There islassic everywhere. We had to reduce our exposure. We washed our gear more often, we didnt take gear where we were eating or sleeping. We started decontaminating ourselves at the fire scene after the fire was out. Going back to the fire station and then taking a shower. I have taught, worked on the decontamination policy to be sure that gets through. It is not if or when. It is who is the next person. It is like a cancer sniper out there. Who is going to get it next. One of the things i love about the Fire Department. It is always a team effort. You are my family. I love the city and department and i love being of service. I vow to work hard to work hard to carry out the vision of the San FranciscoFire Department and to move us forward in a positive way. If i were to give a little advice to women and queer kids, find people to support you. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying. You never know what door is going to open next. You really dont. [cheers and now it is time to introduce our two emcees, our two little elves, sam and jess. Where are you . Hi, everyone. Dont you all look great. We are so excited to be here. We are so excited. It is my very first Tree Lighting ever. We are from the north pole official Tree Lighting committee my name is pippin i have been working for santa for 313 years. And today, this is blues very first christmas Tree Lighting. It is anybody else first christmas Tree Lighting . Oh, my gosh. Your first one, too. This will be so exciting. Are you ready . [cheers and applause] before we start anything, we have to do our if you want to do stretches with us, you can go ahead and stand up and follow along. We have to do our stretches to prepare for the christmas Tree Lighting. You can go ahead and stand up or adjust to it while you are sitting down. Whatever works for you. Here we go. Snowflake. Stir the cocoa. Stir the cocoa. Stir the cocoa. Candy canes. Toboggan. Finally, sugarplum fairy. Christmas. That was good. We are all warmed up. You guys were great. I feel ready. Do you feel ready . Wonderful. Before we begin tonight, a big thank you to the civic centre c. B. D. Off the grid and the Parks DepartmentParks Department for planning tonight s event. [cheering] and to our artistic director and his amazing lineup of performers [cheering] and a big special thank you to the Christmas Fair. The Christmas Fair runs every weekend now until december 22nd at the palace. Enter the winding lanes of victorian london and immerse yourself in the world of music calls, theatres, pubs, dance parties and charming shops overflowing with holiday treasures. Discover holiday revelry for the imagination of Charles Dickens and the saucy world of the victorian stage. It is a fantastic journey back in time celebrating the most magical time of the year. Christmas oh, boy. Im so excited. Are you . Yes. All right. Wow. It is really pretty here. It is. It sure is. Where are we . We are in beautiful San Francisco. It might not be as snowy and white as the north pole, but it seems like people around here get into the holiday spirit. In fact, hit it. [ ] [singing] [singing] [singing] you look great. [ ] wawa. Wow. [ ] oh, boy. [singing] [singing] [singing] thank you. Wow. Thank you so much. How do you say we get this Party Started . I think we should. It is time to introduce our very first performer tonight. Get ready. The tap dancing Christmas Tree will show us some moves. Over the past 29 years, the tap dancing Christmas Trees have performed in americas holiday parade, the nile parade, the napa valley parade, the Hollywood Christmas parade, and will be returning once again to the palm springs festival of lights parade. Their fifth appearance in may sees parade in new york in 2016 featured them with the muppets. Wow. Welcome them to the stage, the Christmas Tree tappers. [cheers and applause] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Merry Christmas [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] i beg you, open your eyes. [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [cheers and applause] wow. Wasnt that phenomenal . Lets give it another round of applause for the Christmas Tree tappers. They can really dance. Before we keep going tonight, we would like to give a big special thank you to tonights sponsor. Redwood credit. They have a beautiful new branch a few blocks away from here. And we have a number of redwood folks here tonight, as well as the banks mascot. Thank you for sponsoring tonight s festivities, especially santas maker village and our next acts are the poet athletes of america scores. These students usually come to civic centre in their soccer jerseys to play in their weekly soccer game, but not today. Today they are wearing their finest holiday sweaters. They made them themselves. Our young poets come from americas scores program. The Civic Centre Plaza is there homefield. They usually play for gold, but tonight is all about poetry and spreading christmas joy. Please welcome america scores [cheers and applause] my name is elin and i am from reading elementary. My name is hannah and im also a fourthgrader. My name is jordan and i am in the fifth grade. We are poets from reading elementary. [cheers and applause] we wrote personification poems. It is a type of figurative language. It is when writers turn non human beings into life forms. With these poems, we become emotion. Two emotion say or do if they were human . Let us show you. I am guilts. I wonder if people will ever forgive themselves. I hear your regrets and your doubts. I see you hiding your tears behind a fake smile. I am sorrow. I wonder if i can be cured like the flu. I hear your tears dripping on the floor as loud as ocean waves crashing onto the shore. I see you trying to i hang on to your heart. I am empathy. I wonder what would happen if i did not exist. I hear with whispers but feel them for myself so you dont have to. I am guilts. I keep you up at night. I pretend to be fine but i am not. I feel your embarrassment coursing down your veins. I touch your sorrow across your heart. I worry if i will be forgotten. I cry for you. I am sorrow. I feel your misery every second. I touch the broken heart in your body and it feels like a cracked phone bone. I worried you will abandon me just like grief. I cry because you might replace me. I am empathy. I see your cries as powerful as the ocean. I feel like i will absorb it. I hear laughs seeping into the air and you breathe me in. I want tears but smiles as well. I am guilts. I fester in your body, spreading slowly and control your being. I will not stop you from feeling me. I try to tried to stay but i cant. I am sorrow. I know you dont like me, but try to understand me. I say you should focus on sadness as much as happiness. I dream i am loved by you. I try to make myself part of your life. I am empathy. I care even when you dont. I feel your pain through the toughest times. My hands trembled when you are disappointed and my heart bursts when you are excited. My eyes widen and people grow when you feel love. I hope you remember me, but secretly i want you to let me go so you are free. I understand that you dont like me, but i will always be with you. I am sorrow and i want you to know that you need me to feel alive. I touch your sorrow and try to transform it into happiness. I cry every time you lie. I am empathy. I understand how you feel and i know how you feel and hope you depend on me for everything. We are love and we live inside each other and each of you. Emotions make you feel deeply and we make your hearts fuller. Happy holidays. We wish you to embrace this. Love, the season, and spread us all around. Thank you. [cheers and applause] [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [singing] [indiscernible] the twin going twinkling lights on the tree type of lights. They filled our streets. Once we get hit, let the fiesta begins. Food and family, culture, everybody wins. [speaking spanish] those are the lyrics to the city jingle. Can you hear it . Can you hear our song . It sounds like babies laughing and joining along. [indiscernible] bay bridge to golden gate. Everyone saying our song. Can you hear us . Like the sound of cars honking. From one block to the next, we sing with everyone from everywhere. [indiscernible] whether you wear an apron, a brown hat or a hardhat. Come on and sing with us. The city jingle will have you jingling and mingling. Can you hear it . It is pretty catchy. [indiscernible] the city jingle makes you move. Can you hear it . You can. Singalong. This city jingle can never go wrong. [cheers and applause] lets give another big round of applause. They play soccer and write poems how cool is that . All right. They are hosting an event this friday. All are welcome. For more info or to rsvp, go to their website. And now we are pleased to introduce six fabulous performers from move school. The theatre education program. They perform a medley of timeless holiday classics by classics by ervin burling. I love that one. Now playing through december 22nd at the gateway theatre. Welcome to the stage. [cheers and applause] [ ] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [singing] [ ] [singing] [singing] [singing] [cheers and applause] lets give another big round of applause for moon school. [cheers and applause]. Werent they wonderful . They were so wonderful. I love all of those songs. Our next act has appeared on national and international television. They have toured internationally to england, argentina, and mexico. Ages seven, 10, 11, and 13. Here they are. The most musically talented siblings, stars aligned [indiscernible] [ ] [ ] [cheers and applause] [ ] [ ] [cheers and applause] [ ] [ ] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] all right, it is a very, very special time of night. Are we ready . I think we are ready. Oh, boy. Time to light the Christmas Tree . Are you ready to light the Christmas Tree . [cheering]. We have to get some special guests up here tonight. Are special guests include phil ginsberg, general manager of the San Francisco recreation and Parks Department, Naomi Campbell and walking torres. And our San Francisco mayor, london breed. [cheers and applause] [ ] [indiscernible] all right, everyone. It is time for a christmas countdown. Here we go. Loud and proud. We have to get our special christmas Tree Lighting plunger. It is my first time. I forgot about the plunger. Thank you so much. Dont drop it, dont drop it. There we go. For you, miss mayor. [cheers and applause]. All right. Lets get a countdown started from five,. Here we go. Do you want to come up and help . We need some people to help the mayor. Come on up. Oh, boy. We are all here. We are ready. You have to help me now. Are you ready . Are we starting from 10 . Weve got it. Lets do it. Countdown from 10. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. [cheers and applause] [ ] thank you so much for all your help. Thank you for so much for all your help, everyone. Hi, how are you . Mary christmas to you good morning, everyone. Hello. I am the site manager here as the new childs development center. [cheers and applause] it gives me so much pleasure to say welcome and thank you for being here today. For braving the rain and making it here anyway. Without further do, i would like to introduce the master of ceremony, she does not need any more introduction. Lets put our hands together and welcome the mayor of the city and county of San Francisco, mayor london breed. [cheers and applause] thank you. I am really, really excited to be here. Last year i was able to attend the grand opening of Natalie Graham commons and it was absolutely amazing. Some of you know the history of Natalie Grubb and the work that she did to help create the Tax Credit Program that allows for opportunity to invest in Affordable Housing like this one that we are standing in and her family was here. It was a great occasion. 120 families of low income are living in this property as we speak. And today, when we open this preschool, they will be prioritized for the slots in this location, which is absolutely exactly what we should be doing in San Francisco how incredible is that . [applause] so im joined here by number of great people and i like to see the young people already playing this place isnt opening until next week, but they decided they wanted to try the place out. That is why they are here today. This new transbay Child Development center is a welcome addition to this Community Thanks to the citys childcare Facility Fund and also, a special thank you to mimi and peter. Mimi here is speak a little bit later. We are so grateful for that Publicprivate Partnership that allows for an opportunity to create Amazing Spaces like this for our children to grow and to thrive. This is the third Child Development center operated by the south of market childcare. So we are appreciative of the work they are doing in this community to provide these opportunities. Highquality childcare, educational services, and free support for families in the south of market neighborhood and throughout San Francisco where we know we have so many children and families. I am really excited about the features. You all look at the beautiful colors, the tiny tables with the chairs that none of us fit in, the bathrooms, the play areas, a place that not only is very beautiful, but promotes creativity and has an incredible learning environment. On world childrens day last month, i, along with president of the board of supervisors announced that we in San Francisco are launching the child and youth friendly city initiative. We are pledging to be a child friendly city and we want to make sure that young people have a safe and healthy environment to grow and to thrive. It is time we start taking care of young people in all parts of San Francisco. It starts with Early Childhood education. Ingrid is here who is the director of the Early Childhood education for the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you for joining us. Earlier this week, under the leadership of president yee, we created a new Stipend Program called carers to. 0 to support two support the early educators because we know one of the Biggest Challenges we have is recruiting and retaining preschool teachers. I experienced this firsthand when we opened a brandnew childcare facility in west point it was promised to that community and they have such a hard time recruiting preschool teachers. We can do better. We need to do better to support the educators who are educating our children. That is why i am really excited about that program as well. [applause] but we are going to go even further. And next year we will hold a child and youth summit in San Francisco to really bring together people and experts and others to begin to have a conversation about how we do a better job as a city with taking care of not just our children, but everybodys children. Other kids who may not have those parents or grandparents or Community Members who are looking out for their best interest. We have to do a better job in investing in kids that often times are neglected and forgotten and not getting the resources that they need and deserve to grow and thrive. This is personal for me as someone who grew up raised by my grandmother in Public Housing and have seen the devastating impacts of neglect. So many of the people that i grew up with and it up, unfortunately in very different situations and i should be the norm and not the exception and so we have to commit to now, today to do a better job for our kids and it starts with our summit and the number of investments that we are making to start to support our young people early in their lives. So with that, i want to thank each and every one of you for being here. Thank you to nadine who you will hear from in a minute. The ring the Mayors Office of housing and Community Development in the office of early care and education. Mercy housing and the architects for this project, santos priest got who was instrumental in this project. It is absolutely beautiful and we are grateful. Thank you for to the contractor. Thank you to make me haas who is joining us here today who is the president of the mimi and p. But peter hoss fund. It does take a village. This village came together to make something magical happened and i am so looking forward to doing more projects like this to change what is normal in San Francisco. Having access to affordable child care for all families. Whether you are low or middle income to create to make sure kids have the kind of environments while they grow and thrive. This is just the beginning and i am excited to partner with the next speaker. President with the board of supervisors, norman he, who is ready really like the childcare king. Let me tell you. This man, when we came onto the board of supervisors together and every single instance he had already been the person who had advocated to make sure that with development there were resources for childcare with anything that we were doing, whether it was Holding People accountable to think about childcare and how we provide resources for young people, he was at the forefront of those conversations and so i am excited that we have come full circle with the fees from developments being used for purposes like this. That is what is making some of this happen. So we are able to do that with the hardworking leadership from the president president of the board of supervisors. [applause] thank you. I like to think that i play a role in some of the staff and part of it is i am just one person and many of you in this room have been in this battlefield for decades and this is really, to me, the results of all those battles we had over the 40 years i have been involved in this field. I am really thrilled to be here. When i walked through here today , i kept on thinking, every child, every toddler, every preschooler should have the same opportunity and this quality environment. And of course, the south of market childcare is really the ideal organization to operate this. Not only are they won of the best quality Early Education organizations in the city, with their commitment to this area, to the south of market area pre sees almost everybody in this room. They have been here for 40 or 50 years and ive worked with them through many of those years and seen them grow and wanting to serve the people who live in this community. Thank you to their organization. And again, mayor breed think a lot of organizations that made this happen pick it really does take a village. I think this village came together from this. One of those important persons that is part of this village is mimi hoss. I really admire her for ongoing, never giving up, support of Early Education in San Francisco thank you, mimi. [applause] even the kids know that. It has been my lifes work. I work in this field as an educator and also an executive director of one of the larger childcare providers or Early Education providers in San Francisco for over 15 years. That i have seen, what i have seen over the years is the need to constantly advocate for more resources. Early educators are underpaid and unfortunately the state has not been able to keep up with its investments. As a city, we have invested in creating an entire office of early care and education dedicated millions to sustain our child provider workforce. And most recently as mayor breed mentioned, i really want to commend her for supporting this notion of the program. It is something that i played a role in many years ago in creating the program. And at the time, it was earth shattering for it to happen. It is something that the rest of california followed right after we did it and i was telling a story to somebody, i have forgotten now, but two months ago, i was approached by a young lady, probably under 20 something. She said, hi, i remember you. You were santa when i was in preschool and i said wow. Why would a preschooler remember that . And she said, no, because my mother, joy, told her when she was growing up that it was the program that she was ready to leave the field. And because of that program she stuck it out. I think she is retired now, but she stuck it out for many more years. That is what we need to do in San Francisco is support our teachers, our early educators who really are the most important people when it comes to education of our children in San Francisco. Thank you very much again. I would like to say that i never get a chance to talk about Early Education enough. It is never enough. We are seeing a slight increase in our Young Children population number one issue i hear all the time from families and parents is that, you know, Early Education is inaccessible and unaffordable in San Francisco. Mayor breed and i announced that we were taking the challenge to be truly a child and youth friend friendly city that Centers Children at our policy and planning decision. One of the easiest ways to ensure that that every neighborhood, every housing, every project provides adequate space for childcare. I have been around for so long. I could talk about history a lot there was a downtown Childcare Development fee or plan that was brought to San Francisco over 25 years ago by some of my predecessors on the board of supervisors. And through the years we have realized, if we needed 10, all we got from that was two sense. It was just really inadequate. One of the things i looked at was to increase what we call the childcare fees for development and that helped a little bit. It wasnt enough. That wasnt enough. And in mayor breeds budget this year, we actually put in more funding for childcare facilities and that is why we are able to afford to build these facilities for our children. On the board, every developer knows, any developers here . Every developer knows by now or at least many years ago, if you come into the office about a new development, that they better have the response to how they would address the childcare shortage in San Francisco, otherwise dont come into my office. I hope to see more ceremonies like this and i am also hopeful that the initiative will finally be implemented so that families are provided subsidies to cover the high cost of Early Education it is something we are waiting for. I am sure we will win in the courts. We will get every low income family off the waiting list. About 2500. We also will help another 2500. I am really, really excited that the dream of having universal Early Education will eventually happen. Right, mimi . Yes. This is about investing in the future. What people often dont realize is how much investing in early years of a childs life is really the best way for us to address the social inequities so many that so many of our communities are facing. If you are talking about working upstream, then we must urgently show parental care or prenatal care. Our future really depends on it in this city. This is why the child and Youth Friendly Initiative that everyone is talking about is so critical. It is about thinking differently about the way we grow our city. And if we design what with children in mind, we truly design something that is universal universally safe and vibrant for everyone. Imagine early care and education being a basic service for every family regardless of income. Imagine child friendly spaces on every block so youth can safely explore the city . Imagine streets are designed so even a preschooler can go across imagine Housing Units like the ones above us, and every development so that families can expand and adapt with their changing needs. The opportunities are endless and i am ecstatic to join mayor breed and organizing the 2020 child and youth summit so to bring together our best partners from the Business Community of philanthropy, youth, advocates, parents, and residents to reimagine what San Francisco can and should be for the children, youth, and families. Thank you very much. [applause] now i would like to bring up your best supervisor in this district, best just best supervisor, matt haney. Thank you. First of all, speaking of the best, i dont think there has ever been a bigger, more effective champion for Early Childhood education then president norman g. Can we give him one more round of applause we from before he was on the school board to when he was on the school board, and now as a supervisor this has been such a huge priority for him. He had about three more pages of things to say. That shows how much leadership he has shown on this. Thank you for your leadership, mayor breed. Not just for the center, but for the larger initiative. Thank you to all of you. Thank you to all of the staff and educators who are here. Thank you for not just this center, but for all of the children that you servend