won't just show up.

Thank you so much. Appreciate y'all. Thank you for what you're

doing too.

Appreciate you so much.

A lot of time and a lot of hard decisions and all of that kind of stuff.

But Yeah. I was on city council for six years. It's back. About four years ago. Six. Yeah. So I know how much our boards and commissions work considerations that they need to take and all that. So I very much appreciate y'all meeting with us. Take

care. Thank y'all so much. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Y'all too.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.

Back with you.

Okay. Alright. We're on to discussion items. Now we're in the discussion portion of the meeting. We can hold discussion among board members on programs, agencies, and applications for the purpose of clarification, comparison, evaluation, and assessment. Would anyone like to discuss?

I was really impressed with all the presentations today. You know, we had technical difficulties with the first one, but, you know, I think everyone had a lot of good information in their presentations. I didn't really have any glaringly obvious issues of anything that you guys said today.

And who was I

didn't wanna kinda talk about the lifelong learning because they they're requesting 11,000, but they mentioned that 8,000 of that was stipend for a person. So that's basically 9 almost 90% of what they're requesting could is going to stipend. That's kinda interesting. But other than that, mean, Centrus Piranha, I think I was on the board the first year that we started funding them. And when you see what they've been able to do with the funding that we give them, they've gotten more and more professional every year.

Most of the money is staying local. They're they're bookkeepers, they're insurance, they're all local companies. I'm a little remiss about the 5,000 that they're requesting in addition to the 16,000, but I think this organization probably does a good job of the money we give. They are in the ETJ. I did check that already. So, apparently, they moved, but, yeah, they're still in the ETJ zone.

I do appreciate that they did carve out that 5,000 as a separate piece. And they didn't just wait on this fund. They actually went and got some other funding.

Mhmm. Which

could come in handy if we start getting tight on passing out money, which every presentation I've

heard so far, we don't get pretty tight.

Yeah. It's always a tiring choice.

So, like, eight of 40 or something like that? Eight is phenomenal.

Gonna go on for a while. Yeah.

And we haven't gotten to the big ones yet. Is there

a big request?

Hundreds of thousands. I

will just say, and I'm just just throwing it out here. I I appreciate our format in allowing organizations to present however they feel comfortable. I'm all about reduced barriers, you know, access accessibility. But I do feel kind of a certain way when there are organizations that have, like, obviously taken a lot of time to, like, you know, pull a presentation together and have you know, like, even if it's, like, something a presentation and or, like, a set something to say versus organizations that do kinda just wing it. So that's I will be I will be as fair, like, as I can be in scoring, you know, like, on the we have a rubric.

But, yeah, that just makes me feel a certain way. It and and it changes when it's like like, They're, like, totally volunteer, like, you know, no staff, and they're asking for literally, like, the penny that they to the penny that they need. You know? I feel like and, like, the smaller organizations and, like, asking for less. Like, you know, I totally get it. I just it it makes me feel some sort of way when organizations come in as just in general asking for big chunks of money and don't seem like they've taken the time to prepare. So that's it.

I think that's a good segue to say it, like, always, it seems like on judging applications and so forth, scoring is a big part of that. We're trying to keep it as objective as possible. And at the same time, it really is always a judgment call. So in the end, you know, y'all are having to balance needs against needs and so forth. So it's it's a little bit of both. So, yeah, it just is. Yeah.

Yeah. From I guess it's just kind of, like, their preparedness for me is more so it is. You know, if they don't have a presentation, but they're still answering every question that we have pretty well. You know, it doesn't really, I guess, register to me. Now, you know, when we're asking kind of questions that we would ask at any agency really, and then they don't have kind of the information to that. That's kind of what fits me about, like, the professionalism of, like, the presentation and everything like that, but that's in line with, like, you know, having a PowerPoint and, like, taking the time to go over those details before anyways and stuff like that as well. Alright.

We're down to discussion. How about feel good? Okay. Future agenda items. Does any member want to request an item for a future agenda?

Yeah. I want to request for Sam, the city lawyer Mhmm. For the next agenda, and we also need to go into executive session because we'll be giving legal advice for him.

As well? Executive oh, because we'll be getting legal advice. Executive session has specific criteria, so I'll ask him to determine what it would be, but I'll definitely answer him. And then I I may need to give him leeway on the timing. So would the following week work as well if he can't do

next week?

Before we before we get the funding.

Okay. So that's really easy. So I'll I'll ask him next week or the following or something and whatever he can do.

You have a legal question? Is that what you're saying?

It concerns the whole board. Yes. With one of the presentations.

That my pictures were in it?

No. I don't know.

Because we've gone over that conflict of it. There's a potential place of interest there. I

know. Yeah.

No. This is from a previous presentation.

Okay. Just in case that was in case that was that, I just wanna make sure we've gone over that conflict of potential conflict of interest.

I was like, kudos to them for finding them. They probably have, like, pictures of a ton of different people who would, like, come and volunteer.

Yeah. They're not.

With the American Red Cross. Oh. And so they're one of many organizations that yeah.

That's slick. Yeah. Exactly. But it is a small town. So Thank you. You know? I'm a foreign.

Okay. I've

got it written out for executive session.

Was it just for legal advice, or is there, like, a topic discussion?

We can't discussion. Oh, we

could Okay. Yeah. We do have to finish the agenda.

Oh my goodness. Okay. Question and answer session with press and public. We now have the opportunity for the press and public to ask questions related to items on this agenda. If anyone here has such questions, will you please ask them now?

So we don't have any other than

board members. Alright. Thank you all for your participation. Do I hear a motion to adjourn the meeting?

Motion made. Second.

Motion made by Yancey, seconded by Ethan. Carol, will you please spell the role for the vote?

Nancy Arbello? Yes. Raymond Best? Yes. Linda, you can't vote. Sorry, because you're not on screen. Ethan Gravis? Yes. Sharif Gassiz? Yes. And Alisa Ramirez?

Yes. Okay. I now adjourn this meeting at 07:52PM.