Southborough Youth Commission - Regular Meeting

on mute uh it looks like we can begin our um January 14th meeting of the Southboro youth commission uh we'll start with a review of the minutes from December 3rd were there any uh comments or edits to those if I can have a motion on the minutes I make a motion to approve the minut of the December 3rd Southbury youth commission is there a second I second that so we'll do a roll call vote Karen engam hi Laura choko hi Sarah micas you're on mute but okay I saw your lips move Nancy Sutton hi Susan Byer hi and Lauren Richie so um the uh next on the agenda we'd like to welcome um Emily budau who's the new program coordinator and she is in the audience so I'm going to promote her to panelists to um uh welcome her and introduce her uh Sarah would you give an introduction please yes be happy to um so as you all know um our program coordinator left earlier this year we spent some time um interviewing candidates and we're thrilled that Emily put her name in the Hat um I'm going to let Emily speak a little bit more about her background but I think it's um a great fit not only for the department

but for the town um her skill set is lends itself very well for um assisting the town in many different ways across different departments so um Emily I'll let you share what you'd like about your background um yeah so my name is Emily um I started last week with the Department I recently completed my MERS in public health from Boston University um I focused in health policy and law while I was there but did a lot of other uh course work and Hands-On work on community intervention and uh Community programs surrounding Public Health um I am very interested in Health Equity access to health care as well as health communication um specifically um in combating health misinformation I think that's a big issue that we have generally um so that's you know kind of my public health background and um while I was in grad school I did a lot of child care I was a nanny and did a lot of um you know babysitting for various families um well there in grad school I worked with probably now at this point close to 50 families a fairing regularity in the community that I lived in um I live in Boston um and you know uh when I was looking for jobs after grad school um I worked briefly at the State House where I um really liked the community and uh public interfacing aspect of that um I was there for um a short while um but after leaving that job I knew I wanted um a position that was very public facing and got me to work with the community and kind of bring all my

interest together and this seemed like the perfect fit um and I really had some nice conversations during my interview with Sarah and other women that work in the office um and other Town members our town uh members as well and um yeah I'm excited to get started do some programming obviously as the name suggests um yeah bring some Public Health lens into this work um and yeah help out with whatever the town's needs are and uh yeah we're getting to work on the community need sucess assessment so hopefully that will help direct uh any future programming we put on um so yeah thank you you for having me and I know I met some of you earlier today but uh great to meet everyone else virtually em it's really great to have you as a program coordinator here and uh we as a um commission we've been doing participating in in a lot of the Outreach activities so um we'll look forward to to working with you awesome thank you so much guys does anyone have any um anything to say to Emily before we promote her back to audience well welcome thank you happy to be here and uh yeah the timing is is great to have Emily on board with the community needs assessment that we're we're um launching in 2025 across the town in different sectors of the community because it affords her the opportunity to meet folks but also given her background and having done this work previously and and other communities um she is experienced and uh knowledgeable about how to run focus groups and do interviews and um you know has really I've been very impressed with

with Emily's um you know I'll come into work and say she I was looking at the Town census last night and I said are you reading that for fun um but she's you know really looking at a lot of different data that already exists and looking at our previous Community needs assessment and um data is not my strong suit um and so I really appreciate her skill set and involvement in this project as well as many other things thank you yeah um I worked with the town of Brookline uh while I was in my graduate school program we did a community needs assessment for their public housing complexes that they had there um so that was a really great experience to kind of you know we were obviously being supervised by one of our professors and obviously working with their housing department but it was a good um good you know kind of Foundation Building for this type of work so glad to do that and I love data I used to work previously as a research scientist in cancer imuno oncology so we're excited to now transfer those data skills into public health and help out town bester so terrific all right thank you Emily thanks for joining us tonight of course thanks Emily nice to meet you Emily let's see I'm trying to figure out how to do I say do I click remove yes it sounds harsh but yes yes it does sound harsh remover oh whoops and now I'm reporting her oops oh no sorry Emily okay join next on the agenda um the the the board of Selectmen have um um brought up recently Human Services uh um a concept of Human Services for the town uh and we wanted to have a little

discussion about that Sam cyers is in the audience can I Sarah is it okay if I promote Sam I believe so okay Sam if you'd like to join us great thank you good to join hi good to good to have you with us um I don't know how you want to proceed I'm happy to give you a little background on where this came from if that would be a good place to start that' be great okay um I don't know if folks saw last week's select board meeting but I asked to have on that agenda discussion of a human services department concept and I laid out some thoughts about that that I've been thinking about for some time and um I think there are some uh interesting timing opportunities here for us to consider this more broadly and so I asked to be on this agenda and I tried to get on the Council on Aging agenda this week but I was preempted by more important things I guess and so uh I'm on their next agenda to talk about it Margaret Landry volunteered to help me with this I don't know if margarit is in the audience but uh she had a conflict she was going to try to resolve and if you see her it might be useful to promote her as well at some point here let's see there's a a hand up for Southboro Library guests is that margarite that's probably margarite yeah she's Library trustee so and margarite and I had a chance today to talk with Pam at the senior center about this and so we're still very early stages and we're a long way from the Finish Line on this but we wanted to get the idea out for people to start talking about and so the concept that I've had is that um i' I've got I've spent last 25 years in health care and one of the things that

there's Margaret hey there one of the things that impressed me in terms of progress in that world over the last couple of decades is the the simple notion but a powerful one that problems rarely Cur occur in isolation so if You' got one condition um You probably have some other conditions as well and you need to treat the whole person for that if you want to be effective with it and I think similar idea may apply in in Social Services and I've had some Consulting Ser experience in the social services world and so for example you have a child with problems there's a good chance that that problem runs into the family also maybe into the schools for example and maybe some health issues as well there and so I think you're better equipped if you've got a broader range of services available to support individual problems and one way to do that that I've seen in other organizations is consolidating those Services into one organization and the theory here is that if if we were to form for example a human services department that would include Youth and Family Services would include senior services and for starters at least the Veterans Services which are all sort of independent operations now but a lot of overlaps in across those boundaries and in a perfect world you might think about the Board of Health as well and the schools but that's a a steep Hill to climb near term here and one of the precipitating events for me to think about is that we're getting close to some retirements in the senior center and so if that organization changes that creates an opportunity to rethink things without disturbing the the Personnel structure too much and I know you folks have added some changed some staffing recently here added some capacity which I think is a great move and so that again in my mind creates an opportunity to rethink how we're delivering all these services and so at a very high level my thought was that uh you might

create a human services department to have a Director of Human Services and under that director would be a senior center director would be a Youth and Family director and a veteran services director for example and and I think that uh and the conversation that Mar margarite and I had with Pam today reinforced the fact that uh this is not something that is a result of concern concern or problem with the way things are going today in fact I think we've got very effective Services across all these organizations today but as I look out toward the next several years there's going to be a major budget crunch with this nearer school project is going to have a huge impact on tax rates if in fact that gets passed and that's not a sure thing but there's certainly some chance that it will and so I think resources are going to be very tight and I think we're better off if we find ways to um deliver Services more efficiently remove overlaps etc etc and also reinforce coordination across these organizations which I think is strong today but as time changes and you get different Personnel in those spots you may have opportunity for Less collaboration than we have today so if you have that in under one umbrella I think that creates an opportunity for a director to make sure that we continue the good coordination and collaboration that we have today so again um this is at the very beginning of the conversation um I I've already heard that the Council on Aging is not overly enthusiastic about this but we will work to communicate with them and and try to explain why this actually has an opportunity for them as well and I think there's a strong commitment the select board is very much behind all these departments and I think there's a strong commitment to find ways to deliver more and better services to all of these uh customer bases out there and in my mind this is a way that could uh offset some

of the budget pressures that we're seeing and reinforce the integration and sort of collaboration and consolid or coordination of services uh to these groups and I think that uh each of the groups brings a a real strength and if for example I look at what you folks are doing some of the mental health areas seems to me that's a real need in terms of the senior services world I I participate in programs at the senior center myself and u I think there are people there who are bad need of of mental health support for example and we don't have infinite resources and I think some of that is happening already certainly but if we can reinforce that I think that would be a great thing and similarly I think that uh the senior center has an intergenerational program it's a new deal this year for it got a grant for that and I think those kind of programs are also hugely helpful in terms of keeping people connected as family units in the community and so it seems to me again there's great opportunity to uh make progress and reinforce and continue the the coordination collaboration that extends today and uh avoid some of the risks as we look at potential Staffing changes particularly at the senior center going forward and I think that it's possible to do this with minimal budget impact because the the people retiring at the senior center at the higher into the salary scale and new people coming in would probably be lower down there and so um you could probably do this in a way that would allow adding some resources and again um not having any Interruption of services that are currently being divided or provided but enhance those services so the the theory in my mind is that we continue to communicate this again as I mentioned uh margarite and I are going to join the council an aging meeting in a few weeks we'll see what happens there but uh Pam is is I would say open to thinking about

it uh I wouldn't describe driver is enthusiastic but she is at least willing to consider and I think that's a good start in the discussion and I think the select board is very interested in this as well and so I think as I pointed out to Pam um seniors are 80% of the select board at this point so they're strong support from that side and I think the select board has been very supportive of Youth and Family and veteran services veteran services is actually ramping up some sort their resources now historically Brian Sterns has been sort of a uh on call resource and he's been pointing out that uh there are a lot of veterans out in the community who have are eligible for benefits who don't know about it and he's doing a lot more to reach out to people and I think that's a great thing to get people benefits that they've earned and deserve and maybe don't know about and even better the federal government pays for that and not the town so you could broaden the reach without an impact on Town budget which is a great win for all of us I think so so in a nutshell that's sort of the the idea and I guess I would be interested in any feedback that you folks care to offer on that are we crazy or does that sound interesting that's something that you think could make sense and um are there things that uh on your list that we ought to be sure to consider and we've already making a list of things that we need to provide detail on I don't have a lot of detail at this point but my plan would be to work particularly with Sarah and Pam and Brian Sterns to start filling out uh the blank spaces in here and then continue to communicate among the the the youth commission's Council on Aging and have some conversation with the friends organizations who are an important or part of all of this which I think again all that sort of stays in place in my mind I think nobody's talking about taking away any services but reinforcing and adding services and adding the the coordination effect that hopefully will

be give a better result to the people who use these services so so that's the concept and uh again appreciate any thoughts suggestions recommendations or whatever anybody cares to offer on that I was just wondering if there are other towns nearby towns communities that have done this kind of consolidation under a human resource department that we could use as a model um maybe have an opportunity to talk to them about what works what doesn't work kind of make it better uh there are some I don't have a good list I know Westboro I think combines senior and veteran services for example and I I've heard that there are several others and we will look around for more examples but uh again uh this seems to me to be a a conceptually good model and that there is a lot of similarity in terms of many of these services and in some sense it it's not a Wonder perfect idea to sort of segregate by age here if you will so that is sort of grown up out of you know past practice and it's worth rethinking and I again I I'm certainly convincible that this is not a good idea at this point but so far at least it seems reasonable to me and U I'd like to keep pursuing and Sarah we will continue to look for other examples of this I was just going to say the town of North bro just shifted to theirs is more of a through and Human Services model which I know Sam you had mentioned the health department previously but um Needum has this model Northboro now has this model Westboro has combined some of their departments um those are the three I can think of off the top of my head and Sarah I'd also offer that our experience

with getting grants um is better if we've got combined applications so I mean it's certain areas for for example the simple one is if we've got multiple towns applying the Board of Health has been very successful in getting grants for Southborough plus other towns and um this intergenerational grant that the senior center recently received was easier because again it spend multiple user groups there and so I think that there is some opportunity for grant funding that gives us a bit of an edge if we've got multiple served groups out there with these kinds of programs and hard to quantify that but we've seen some sign if that's the case are we missing any uh populations that we would want to add to the Spectrum um I know that we have um youth families seniors vets is there any other I I think that's the full age range Sarah but I think there other services for example Board of Health does some things things that I think also span these populations the challenge there is that U they're an elected board so they're fairly autonomous in a lot of ways and the the logistics of folding that in are considerably more complicated at this point yes and and again I think that there's value in sort of getting a foothold here with a good structure and then as it it demonstrates that it's it's effective then I think we can think about pulling more part participants in the other the big one for me is the school and as folks are well aware uh a lot of what you do um certain certainly intersects with school programs and that's a tough one too just the way the organization is structured and that they're independent board but uh doesn't say we can't collaborate exactly as you're doing now but from an organizational standpoint U I think we'

we picked the ones that seem to be easiest to do in the near term logistically margarite did you have anything you wanted to add uh one hello my old friends uh the other uh the other um thing I wanted to say is uh having C having therapy available at the senior center is fantastic um and I and I think that's an indicator of a of a of a good piece of you know combined service um Pam was very very happy about that uh there's one thing that the senior center does that um might be useful to think of as as there's a there's a thing called a shine counselor they're volunteers and they help you if you're going to get Medicare or Med um medic gap insurance for the first time because Social Security as we all know can be hellish to negotiate um and I think that also in the lower age brackets there's there are things that require an enormous amount of paperwork um that it might be possible to have a a similar assistance with things like Medicaid for children with disabilities or fuel assistance and all of these things that are someone who's been through it can cancel somebody and it and it could be like the shine counselor is you come in on certain days of the week the shine counselor is there and she helps you through signing up for your health insurance and it's just like she's done at Bazil in time she knows how to do it so I'm thinking maybe some similar type of thing um that youth and families could um could could offer might be a good thing to take from the senior center model um but maybe that you're already doing that Sarah I just don't know about it but I know that there is a

lot of paperwork in the world and it it doesn't seem to show any signs of letting up so that was just a thought and the other part was maybe uh as as Sam said um combined power of asking for great that cover a lot more populations but I I think this is a wonderful idea to to go to um Human Services model so far anyway thanks thanks Margaret because I just want to say my my personal opinion is it sounds great and especially the just the idea of the coordination across the services um and there's so many ways that that could happen I I really like that idea would they be housed in the same building I think that would be really important in terms of being able to collaborate and share information and do programming together I don't know if that's a possibility but um I think it's really hard to effectively share ideas and things um if you're not in the same Central area but I could be wrong maybe longer term Sarah but um I think that's a little tricky in that um a lot of what you folks do I think requires some degree of privacy and so if you have everybody in the same place you got people coming and going there that uh could be a little bit challenging yeah I I don't I don't have a great answer to that but I mean honestly I guess if they had an opportunity to meet you know the directors on meet have a director's meeting once a week or whatever that would be because I I do I personally um like Lauren I think this would be a

great idea I think it would definitely help collaboration help reach different uh vulnerable populations and on top of that improve efficiency and effectiveness of our human resource Outreach so I'm on board I just just like see little things that you know obviously would need to be worked out along the way but yeah lots of questions not many answers at this point again we're just starting on the trip I I would hait to get in the way of the flag School deal I think that's a yes no I agree I think that would be it's going to be a good home for us so comment for a second um I've seen just an other communities it's it's not that it's a complete melding of of these departments but rather um well it's it's different in every Community you know Northboro for example their Health and Human Services model is the blending of of one department but Medfield was a town that I didn't mention that has moved to a human services department so interestingly they oversee Recreation Library their uh Youth and Family Service they're called Medfield Outreach um but it's the equivalent to Youth and Family Services um all of those departments have maintained their individual Focus but the difference becomes that there's continuity there's sort of this umbrella there's more coordination sharing of services that occur um avoiding duplication you know uh increased efficiency Etc all the things that have already been

mentioned um so I guess I think of this comment in response to Sarah saying you know would they be housed in the same location I actually think it would be you know the senior center is a very busy uh exciting place I've I've been there on a weekly basis there's a lot of really fun program going on and I think it's important to maintain that space as a a place for people to go and engage in those activities and to have you know not to say that some of the services that are confidential in nature couldn't occur in the senior center but I think it's also important to have a separate option where people can go um and have the Privacy that they might want um so I don't know if it would require being in the same location per se but and Shar my thought had been that the the Departments would retain most of their own identity as a matter of fact but there the Director of Human Services would be the the glue that sort of holds it together and communicates and figures out when collaboration and how collaboration needs to take place Etc manages the process basically but again there are a lot of ways you can do that and as I say we're just starting on the trip here so a lot of opportunity for input and considering options here but just the goal here is to socialize the idea and get people thinking about it and figure out if there's some fatal flaw in here that I've missed that say oops we can't do it for this crazy reason um and and then keep going and timing too is an issue um U margarite and I talked with Pam today and and she's going to retire but it's not totally clear when that's going to happen and so we don't want to disrupt that world and so if she for example retired fairly soon then we

might think about it for FY 26 if she stays around for a while then looks like FY 27 or whatever here so no no urgency and that the system is not broken as it works today certainly we're just trying to make it better and so um but but my what what I suggested to Pam was that what I didn't want to have happen is come up on the time when she decides she's going to retire and we say oops we need a plan let's scramble around and figure out what's happen she's going to be gone in 30 days or whatever and so uh I think this gives us a chance to have a longer Runway to say let's think about it carefully and figure out a good solution good structure that we can transition to whenever that happens and it's not so critical as to when it happens as long as we got something that we think is going to work effectively when it does happen and frankly going forward I think this world is going to get a lot more complex I have great concerns about what's going to happen with the federal government and these programs going forward and so the need need for I think more stronger coordination and finding more efficient ways to deliver Services where resources are presumably going to get Tighter and Tighter I think uh falls back on the organization structure to help that happen so that's sort of my high level view of it and U again we're open to other thoughts and suggestions Next Step would be to continue to talk with people about it and as I say we got to talk to Council on Aging and some others and um we will Circle back periodically to all the stakeholders here and and talk about it if people have other suggestions ideas um you know where to reach margarite and me or communicate through Sarah um and happy to again come back and talk about this more if you folks want to think about it more and talk about it more down the road here so just a quick question if if the Council on agent for example isn't in disagreement who does the ultimate

decision fall to to make technically the select board yeah um you don't want to have to do that but technically the senior center is under the jurisdiction of the select board and Council of Aging members are appointed by the select board so as I said it gets trickier if we were going to do something with the Board of Health for example which is independently elected and and more difficult to deal with organizationally there but again what you want to have is you want to have everybody thinking this is a oh sure right step and u u and I think the senior the council and aging I'm hoping will come to that conclusion because again they've been lobbying for more resources for some time and I think this is a way to actually do that for them in terms of additional program support going forward any other comments for Sam or margarit good to see you yeah thanks for joining us thanks very much and stay tuned I'm sure it'll be exciting going down the road here so thanks for checking in thank you goodbye Everybody by Marg don't hit remove I think they just have to exit themselves do they I think I think I just removed Sam okay there we go em Emily has apparently been banished for all eternity from Zoom she's been trying by that's why I'm sorry I was partly distracted because she was trying through various um means to rejoin the meeting and and view the the rest of it so she's now back in the audience welcome back Emily yeah all right I think we could progress to the director's report Sarah sure okay

so we have a shorter director's report this time around um just want to share that uh we closed out the winter wishes program successfully with help from Friends of the southb youth commission thank you very much to Karen and others for helping us with um shopping for that program we had many families participate most of which wanted to utilize gift cards to um shop for their own families we had a few fames that were asking for help with shopping for actual items so we were um very very grateful for all of the support that friends gave us during that time um because it it was a lot of work and I just want to publicly give a shout out to our business administrator Janet Who Um this was her first go around at doing this and she picked it up very easily and ran with it and um she she nailed it um and I really so she and I are very similar we love to make tables I found out and color code them and so it was like my love language she was speaking to me and um and ways that I could understand organizing all of the information um and it was great went off very smoothly um can I ask a question about that yes did did I think um it said that there were 98 families or something along that line were were they uh in the end did we raise enough to cover all the families yeah I can give numbers on the friends update but yeah we did yep awesome thanks Karen um we have been advertising shelf hel and I'll share that we had our first shelf hel meeting today for the book upward spiral which I have here somewhere oh here it is um so we had a lovely meeting this afternoon um with a

couple of our board members Pres which was great uh I'm kind of getting my bearings with doing this I'm not used to Leading a book discussion but I think it went well and um we're excited for the second half of the book where we're going to talk more strategies and things like that um but it was a nice group nice discussion um we have two more meetings coming up um to talk about the book more in February and March um as I mentioned uh well we we talked about this at our last meeting uh budget proposal I did submit uh the budget proposal that you all voted on um so we're just kind of in that season uh looking at that and this conversation about the Human Service Department plays into that um it's kind of a I'm just waiting to hear more information at this point um and you know how I can offer assistance and feedback um or when I'm ask my opinion um let's see we've been working hard on developing further developing a universal financial assistance application we've worked with our town Treasurer and um one of our select board members Kathy Cook on developing a an income eligibility grid for families in South bro um understanding which programs we're going to Pilot this for in 2025 um we talked with Brian Valentine Our Town Treasurer about uh the possibility of including trust fund applications for 2026 um so there's a lot of lot of different applications to look at that currently exist in the town um the goal being uh we want to avoid asking residents and families to have to fill

out different applications with different departments and submit financial information multiple times every time they're looking for assistance or are eligible for a particular program um so we're hoping to consolidate all of these opportunities for them and give them one stop shopping for um income eligibility um and then um try to connect with connect them with the resources that exist in the community so so that's moving forward um and then as em and I talked about um we are working with trend line which is a data analytics firm um that we've worked with previously through Encompass and um they're providing us with some technical support around conducting a community needs assessment and again um our goal in the community needs assessment is to really understand concerns barriers um you know what resources do people gravitate at towards and why uh if they are aware of town services that are available and they choose not to use them what the reasons are for that so that we can you know better understand if if we're missing the mark somewhere um and so we're taking a three-prong approach with that with a CommunityWide survey some key informant interviews with various stakeholders in town and focus groups um so right now you've seen a more of a focus on focus groups um because those are going to be a little bit more logistically challenging to put together um given that we need 5 to 10 uh folks to be in the same room at the same time um for

the conversation but um I did think hopefully share that flyer with all of you um so if you're interested hosting a focus group or being part of one I greatly appreciate um your support around that um Emily and I are both going to be working on that but trendline um their two employees Kendall and Michael are also going to be facilitating focus groups so we have a lot of flexibility with when those can happen and how um they could be in person they can be virtual um but the goal is to have 5 to 10 or even better 8 to 10 uh individuals participate and it's sorry I'm sorry are you gonna like put out like categories like and then try to get participants are you looking for people to form the groups and then come to you it's a little bit of both um we have approached various groups that already exist to see if we can Commander some of their time that they're meeting already um to conduct these focus groups or to you know um kinder group for example there's far too many um families that participate in Kinder group so we're looking we're going to them asking for volunteers and then we would have to schedule a separate time to meet with them so it's a little bit of both um and seeing what we can what we can do Emily is very well-versed in um using online platforms for various things and so she's been tasked with trying to find a way to allow people to sign up for different time slots on different dates um or rather I should say different dates um because we probably would only do one focus group a day but for example if we

had three different dates and people happen to be available they could sign up um it is nice to have a cohort of people with you know a group of parents who all have high school age um you know kids or a group of seniors or a group of um I've reached out to the um NS pack group to see if um they would have some volunteers so that's in an Ideal World how we would conduct those um if we can okay great thanks um so that's really what we've been busy with and and Emily and I have been spending a lot of time together um getting her onboarded uh familiar with uh town the town and employees and all the different things and she's she's picking everything up very quickly um so we're we're thrilled about that um upcoming dates and information um we've been approached by three of the elementary schools to participate in a um it sounds like it's going to be a community book study um I don't know if anybody has read the anxious generation or has participated in a book study through any of your kids schools um but I know the staff have been reading this book together and so they uh and then I think they extended this out to parents and there's been uh feedback from parents that they want to get together and discuss it so um we've been looped in on that and um I will it be the first to admit we own the book here at the office but I haven't read it yet um but it sounds excellent it's it's a book about um the

role of of Technology social media in our um actually I would probably say this is for young people but you know probably something to reflect on for all of us so um I'm really eager to start reading the book and hear more about it um let's see um we are spearheading an accessibility committee amongst Town employees and so this is really geared at townwide um trying to ensure that all Town departments have access to things like translation services um support for individuals with hearing impairment ensuring that our office spaces are set up uh with ADA compliance um you know being able to translate our marketing materials there's a number of things that um that are not concerns of just our department but something that I feel strongly should be available to every department and um I put the idea out there and several departments agreed and so we are forming an accessibility committee um amongst employees and going to do our best to try to put in place as many accommodations as we can for ensuring that um um all Town services are accessible to every resident so um hopefully we will get that off the ground in the very near future um and I think that's really the main things I mean there's a couple of incidentals sprinkled in there mindful art is something now that we have Emily on board we are trying to reschedule that I know some of you attended the first time around and we were able to secure all the materials for that for around two so um we've we've started the process of reaching out to Kim Welch who's the art

therapist we worked with previously and she's planning to come back um so I don't without going through every single bullet point I don't know if there's any questions in response to any of those items doesn't sound like it thanks Sarah if there's no other comments we um would move on to outreach ideas and opportunities we don't have um anything on the schedule as far as I know right now for the next couple of months if anyone had any um new ideas we could discuss them it's kind of a quiet time right now I think I will say even if we don't come up with any ideas please feel rest assured um we continue on a weekly basis we're over at the senior center um sometimes a couple of times a week but at least once a week we are at Colonial Gardens we're at the library and we're at the food pantry on a rotating basis um so it's there you're right it's a quiet time of year there's not a lot of events but we continue to get information out there about what services are available to Residents that's a great reminder um friends update Karen okay um I don't have the number that what we raised but we did raise all the money that we needed for winter wishes this year I think it was close to 22,000 or something W yeah so that was all raised we didn't even have um yeah and actually I think we just got a St Mary's Credit Union come through because

they had the wrong address something happened so I think that's another thousand so we're actually have a little bit of a surplus um so Kathy just gave us our totals um so right now it's a combined bucket for winter wishes Camp scholarships and that's 13,000 1114 um the sdp bucket still has 8,237 sorry Karen what is that what's that the that bucket oh the southb extended day bucket that we got from them when we got when they closed or whatever they rolled over a bunch of money to us to use for um I think they wanted it for some camps for some lgbtq specific programs so we have 8,237 left in that there's 4,000 591 in our unrestricted bucket and then 12,000 in emergency fund um and so we've raised all you know we raised all the money for winter wishes and our goal is to be able to raise all the money for Camp scholarships without going into our 13, $114 that we have in that bucket already um so we have a couple fundraising um opportunities coming up we're going to fund or raffle off some Celtics and Bruins tickets um we're doing the March munchie manness thing that uh program that we've done the last couple years and um I think we're gonna ask nans but we're also gonna broaden it and do maybe Wellies and wemy they're yeah wemy and Wellies yeah those names sound so bizarre um in line with the the oh no no I was thinking it was www but it's mmm

March Mon it's just the inverse yes um so they were very supportive when we had our raffle at um The Community House they both donated excuse me gift cards and so I think wey is the newest location it's the same owner as Wellies in Margo and so they're really interested in being they're supportive and getting their name out there so we're going to reach out to them for um if they want to participate in our March month Madness um Kathy's asking Capital group for another 5,000 and [Music] um oh R CD there was 60,000 in a CD and she said that's accumulated 4,000 in interest and that matures in May so we can roll over the CD and we could put the 4,000 of Interest or whatever it totals to um into the unrestricted bucket and one more opportunity Kathy's going to apply to a middle sex bank for some campers camp scholarship or camper whatever but she said I guess this is the first year we're doing this new application because it takes a lot of uh effort and it's a lot more financial information we have to provide and she hasn't been able to do it in the past so we're really going to try to get um that application in I don't know the deadline yet but she that we could get up to 10 to 20,000 from middle sex um so so all in all we're really I think we're really strong financial position right now um Sarah did you after our conversation with Travis do you know if he has gotten feedback from the friends of Southboro W because our last meeting we talked about potentially instead of the friends of

the youth commission supporting the entire amount for the camp scholarships which is like 202,000 whatever over 20,000 we were going to split it between us and the friends of southb irq yes I don't have those details in front of me but yes so Recreation is going to put forth um believe it's 2,000 off the top and then the remaining balance will be split evenly between both friends groups so the okay great the um what's the best word the weight of the program will not rest squarely on Friends of the youth commission to fund most of the program it will be sh shared more equally this year oh great yeah and and with the financial assistance application that I mentioned previously we are going to in the past the way it's been handled if a if a family's been income eligible to receive Camp scholarships it's been either you're eligible or you're not and if you are eligible you get 100% coverage of however many weeks you want and we're not we're not going to do that um moving forward it's going to be a tiered system um so families will be eligible for a certain percentage discount um some families will still be eligible for 100% um benefit but many will be eligible for maybe 30% or 50% instead um which I think will be helpful and we will also set a particular budget for Camp scholarships versus um saying you know we'll do everything everyone asks for there's going to be a particular budget that's set aside and um you know it's going to unfortunately

have to come down to a first come first serve process um but that should be you know what we talked about about uh given we have data from the last several years the amount we came up with should be enough to cover most of what people are looking for support with great so if we think we can raise between now and may you know 10,000 we won't even have to go into the 13,000 we have there and um that should be doable with couple of our uh fundraisers I mean we always raise a couple thousand on the brew as at Celtics tickets March mon Madness raises a couple thousand and then we're kicking around some other ideas we're not going to do any more Raffles and Community House vendor Artisan fairs I think we're going to try to do something different maybe try something like know a bowling night or something so we have a meeting tomorrow night with friends and so we're going to be kicking around some new ideas for the spring for a fundraiser but all in all we're in good shape any comments Karen great thank you very much so that leads us to adjournment um we'll have to uh have a motion for that no one wants to wait everybody wants they're having too much fun I make a motion to adjourn the January 14 2025 meeting of the Southborough youth Commission at 7:57 a second roll call vote Karen engam hi Laura choko hi Sarah micas hi Nancy Sutton I and Susan berer I and Lauren

Richie I all right great meeting thank you everyone [Music]