Recommendation to receive and file a presentation on the 2nd Annual Long Beach/Stepping in the Right Direction College Fair to be held on Saturday, November 14 at the Long Beach Convention Center's Seaside Room.
There's a lot of public interest on the hearing. That's first on the agenda. There's been a request to do two quick items right before we're going to do those briefly. So let me do item 22, Councilman Austin, if you want to take that away. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I wanted to highlight a big event happening this weekend at the Long Beach Convention Center. I want to thank you and my colleagues for allowing me to take a few minutes to highlight this. I'm pleased to once again co-sponsor the second annual Long Beach stepping in the right direction, a black college fair that will take place this Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Long Beach Convention Center Seaside Ballroom. Last year we had well over 1000 participants from throughout Southern California attend and learn about college opportunities at historically black colleges and universities across the nation, as well as Cal State, Long Beach and Long Beach City College. I see this as one more piece in Long Beach as efforts to ensure the college promise and an opportunity there to expose many students to some outstanding institutions of higher learning. I would especially like to thank Pacific Gateway Workforce Investment Network for their partnership once again to make this event possible. We also have generous sponsorships from the Port of Long Beach and from the McDonald's Operators Association of Southern California. I'd like to introduce Nicole Ford of stepping in right in the right direction. Who is driving? Who is the really the driving force behind this event? And she is quite a spark plug. And she she's and you're here to tell us a little bit about the event. Nicole Yes. Thank you so much for having me tonight. I'm really excited about the second annual Long Beach Black College Fair. Last year was my first opportunity to really get into Long Beach and be part of the community, and I actually love it out here. I've had the opportunity to work with Councilman Austin's office, who has really been very supportive, as well as working with the Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach City College, as well as Cal State Long Beach as well. Last year was amazing. We had again well over 1200 people who actually came out to the event. We had McDonald's there giving out smoothies. We had over 60 historically black colleges and universities present as well as we had about 20 organizational resources that were there. This year, we're going to have even more schools, more resources, as well as we're going to make sure that we also have workshops that are going to be provided in the science, technology, engineering and math programs, which is a really big thing right now in most of our high school students going into college because they give lots of scholarship money if you go into those areas. So we are really excited about, again, having the program here this year. Again, we hope to again do it for our third annual next year as well too, because this city is awesome. We've partnered with the Hyatt Pike across the street from the Convention Center, so we're going to be having a mixer afterwards for all of our alumni recruiters who are going to be coming out to the event as well, too. So I just want to thank again the city of Long Beach City Councilman Al Austin for really believing in this program and supporting me and my vision and helping a lot of our minority students go to college into higher education, because without higher education, what are they going to really be doing? And so, again, thank you so much for inviting me here tonight. And I look forward to having everyone come out this weekend, Saturday, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Long Beach Convention Center. Again, thank you so much, Councilman Ellis. And thank you, Nicole. Let's give her a big round of applause. Nicole is also joined by Tasha Hunter of Long Beach City College, who is the coordinator for the development African-American professionals. We have a number of students who will be volunteering at our event this Saturday. So I want to thank you for your your support of the event in Long Beach City College, as well as we have Sarah Richmond from the McDonald's Professional Operators Association. Thank you for being here as well. Casey, did you guys have something you want to add? Yes. I wanted to say thank you for having us. And I wanted to let it be known that this is something very important for our students. I work at Long Beach City College and the outreach and recruitment department, but particularly the visor of deaf, which stands for developing African-American professionals. And this is very important for our students to recognize the resources that they have at Long Beach City College, at Cal State, Long Beach, and also have the opportunity to have HBCUs right here in Long Beach for them to see all the different opportunities that they have. So I'm thankful that Councilman Austin for bringing this in the second year city of Long Beach and to Nicole Fort. And not only do we have these wonderful organizations and many other community partners, I wouldn't be remiss if I did not give a shout out to my fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, who will be in the house, as well as Rex Richardson and many other elected officials who will be joining us, as well as support of this event . We want to see it grow every year. Thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you Saturday. Well, thank you all very much. If there's no other public comment outside the presentation. Okay. See now. Yes, please. Before. Thank you. Just wanted to say a quick thank you as well. To echo Nicole and Natasha's sentiment. Thank you to Long Beach into Councilman Al Austin on behalf of the Southern California McDonald's operators and specifically those here in Long Beach. Of course, very important for McDonald's to be able to to provide materials and opportunities and resources for ethnic students who may not have them, you know, otherwise in pursuit of higher education. So, again, thank you. We're very excited to be back and thank you for the opportunity. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. There's a motion and a second on this item second. But Councilman Richardson and I may turn over now to the second, Councilman Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilman Austin, I just want to say what a fantastic job you're doing with this. There's a you know, I've heard great things about this program I wasn't able to attend last year. I'm going to do my best to make it this year. But I just want to say to and I think they're leaving, but I want to say to the the guests there, you know, it may not look like it now, but maybe £60 ago I was stepping stepping in the right direction. I only do it now to entertain my my ten month old daughter. But but likewise, I'm a partner to Councilmember Alston, so let me know whatever support you might need. Moving on. Thank you. Councilwoman Gonzales. I too. Before you leave, just wanted to say congratulations and to Councilman Austin for doing this. Will be pushing this out in downtown, in the first District to make sure that everybody knows about this. So great work. Thank you. And finally, Councilmember Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. As a 14 year former community college trustee. I really love the importance that Councilmember Austin is putting to this. Education is is a big issue. It's obviously our future. And I want to thank him and everybody who's going to be who's helping him in putting this together, that it's a wonderful event. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. With that, there's a motion and a second receiving part of the report. Please cast your votes. Me. Vice Mayor Lowenthal. Councilman Andrews. What about motion carriers? Okay. I am 19.