Youth Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Youth Council meeting. Today is September 3rd, 2025, and it is 5.30 p.m. I'm going to call the roll. Chair Lucia LaCour? Here. Vice Chair Ella Garcia? Here.

Council Member Sofia Budotti? Here. Council Member Sofia Chavez? Here. Council Member Isaac Pack?

Here.

Council Member Denise Demirtas? Here. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you. Okay, so moving on to the people of the minutes, do they have any changes they'd like to make to last?

Somebody's gonna make a motion to approve the minutes.

I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes.

I second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

So starting with our, so yesterday, as you guys know, we had a joint meeting with the Sustainability and Resiliency Committee. So there was a lot that was discussed. It was sort of, it was like a workshop to sort of air out any ideas that we might want to collaborate on in this coming term. A third of us were there, but we can go over the specific agenda items we talked about so everybody gets caught up. There's three primary goals of the sustainability committee this year, as I understand it. There are three topics where they think that we could align with them, and that's in securing a chief resiliency officer, in trying to help with recycling education around town, and in putting solar panels up in different places around town. So they're very ambitious goals, but we came up with things that we can do as a youth council to help especially with the recycling part because Just for context, last term, one of the members of the sustainability committee reached out to the youth council and asked if we'd be interested in doing a youth ambassador program or at different Surfside events. One of us, or another member of the community, is there to educate people on what goes in the recycling, what goes in the trash, so that our town events can be a little bit more organized in terms of recycling and make sure that everyone's doing it properly. Another idea we had related to recycling was like Denise and Yasmeen did a PSA last term about scooter safety. They can do another one this year about recycling education. And that could also entail touring the Pembroke Pines facility and getting footage there to include in the documentary. Another thing was creating a website page that has FAQs and the PSA and a map of all recycling facilities all together at once. So I'll share these notes, but that was one of the agenda items. And then Sophia, do you want to talk about What you learned earlier, what was said of Jerry about pollinator gardens and such? What I really got from that was that we're not going to have much success with the pollinator gardens unless we start really small and continue onwards from there. Because he's already started with his own little garden in 92nd, I believe. But then he has to get the roundabouts out of another gardening company's graph, and then actually getting to the canals would take a while. And I think that he accused, so yeah. So if you had proposed like pollinator gardens at the street ends, Jerry's doing something similar, is that something you're gonna pursue with him? Absolutely. Okay. He said he'd like to have some volunteers in the hospital. Yeah. Okay, so. So Jerry's starting with that pollinator garden initiative. He's doing it. Is it the ninth second garden? I don't think so.

I'm pretty sure it was.

OK. Well, and so if anyone is interested in that, I don't know, are any of you guys interested in helping Sophia with that initiative? Because he needs volunteers to tend to the garden and help with the educational aspect of teaching people about native plants and pollinators. But that's something we can discuss after. So there was some other stuff. And then the other stuff was one of the council, the vice chair wants to do a climate, or not the vice chair, I think she's just a councilor, she wants to do a climate walk and talk. It's like an event that they would bring here and after the event we could do a documentary screening of this key documentary from last term. So that's an event that could potentially happen this term. We can move on from this. Does anyone that was there, like Sophia or Ella, do you guys have anything?

Oh, Ella Garcia. Regarding the sustainability and resiliency officer, so we kind of asked them in what way could we help support that because it's kind of just a position they want to either add money to the budget or just like increase support from the mission. So, what they suggested overall for us to help with the sustainability, well, if you guys don't know what that position is, it's basically a designated position to oversee and keep track of and make sure things get done in relation to sustainability and resiliency. for example like the biophilic cities network that we joined last year of last term that that officer would be in charge of making sure that we're still up to par with all those requirements or like with the garden they would be overseeing where we need the requirements on that and all of that so for us to support that um What we suggested as a youth council to them was like just trying to gauge support in the community. So that would be either through a survey or I think it was just a survey.

It was like a survey to support the community. is this like the creation of this office but we'd like to like we suggest that therapy research conducted or like a survey is enough to ensure that the town's citizens yeah i think we have to go oh yeah so that's that's that on that but i think everything else is covered okay all right the next The next item on the agenda is gun safety. So Ella and I met with, I don't remember her name, but she's very involved in the Hillary. She came to us because she's part of a group that talks about gun violence prevention and gun violence awareness and she wanted to discussed the possibility of us hosting an event in memory of Aria, the teen that was killed in Surfside due to gun violence. And so now that we're back in term, because this was sort of before the new term started, I wanted to hear what you guys think about hosting an event like that or if you have any thoughts about gun violence prevention or any ideas on where to go with that.

One thing I could mention also that when we met with her, she said that she knew of this nonprofit that they do this really cool project where they create bracelets out of gun, like bullet shells, bullet casings. And I think she wanted to maybe incorporate that in some sort of community event commemorating survivors of gun violence and victims of gun violence like Uriah Gray. So, yeah, that was just another, like, creativity activity or crafting that she mentioned. But just what are, like, your guys' thoughts on maybe doing it, like, at the beginning of the year? It was supposed to be on the anniversary of her.

It was in, like, February, March. So it would be, like, next year, but still in it.

So since, like, as a long-term project, do you guys want to, I mean, that, since it's in a while, and since we would have to reach out to her to, like, actually organize that, I guess it's actually trying to put on our long-term goals later.

Well, okay. I feel like it depends kind of what we want, because we can always, like, if it's, like, we want to, like, kind of spread awareness, we could always just make a video. Really great at that.

She did, Eddie?

I mean, it seems like with the police, it would be a lot more feasible to do a video. Well, I wasn't there yesterday's meeting, but it seems like it could be more feasible for us to do a video with our suicide police than go to the area where you have to do it.

For recycling?

Yeah, for recycling. So, if you wanted to prioritize that.

Jack, what do you think?

I think, um, maybe an event. I think an event is good because it brings, like, more people to the thing. As long as you, like, put it out there, that resonates, you know. Things like a video is sent out on, like, Instagram or something, and then you can send it back home.

Um, is there, like, I don't know about this, but is there, like, a specific month that's, like, been saved a month or been saved two days or anything like that? If we wanted to tie it to that, that could be a possibility. But yeah, I think going off what Jack said, I think an event could be a good idea to raise awareness.

And at that event, would it be sort of like a presentation about the dangers of the Dung Islands? Would it be more of a memorial for Arya, plus the educational aspect?

The woman you spoke with, is she involved in any nonprofits?

Yeah, she is. And she's... We'll find it, because she's on the board of a local synagogue that does, like, they put on presentations with police departments about gun violence, and so they do, like, in Big Harbor, they do, like, a pizza and, you know, police and pizza or something, and, like, so residents go and they talk to the police and have, like, a meal or something, and I guess they did a presentation there and it got a very good turnout, so she wanted to potentially do something similar, but she hasn't since... um like youth like young islands often like impacts youth that i just think would be interesting so i yeah we could we could reach out to her and get more specifics and come back with a more solid idea does anyone want to take the lead on this there should be just do we want to leave and see if like more about what the idea looks like is anyone like like oh i really want to like Push this forward?

The chair? I just wanted to say that I had a meeting with Chief Press yesterday. Basically, it was regarding engaging the community more. So he's interested in engaging with the community on many levels, so also the youth. So that would be a good opportunity to partner with the police, for sure. I think they would be interested in that. So, you know, whatever the committee decides, Chief Gruss is interested in working with you.

Awesome. Yeah, I think it's a good idea to maybe do the, obviously talk to her first, but do the video initially and then wait for, kind of like as a precursor to the event. Because especially since recently, like last week or two weeks ago, there was that shooting in Minneapolis, so...

One idea is you could also maybe have an active shooter training. I don't know if that's been done in your schools. I don't know. Should I give my name?

Never mind. But it's, yeah, like having, like, not just, like, telling people to do something, but, like, teaching them to, like, do something.

I'm not sure. I remember she, Hillary, did. specify on what she thinks the collaboration with the police should be about, but I can't remember if it was specifically about gun safety, like if you have a gun at home, keeping it locked up and things like that, or if it was just more of a commemoration, like you said.

I think there were aspects of both.

I think it was both.

Yeah, so like training for, I guess, people who own guns or people who, like that can be done by the police.

And, like, would the event be geared specifically towards youth or towards the town in general?

Yeah, because youth don't really own guns. Yeah. I mean, that is often the problem. Like, there's many people with, like, access to guns. Yeah, I think we need to, like, we would need to meet with Ella and sort of understand what her goals are, and then, like, that's something we could do and come back.

Yeah, and I think that's a good idea, because she was, I mean, she was the one who, like, she really wants this, so I feel like it's important that we satisfy her vision, like, and if it's something that she doesn't really want or she doesn't feel like is satisfying what she thinks needs to be said, then... We can even ask her to come to the next meeting with someone with work.

She can just have conversations. Um... Okay. The next item is also mine. So last term we created an internship database, so for youth to see local volunteer, local or remote volunteer or job or internship opportunities in the Miami County area. So, we have about 25 opportunities in the database right now, and it's available on the Surfside website. So, this item is really just on here to see if there would be, if there's anyone that's interested in sort of that aspect, because, I mean, the purpose behind the database was where the Youth Council and a lot of youth, you know, at least, in our academic circles, want an internship, they want to volunteer, they want to put all this stuff on their resume and try to get into college and stuff. So that was the goal, to give you the different opportunities that they have at their disposal so that you're not just having to mindlessly Google search, like, oh, where's a volunteer near me? and a few of the opportunities had been like backtracked by one of us. So like we had been through one of those opportunities, so you had like a connection into that and sort of knew firsthand account what it was like to work there, right, and get in there and bond together. So going forward, I think this is something, I want to know if this is something we'd like to continue to do, continue to expand, continue to work on, and if there's anyone who this, who this vision has mixed with who would want to take the key on that.

Good. I think it's really good. I never heard of that. I've been looking for internships as well. So I would say put up with some of these because I know my friend told me so. And you don't have like no idea what you're doing. Like around here. But I think it's something we should continue. And like push forward. Like get to know.

Like marketing.

Yeah, marketing. Exactly. I agree with that.

Yeah, I agree with Jack. I was able to take a look at it. I scrolled through the database and I think it's really good. I think it's super helpful, but I think ensuring that kids know that it's there and how they can access it, I think, is important. So maybe even putting something in the Gazette or putting in the Gazette, hey, parents, you can tell your youth about this. We have this database. They can access this. And then finding ways for youth to understand us even there. Maybe even putting up like little bulletins at local schools even or things like that. Flyers, anything could be good. Or like posting to Instagram, whatever. I think that's important. Also, an idea that I have for this that might work is, like, it's, when I looked at it, it was a PDF of a list, right? So, like, increasingly people are using chatbots to search for information. So one thing you could do, if you wanted to, is you could turn that list into, like, a little interactive chatbot. So people could then put, like, hey, I'm looking for this kind of thing in this kind of area. And then I could ask it questions to help find the best information for them.

That's really interesting. And I remember last... year when we were trying to figure this out, one of the issues was just, he said, it was Frank that helped set it up, he said that like, the talent website was just a little bit outdated and they were looking to revamp it, like they were gonna go on to a new provider and that's why I added the PDF, I don't know, just, did it get revamped yet, or?

No, not yet.

But I think that's a great idea, and I think, I think either way, it could be just linked.

It could just link something.

I feel like it's a cool idea, like, don't get me wrong. I think it's cool. I feel like it just kind of defeats the purpose that Lizzie was saying, that it's, like, closer connections to us, and it's, like... I don't know, like things that we've been through, and I feel like if you wanted to search that up, you could just go on Google.

I think he's saying that Chapa would be loaded with the information.

Yes, so how it works is you take, like we give it a list, and that's what it pulls from.

So it just gives you information based on all types of things.

Yeah. We just need to get a lot more.

Yeah, so I like that idea. I think that's a very, like, Wait, Isaac, do you know how to make that?

Yeah, I can show you guys. It's pretty easy. I had no idea. That sounds cool. Yeah. I mean, I can help make that. I mean, basically what you do is once the file is done, you upload it to the chatbot and you say, this is only what you pull from. Don't pull from anything else. But I mean, I think the goal here is just to find a way to make it more interactive beyond just scrolling through and reading it. Like maybe instead of doing that when I do a Google form, or something, or like a way that it can easily direct you. Because I feel like sometimes people don't even know what they're interested in, so finding a way to figure that out, I think, is the goal. So we don't want to go over complicated, too.

So expanding, I think expanding the database is another thing that we need to focus on. So expanding it, marketing it, and then this chatbot aspect. And expanding the database is really just, I mean last year we sort of delegated as in like everyone came up with two opportunities. A couple of us that were like leading the project came up with like ten or something. Just like, but between like the eight of us, we all have like a lot of experience. So any time, I'm sorry, any time like I know that it is obviously catered towards youth and everything that we put there at the front should be more local because

but I think if we do want to add more stuff more quickly, we could do just kind of a national section of it, because I know that, and with the deadlines and stuff of this year, and then update that until every other year, until every other term to update that, because I know that when I was in my, at the end of my junior year, I sometimes saw things that were for rising juniors, and I was like, wow, I wish I would have applied to that if I had known about it, which I think is... probably has happened to a lot of people. So if we have that national section under the whole local section, just to... Just like national upcoming opportunities. Yeah. Like, the one off the top of my head, it's called the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, and it's like one of those things that you go intern with of someone in Congress, or like the Youth Senate program, and yeah, those are obviously more selective, but I think just having them there for who can access them, once again, access is the biggest part, but if we wanted to expand that.

And we'll talk about this also in the next item, but the goal of the youth council is that everyone is sort of heading their own little projects, and then we meet and discuss progress. So we really do, this is what we want to pursue. I'm happy to take a leadership role in this aspect, and if Isaac or Jack, one of you, also wants to help, we should delegate that now. Are you guys interested in that?

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Okay, that's all for it.

Okay, so moving on to council rules, since this is kind of our second one getting into everything, we wanted to go over, as members of the previous term, kind of go over the council rules that we observed would just keep us on the best track and keep us as productive as we can be. I think I kind of talked about this last year. Well, actually, the context doesn't really matter. But overall, we want to have goals for meetings and then kind of long-term goals, like I previously mentioned about, for example, the Go Safety event or video. This will probably be posted in our group chat as well, but goals for meetings that we want to make sure everyone gets to participate, so council members must speak at least once per meeting. And this is kind of, it's a no pressure thing. You obviously speak when you're comfortable, but we want you to feel comfortable enough to just be able to speak like it's a normal conversation, because again, we are just having a conversation. This is also more no pressure, but it's just making sure that you're keeping up with the community, is that one person compiles, compiles is a fancy word, just off the top of your head, has a very informal town news recap. So the primary way that you can just do this is by reading the Gazette, or getting the email and skimming it five minutes before the meeting, and then just kind of telling what is going on in town that week or that month. And then at the end of each meeting, everyone debriefs their goals. It just gets everyone on track with what we should be doing so we don't have to go over it in the group chat right after. And then for long-term goals, Lucia also mentioned this, but council members should propose one project or initiative by the end of 2025, which I know that the people of Long Courts and the pollination gardens is already kind of happening. We've only had one and a half meetings, so that's already going great. And then obviously always be attentive and communicative in the group job. So that's pretty basic, but I just wanted to go over that Does anyone have any comments, questions, concerns, or?

The town news thing, is it like, did you say, like, we each work to do that, or, like, we all do that? Like, is it, like, each person?

We could sort it out in the group chat if you guys want to. Just be, like, who's down to, who wants to do it. Or we could each do it. Just, the goal is just not to, like, bring it up. Because I think we should just put it in the agenda, just quickly go over it every meeting. But just not have it so that it's, like, a silent room. But it doesn't have to be silent.

With that, we sort of want everyone to propose something by the end of 2025 so that we have time to actually implement it. so like in the next three meetings like that's sort of when you would want us all so like we're kind of already on that book obviously yeah so like once you take on a leadership role in one of these like subcategories or any sub projects like just like presenting an update on like what your progress has been like how can we help you like how can we Because we want the Youth Council to be a place for you to be able to do what you love to do, whether that's sustainability or legal law or something, on a scale that helps your community. And yeah, we just want everyone to be able to have a leadership role whenever they like.

Yeah, like Lucy said, I think that's exactly what we want the Youth Council to be. Just your interests, bring it in. and expand it to your community. This would be a segue to the next thing, but yeah, like she said, if you like pickleball, you can do a pickleball event.

If you like history, we can do a history event.

Anything, there's not really any dumb, there's no dumb ideas. And that's a segue to the next agenda. which is Vertitem Populo Collaboration. I know a lot of you are probably like, what is that? So, Vertitem Populo is an organization, a non-profit that was started, I think, like five years ago. By high school student and from what I've seen like in South Florida, it's one of the most far reaching civic engagement nonprofits that like in the state almost I would say and They do multiple events every year, and I've just kind of seen them growing. And back in June, I participated in one of their events that was like mayor for a day, which is basically they have they reach out as a nonprofit to a bunch of cities and mostly cities. And they just. kind of kids apply and then they get to spend the day with the mayor or the day with like the mayoral staff or the town staff and kind of learn about local government. So my primary idea with Versa Tepaco was to expand that initiative to Surfside, which I think would be really good. But then since that's kind of a more lofty goal, This was an idea we had last term, but it didn't end up happening. We wanted to do civic engagement workshops or classes at Ruth K. Since a lot of us, did everyone here go to Ruth K? Okay, yeah, everyone went to Ruth K, so we all know it. We know during lunch they would sometimes do events, have speakers come in, so I thought that would be a good idea.

And like, initiatives from like the Finance Ed or whatever, like those types of initiatives from Ruth K have gone, or from Beach have gone through, okay? Like it's not unheard of that any council or committee or group go into. And, um... The chair of the Sustainability Committee yesterday, Daniel Deitch, was talking about how if you can get the PTA president on board, if you haven't ended the PTA president, it's easier to push things through. Because last year, to try and do these civic engagement workshops, Ellen and I tried to go through an old teacher we had, Ms. Castillo, I don't know if you guys had her. She was very into it, and we had meetings then, and then she ghosted us.

I remember she would always over-schedule herself, so I imagine that's what happened last year. Just taking it new and loudly this year, so we're not just repeating what we did. I reached out to them last week, and they got back to me really quickly, and I had a Zoom meeting with them on Thursday. essentially what I got was for just the general but the major project that was the workshops that we okay and because I know that they've done events and stuff so I wanted to ask for their guidance and basically they said they're kind of a resource so whatever you need whatever you need like us to advise you with uh we're there for you but they're like we're not here to take credit for your work um so um it's going to be very council oriented I want to definitely take the lead on this. Also, especially since it was something from last term, but obviously if this speaks to you, please, it's a youth council.

Yeah, Ella needs another person. Is anyone interested in civic engagement and going to Ruth K., giving these lectures? Is that anyone's interest? Okay, so Denise and Sophia Vittori. Okay, perfect. Denise, Ella.

So when I had the Zoom meeting with them and I was like, how should I reach out to them? They actually gave a really good idea and I asked what our liaison was and I was like, well, it's Vice Mayor King Paul. And he said, well, it would be pretty... It would work pretty quickly if the vice mayor emailed either the principal, well, probably the principal, or the PTA president, but likely the principal. And so, Vice Mayor, if I could just draft up an email for you as a template, and then you just send that to them, and then just let me know what they say, or copy me on it, and then we can get started with this, and I think that would be a good start to this project. But yeah, we'll see how it goes from there because again, it might be complicated to organize during lunch. They might say, let's do after school stuff. It could be during their, yeah, the seventh grader's civics class. So we'll see what they say. But yeah, just wanted to introduce that. Now we've got two other people on board, which is amazing. And yeah.

The president of the PTA president is in Seoul. We have her email. I remember we emailed her and she didn't answer. But we'll find the emails for you so you don't have to figure it out.

I'll be happy to do it.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so if...

Okay, so... Well, I just have a quick question. So does that mean, like, you guys will be giving talks on civic engagement?

Anyone who's interested can come, yeah. And we actually do have a sample. We have, like, the slides. Like, we made the slides last year. Yeah, I remember.

We did. We'll see what they say. We'll see what they say.

Okay, the youth gathering space.

Yeah, so that's my item. So when I was thinking about this, I was thinking about how our town, we have a community relations board now, and that's a new board in our town, and their goal is to help foster better relations in the community and strengthen the community, and I think the youth in their community are pretty well connected But we don't really have necessarily a central gathering space or even a central gathering event that's very often or very well attended. So we have a community center, which is a great resource, but the youth of our age don't necessarily go there so often or so frequently. So my idea with this wasn't necessarily a set goal or a set space, but maybe to kind of create some either monthly event or every two months, some kind of consistent event where we meet at a space and we invite all the youth of the time to come, and it could be a different kind of activity. So we would have food, we would have drinks, and then we could do a board game night. That's an idea I had, which is kind of corny. um it's the point is to get people together and just get people interacting and talking um because i feel like there are a lot of you know people in the neighborhood who like to meet each other and meet new people um so i kind of wanted to open the floor to that idea and then how other people had ideas of different kind of events we can pursue in that space so yeah i mean that seems like really fun yeah i feel like now i mean i don't know like what age range you're kind of talking about but like high schoolers

even middle schools, high school schools, I feel like, we're kind of very just focused on college. We could have some sort of college-oriented seminar type of thing, but where it's still interactive, where I feel like we could all kind of talk to each other, share our like, experiences yeah and like like I don't know like I'm like I'm like on the board for like the college club at my school so if I could get I mean I keep super busy but our if our college counselor could also come out and help to like talk and like organize it it would be super cool and I feel like that would definitely get a bunch of people to go to that because that's something that people really need I like that and that was an idea that we tried to do last year but we never did it

and I think especially like to maybe launch this recurring series to have this like college aspect to it would be very like I know I would want to go yeah like to learn something or as an underclassmen to hear from your seniors and hear about their like so I think and then and then after like there could also be more of a it's not just learning like it's like but I guess I guess like having these gathering places doesn't always have to be a fun night. It can sometimes be like, a learning night, or like, I know the community are listening for a debate or something.

I agree. I think that a lot of, especially teenagers, when they hear like, town events, they're thinking, oh, like, oh.

Yeah.

Like, something either, not formal, but it just feels kind of like a chore to go to. Like, zero offense. But like, just that, I mean a teenager is gonna wanna go to like AMC or like Menchie's, like they don't wanna go to a town to, they don't wanna connect with their community in that way, in terms of like friendship. So I think that if we start off with events that are a little more catered to like academic, school, town, community, things that are more like on the formal side, it'll actually bring more kids in because they get associated with that side of your life. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking please, spread the word for the community about doing that.

So it seems like the action item on this agenda item is to sort of draft like an idea for this first event, like a when, a where, like what will it consist of, is it going to be a college night or so, who will be invited to come speak, how are we going to get the, so just coming up with like a general idea of what we want the event to look like and how we want to market it. And I think that if we can talk about that at the next meeting and then after that just start, or even before the next meeting and just start planning. And so who is interested in helping Isaac with sort of that? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. I think another thing that would help is like gathering youth. I don't know. This isn't as urgent, but maybe like a youth council Instagram. So it's like targeted towards activities for the youth.

Because not many people follow the actual surf site. And like a lot of stuff is posted on there.

So I think that would help a lot. We tried last year, but they said to sort of, it was like a new council, and they were, like, saying, like, there's, like, some issues with people, but I think it's definitely worth following up, because he did, they were saying, like, once we sort of understand what the new council does, or, like, once it, like, grows or something, like, that could be a potential avenue for exploration. So I think, like, this is, like, this has brought up a lot, so I feel like it's worth following up with. Who would it be? Would it be Frank? Or is it more?

It would be to a manager. Okay. But you could get commission approval. You could get commission approval if needed. Oh, really? Okay, all right.

Wait, then, yeah.

I mean, it's more something that I think the manager would approve.

Do you think we would be allowed to run it ourselves?

We should be, really. Okay.

so so we should like would it be like we can email mark or mr clemson a ccu without work yeah or um i guess i could because i have to email him about the biophilic city so i could email him a recap of the youth council um okay yeah yeah that's awesome um just that yeah just a new concept okay that's really helpful um

One more thing, and I think those are all great ideas, and I think maybe the goal with this in my mind was to establish a precedent of a monthly youth meeting of some kind, and then the meeting can strike a balance between having some fun meetings and really starting out with more educational, academically focused meetings. So if people know, it's the monthly youth meeting, but every meeting is kind of a different topic or theme, and it's at a central youth gathering space, I think it would be really useful. So I think just establishing that precedent of a monthly meeting, and then it also kind of keeps people engaged because it changes every time. And each one is a different topic, or if that's too often, we could do every two months or something like that. I think every two months would be really useful. Yeah, but just something consistent.

I think a good space for that would be the top floor.

Yeah, I agree.

I think that's a good space.

And I think that the Instagram would be really good to really like push towards youth only. Because the search site is like, you know, my parents would look at that. I don't know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't, but my friends wouldn't. I think our youth council Instagram would be a really better option.

Especially if all your friends want to follow and like see what you're doing. Like if we, I don't know, put ourselves on Instagram and stuff.

So, yeah. And if we advertise that there's just going to be free food, then... Yeah, exactly. Don't worry about the kids will come. Exactly.

Or we just tell them we have, like, crumbled cookies or something.

Oh my gosh, that's so weird. Cookies in college.

Cookies in college.

Crumbled cookies. Crumbling. Yeah, exactly.

People don't even care what it's about. It's just crumbled cookies. Yeah. You just have to make it so to get to the crumbly cookies you have to sit through the tar. They're really crumbly to get to, so everyone has to go through the other stuff first.

Just socialize with people and get the cookies.

Yeah, exactly. That was really great. I'm going to go again.

Right, exactly. And we just one point have the food every time.

Okay, your next item.

Yeah, so my next item was a pickleball tournament. So as I said at the last meeting, I kind of briefly discussed this topic. Me, my brother, and my dad, and some local people in the community, like you and Jack, We were making use of the pickleball courts that we have here on the tennis courts. Especially over the summer, we would play every evening or every other evening. It's a great resource that we have, but I know that a lot of youth and a lot of people love to play pickleball, and they find it really fun. So I thought a good idea would be organizing a pickleball tournament for the youth of Surfside and the surrounding areas, like Surfside, Bell Harbor, Bay Harbor, and North Miami Beach or something like that. And I think our goal with this, like we could schedule it either on a weekend, like a Saturday or a Sunday, and then it could be a couple hours, and we could split it up by age range. So we could have like multiple age brackets, so it could be like 9 to 11, 11 to 14, and then like 14 to 18 or something like that. And then we could also even, if we want to, like we could start with youth one, and we could also make an adult bracket too if we wanted to, because then that would just bring in more people. And right now we have two nets. So technically the way we have lines for only two pickleball courts, but there are going to be two pickleball courts per tennis court. So we have three tennis courts, so we could have six pickleball courts. So potentially we could have six games going at one time. We could just get nets just for that day. You can rent pickable nets from places. Because we have two permanent ones, but we could rent nets just for that day. I don't know if that's a possibility. And just temporarily take lines. That's what I was thinking.

It would all depend on the budget, because it would all depend on where the budget would be coming from. Right.

I like that. I think the first... With both of these items, the first maybe... Like, aside from planning out the events, it's definitely, I think, the Instagram, just so that we have a surefire way of communicating to the youth about these events, because if no one knows about them, like, there's not really any point. So I think having the Instagram and then sort of mapping out a general idea of what we want the first, that first recurring event and then this first people tournament to look like, like that's where we should start.

And I think, um, I think the paperball idea is really good. But what I've noticed is, like, for me, I'm really active, like, around surf side, like, bad-ass sports. Um, and I noticed, like, for example, swimming, we have one, like, tournament every year, 4th of July. And I feel like it's starting out, maybe, it doesn't have to be swimming, it could be, like, soccer. I think soccer would be, like, do you think we should, like, do it? I think it's soccer. Even if you're, like, bad, it's still a tournament, like, in the park over there would be really good at it. It's different sports, but I think we should integrate that more into the community for our kids to come and compete. Yeah.

And I think with the youth gathering space, we could also push that out before turning it into a tournament. So we could get awareness and we could do activities like pickleball night, whatever, soccer night, stuff like that, and then start making it into a team. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember there used to be this Easter egg hunt, and the grand prize was this gigantic egg basket. And for the pickleball tournaments or the sports tournaments, I know I would only play if I was offered something. For the little kids as well, because five-year-old me would not be running to play sports unless I was offered a golden egg basket.

A couple of kids. Also, this is generally for any event that we're doing, which applies to the last three agenda items, but especially for youth, I think a major thing with participation here is that a lot of kids have friends outside of our community, and usually when you mention, hey, there's going to be a service item, a bit like, well, do I need to be a service item resident? Can I even come? So what I was just wondering is like usually for the big community events like we have the Thursdays, that's very much resident oriented especially because it also targets like older age groups but maybe we can make an exception for youth events because I would say that is the primary area.

If it's not good through Parks and Rec, we don't need to like only make it for residents, right?

Yeah, I don't know if you guys are going to do those meetings at the park.

The park realistically is public. We don't ask for a piece for them to come to the park.

But do you guys get people from... They're neighboring, yeah, Bay Harbor, Bell Harbor, Sunny Hills.

Or it would be like they're accompanied by a Surfside residence. Yeah, and most of them are going to be your friends. But a park is open to everyone. The community center is the only facility that's more regulated.

You guys could advertise that you're going to have cookies or whatever it may be, but to organize it, you can make it like the first meeting is more you're not going just to eat, you're going to go, you're going to have conversations, you can make it like a question, answer, they answer, poop, throw them a cookie, like, obviously not, like, obviously not everybody's going to get a cookie because they're not going to ask a hundred questions, but at the end, then you can open it up to the courts and now people can grab the like, oh, a hundred percent, yeah, comments. They'll be leaving after the door.

So I'd say in all the advertisements, or all the posters or flyers, say everyone welcome. You don't have to be a resident, especially when, say, if it's the Youth Council, don't worry about it.

Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree. I think maybe even not necessarily calling it Surfside Pickleball Tournament, just calling it Pickleball Tournament, Youth Pickleball Tournament.

Surfside Youth Council, we should do it early on. Surfside Youth Council presents Youth Pickleball Tournament.

Yeah, exactly. I just feel like even having the word Surfside in the beginning makes people immediately think that's what it was. But I also agree having prizes, I think, like the gold tournament, all the sports competitions, I think is a great idea. Yeah, so I think, like, I don't know when we would aim to have that, but I could, like, maybe three or four months. I could see us doing that, or even sooner, two or three months.

Do you three want to take the lead on this one, too? Okay. So Jack, I see. I'm going to take the lead on this one, too. And then I think the last item is yours. Yes. So this kind of ties in with the pickleball, but I wanted to incorporate volleyball courts into your site. And I don't know whether that would be on the beach or in the green space or maybe in the courts if that's allowed. Because I know a lot of my friends, they play volleyball and they have no way to play here because there's just no nets and there's no areas. I was stealing information, inspiration from like all over they have the volleyball courts on the beach, and I think more like South Beach they also have it, and some people it's just a hassle to go all the way over there.

So if anyone has any ideas on how to incorporate that, you know.

Is there a space you have in mind? I was thinking like maybe, I was thinking the beach at first, but also there's not much space there. So maybe the green space, or like having volleyball courts available at the tennis courts.

I don't know if the city of Miami Beach requires certain, I'm sure they require certain permits to build permanent infrastructure, things like that, so I think going temporary would definitely be easier, for sure. I think maybe one thing we can do, so we have the system of the beach chairs. I know you can buy a volleyball net that you can just temporarily set up on the beach, so maybe we can have a new system through the community center On the beach by 93rd, they set up for certain hours of the day during certain days of the week a volleyball net. So from like 4 to 7 on Saturdays and from 4 to 7 on Sundays.

Yeah, that's a really good idea. Wait, so the system would be that people check out a volleyball net?

Yeah. Or they just set it up and it's open for hours.

That's what I was thinking.

I was thinking on 93rd behind the community center.

Oh, okay. I was like, what community center?

Or even on the beach itself, too, to set up the temporary net for those times. We had permission for that in the city.

Those would do the park as well?

Yeah. Oh, no, right there, yeah.

I think a way we could definitely gauge interest for that and launch that is by combining it with your idea of a monthly gathering, like volleyball night, and see if people like it and testing it out that way.

So the three of you can sort of be collaborating. These are all sort of very similar.

We could make a community umbrella and like make them a whole group of us.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Does anyone have anything to add to this idea? Okay, then I just want to just reiterate that please be responding to the group chat, especially now that we sort of have a better understanding of what we're doing, just because it helps us move the process forward. And if you're ever unclear about something, ask the question, call us. We're allowed to talk to each other outside the meeting. We can meet at Starbucks. We can meet anywhere. So I just want to make clear. So if the three of you are working on... this recurring youth gathering space that has to do with sports like pickleball, soccer, and maybe college. And then Denise, Ella, and Sophia, you guys are working on civic engagement with K-Broad. And then internship, I feel like you guys have a lot on your plate with this. I can do internship database with maybe like Sophia. Is that fine? And then are you going to continue with the pollinator? Absolutely. Okay. But now I think I can do it solo, but once I actually get the plan moving, I'm definitely going to need help. Awesome. Okay. So then wait. Well, I don't mean you do internships. You have two things.

Okay. I'm sorry. Who would be doing the internship?

So internship will be Denise and Lucia. And Ella. Oh, I could add the national sub-advocate. Yeah. Okay. So Denise, Lucia, Ella. Oh, my gosh.

Wait, we should add scholarships onto that.

Scholarships, scholarships.

Oh, also, for the civic engagement, you guys, I'll be, in my next email to the organization, I'll cc you guys. We're going to say, oh, these are the other team members working on us. And then you guys don't have to worry about answering anything. Just ask any questions and cc you on everything.

So everyone understands what we're doing. I'll send all these notes once they make more sense. Sorry.

so like what we are doing in terms of the all like our three items that we're all working together on is we're going to come up with like our like concrete proposals for all three and then bring those to the next meeting i would say i would say focus on like in terms of like the sports nights focus on whether you want to start volleyball pickleball or soccer and then because i think that's a separate thing

or like that could be a separate event from this college event.

Does that make sense?

And I can't I'll be part of the community so I can help solidify what action items need to be hopefully done by the next meeting. But yeah, just generally drafting an idea of those two things. And then we'll hopefully hear back about the social media, the Instagram, by the next meeting.

So yeah, like picking a space. What time would it be? How often? When? Where?

What kind of food? Yeah, what's it going to cost? How many food? I have a question. So

If we wanted to do like sponsorships for like, for example, food for those activities, would we be able to?

So we have a budget. We have $5,000, so depending. So with that in mind, like we obviously want to spend as little money as possible, but we do have money to like spend. So that could be on prizes, on food. We don't really need to pay for space. So don't charge rent.

So just like how much the food's gonna cost, but we do have that budget to work with.

So the next meeting is gonna be, oh, did you guys all see Angie's email about it moving to October 2nd? Is it gonna be complex? I haven't had time to check. Okay.

Okay. It's because Yom Kippur is that night, so we didn't realize, so we just wanted to move it to the second, which is the next day.

Okay. That's the night before Yom Kippur. That's what I wasn't sure about.

It's the night of Yom Kippur. So we're moving to the second which will be the day after.

So just whenever you guys know what your schedules are, just respond to that email.

I just want to say I think we have a really good ratio of like long-term... No, it's actually second's not good.

It begins on the first and ends on the second. Yeah.

Oh, I'm not... I can't... Yes, and then... We can...

Because Tuesday we have a commission meeting, so that would be about it. And then... The 30th. So that will be the day before. And then Sukkot starts from the 6th all the way to the 13th.

Which is this?

Sukkot. Sukkot.

But only the first two days are technically.

We try to stay away from the whole week. So the 9th to the 13th?

The 6th to the 13th. So we try to stay away the whole holiday.

Okay, so September 29th. So we can do September 29th. That's a Monday. Okay. I think earlier is better than later. So it's either September 29th or like September or October 14th.

We have, we're actually moving, trying to move resort tax to 14. So we're going to have to be very, very super tight of a month.

So September 20th, I think this is.

Yeah, it's on Monday at 5.30. Okay. Will that be okay?

That works for me. I mean, if you guys have, well, Angie, would you send another email just to remind us? Yeah, we'll do tomorrow. Okay. So then, yeah, that works.

I wanted to remind you guys one last thing. Make sure you look at our emails and respond to our emails. We do have a couple of you guys that are not responding, especially when we ask for attendance. And that we just don't know. Yeah, we just don't know who's coming, who's not coming. So we want to make sure that we have one for the recent forum. And two, to just make sure that we know that you're here so we can place a knife out of your, what we tell you in the meetings. But, you know, so we have a seat for you.

Okay, so I'll link the WhatsApp communities, but just in the general chat, you guys can, you know, text or email us. motion to adjourn what was your favorite