City Council - Government Operations Committee Hearing on Docket #1434

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Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. I'm so happy to see almost a full chambers here. This is great. Thank you, everybody, so much for your enthusiasm and your participation. For the record, my name is Gabriela Coletta Zapata, District 1 City Councilor. and I'm the chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Government Operations. Today is October 27th, 2025, and the exact time is 2.05. This hearing is being recorded. It is also being livestreamed at boston.gov forward slash city dash council dash tv. and broadcast on Expeditie Channel 8, RCN Channel 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.gov. at boston.gov and will be made a part of the record and available to all Councillors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. individuals will be called on in the order in which they signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. And if you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison Megan Cavanagh at meghan.cavanagh. at boston.gov for the link, and your name will be added. Today's hearing is on docket 1434, ordinance codifying the Office of Youth Engagement and Investment, oh my god, Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement, The matter was sponsored by Councilors Henry Santana, John Fitzgerald, and Ben Weber, and was referred to the committee on August 6, 2025. Today, I am joined by my colleagues in order of their arrival. Lead Sponsor, Councillor Santana, Councillor Flynn, and Councillor Fitzgerald. I'll now go to my colleagues in that order for any opening remarks. Councillor Santana, you have the floor.

Good afternoon and thank you, Chair Coletta Zapata. It's just great to see the chamber today filled with many youth advocates, leaders, and youth themselves here. I think it's just a testament of How important this office has been since its establishment and just honored to be able to have this conversation today. Since OEI was established two years ago, it's become a cornerstone of our community, uplifting our youth, engaging them in citywide policy issues, and connecting them with opportunities and resources. Our businesses and partners are collaborating with OYEAH in increasing numbers while our youth are relying on it for connection to available services and opportunities. The office is a staple in the community, and codifying it would ensure that our youth will have long-term access to these important resources. What OEI does, more than just connect our youth to jobs, and other civic platforms. It shows our youth that they belong here in Boston, that we want their contributions, and that we know that they're a valuable part of the city's fabric. In a world in which all youth are often kept out of the rooms where decisions are made, resources like OEI are critically necessary. They give youth access to resources specifically designed for them, give them forums where They can be spoken over and connect them with employers that want to uplift their voices and cultivate their talents. Codifying OEA will give the youth the assurance that the resources they rely on will continue to be there when They need them. And definitely want to give a shout out to my co-sponsors, Councilor Fitzgerald and Councilor Weber. But when I introduced this over a month ago, this was something that was brought up from my youth council. Santana's youth force they said they wanted to create policy and they wanted to introduce something on my behalf and I gave them the free range to to figure out what that looks like and this is the topic that they chose right and this directly came from The 15 youth that I had working this past summer, it just goes to show that this is an office that our youth are connected to and that they want to see it here for the long haul. So I'm excited about the conversation. Special title to both Chief and Director here. Two individuals that I have tremendous respect for and have just been doing so much work for our youth, on behalf of our youth, and I can't think of two better individuals to lead this work. So thank you for being here, and thank you, Councilor Coletta Zapata.

Thank you, Councilor Santana. Councilor Flynn?

Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to the sponsors for bringing this forward. Councilor Santana, Councilor Fitzgerald, Councilor Weber. Also like Councilor Santana mentioned, mentioned Pedro Cruz, who is the executive director of the office. But prior to that, I worked with Pedro at Villa Victoria and saw the important work and leadership you provided not just in Villa Victoria or throughout the south end but really throughout the city of Boston and continue that work as a professional and dedicated city employee and it's great to see you Thank you very much. They have an invaluable voice. They're leaders of the city and they need to be part of the future of Boston. Honored to work with you and so many other young people across the city. I might be a little older than a lot of the young people, but at one time I was a young person. But just want to say thank you to the important work this office does every day. It's about bringing people together. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Fitzgerald?

Thank you, Chair. You know, without this office, the reality is, and even though that, you know, it was only created, its mission has been around for quite some time and the mission that you carry on. The both of you. And I consider myself a product of that mission having been on the Mayor's Youth Council back in, not to date myself like Councilor Flynn, but back in the late 90s, right, when I was in high school. and representing my neighborhood and seeing where it is today to go from the Mayor's Youth Council to the actual City Council. I mean, that's what this is all about, right? I mean, it's having that engagement at a young age and I think It's not hyperbole to say it could be the most important work that is done because everything else that is done at our level, if we do not engage the next generation, Then what is it for and who is carrying it forward for us from here? And so not to put any pressure on you, Pedro, right? Just the youth of the city of Boston is, you know, the future is in your hands. But it's the truth because it's not just about keeping the youth busy and saying let's make sure they're active and they're not getting into any other situations and just making sure we're You know, we're not having idle hands. It's about teaching them the importance that every decision and everywhere you look Growing up as an adult, as a youth, no matter what, politics plays a role in what you are doing. Every stop sign you stop at, there was a call to make that stop sign get there, right? And so for the youth to understand the importance and the capability that they have at their fingertips to go forward and then put it into use, Again, I don't really think there's anything more important. I know Councilor Santana has always been so big for our youth, as have Councilors Zapata and Flynn as well. We are all products of Thank you. Thank you. A fantastic hearing to have, to hear Pedro, what you and all you've done, and Chief and Lindsay as well at OYA. It's in the right hands. I'm proud of it, proud to be a product of it, and hope that there are many more to come. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Fitzgerald. And that's a really powerful thing. I didn't realize that. But everybody sitting on the floor right now, I think, Boston Youth Programming here and I think that's an incredible demonstration so thank you for calling that out. We have two absence letters one from one of the Ben Weber, who wanted me to read this fully into the record. Dear Chair Coletta Zapata, I regret to inform you that I will not be able to attend today's hearing on this docket, as the hearing is at the same time as the grand opening of the Youth Centre at the Mildred Haley Apartments in Jamaica Plain. Please note that my staff will be in attendance and will take notes during today's hearing. I will also follow up with any questions I may have. I ask that you read this absence letter into the record. And then we also have and absence letter from Council President Ruth C. Louijeune as well. We'll pass it over to you folks in just a second, but I did want to take this moment to say and provide my own opening comments. I think at 32, I'm no longer a youth, I do categorize myself as youth adjacent and so now in my youth or in my allyship I will do everything I can to make sure that the youth in the city have every resource they could get to reach their fullest potential. We always talk about trying to Recruit and retain talent here in Boston, we have the talent here. We are so rich in that way where our talent pool and our kids are, I think, they are obviously our future. but they are future city councillors, future chiefs, directors and I think that the codification of this office ensures that it is in law and this will be a priority moving forward. So with that, I'll pass it over to Chief for any opening remarks you may have.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, and good afternoon, Councilor Coletta Zapata, Santana, Councilor Flynn, Councilor Fitzgerald, it's an absolute pleasure to be here with you all this afternoon. For the record, my name is Jose Maso, and I am the Chief of Human Services here for the City of Boston. I'm joined today by my colleague, Pedro Cruz, who's the Executive Director of the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. Pedro will follow me to provide a deep dive on the impressive work that the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement has been able to accomplish in just a short few years. The Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement sprang from the decision back in 2022 to transition the youth jobs program to the newly formed Work Empowerment Cabinet. At the time, that program once known as SuccessLink was part of the Youth Engagement and Employment, or YEE. During that transition, I advocated for our cabinet to retain the youth engagement programs at YEE, including the Mayor's Youth Council, and the Youth Lead the Change Participatory Budgeting Program. Thanks to the Mayor's leadership and her forthright commitment to engaging youth in the city government. We were able to keep those programs and build the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement around these core legacy programs. My vision for OYE was to have a department that was focused on fostering the development of youth in Boston. Department that would represent youth, youth workers, and the youth development ecosystem at City Hall, where youth could call if they needed to be connected to resources, and where they would be heard if they had a concern. We envisioned an office that would host welcoming and inclusive events for young people, including the annual Mayor's Youth Summit. We wanted the department to not only represent to youth concerns, but to proactively reach out to youth to find out how the city could better serve them. To lead this department as its inaugural executive director, I chose a longtime colleague, a mentee of mine, and close friend, Pedro Cruz, who has spent his entire career in youth development. What Pedro and his team have done in the short three years since OYE was created exceeds my wildest dreams. He is a visionary leader who commands the respect of other leaders in the youth development space, as well as the future leaders who participate in his programs. He's somebody I've had the pleasure of knowing for the past 24 years. And what I would say, Pedro back at the age of 12 was just a glimpse of the Pedro who he is now. And I'm just honored to see him leading at this capacity and at this time. He has built a highly functioning team that meets young people where they are and proactively seeks out opportunities to fill gaps that are identified. and he's always innovating, finding ways to get the work done through partnership and collaboration. I feel truly blessed to be where we are today and I see almost infinite possibilities for what OYE can and will do in the future. I am grateful that this council was similarly impressed by Executive Director Cruz and his team. Thanks again to everyone who was with us today in the chambers. I'll now turn it over to my friend and colleague, Pedro Cruz, to share his opening statement.

Appreciate you, Chief. First of all, I want to start off just by introducing myself. For those who might not know me, my name is Pedro Cruz. I'm the Executive Director of the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. It's been nothing short of an honor to be able to serve on this capacity for the city. On behalf of the young people, I want to thank all the counselors present here today for supporting this work. I think we all agree and we all share that we are a product of this work. As mentioned earlier, so I want to thank every single one of you for the support, not just today, but throughout the last two and a half years. I feel like I worked with you guys one way or another. to support all the neighborhoods across this city. I want to thank Chief Jose Marceau for your trust and your support and your leadership. I want to thank my team who's here today for all the work and the dedication and all the hours. Definitely nothing that I could have done by myself, to be honest. I want to thank all the community leaders that are present today that are also part of the work and really are out there, like I always say, in the mud doing the real work. And again, it's been nothing but an honor to serve on this capacity. I'm really excited to share the work that we've done. These last two and a half years. Next slide, please. So the next one's just really to kind of put it in terms of where do we live in the city. So we're under Chief Jose Maso's leadership in human services along with Our Siblin Offices, A Strong, Boston Public Libraries, BCYF Centers, Office for Veterans Services and Returning Citizens, and to quote my mentor and the chief, we always say that we like to meet young people where they're at, whether it's physically where in the city or in their journey in life. Next slide, please. Next one. Oh, over there. I didn't switch minds. That's what happened. With that, I'm really proud to say that we're a full staff, man. I think that's one of my biggest things that I'm really proud of, man. Literally two and a half years ago, I was the first and the only employee Under Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement, I remember having the memo that was shared with me and I was like, I don't know how I'm going to make any of this happen. I'm really proud to say that two and a half years later, we're a full team of 11. There's seven full-time employees, four 12-month fellowships, and even that, I think it's a testament to the work because one of the models that really that I adopted through the office is there's a lot of part-time work or seasonal work and one of the first things we wanted to do was to assure the sustainability of the work so we With advocacy and with the support of even this council and chief and the team, we've been able again to build it up to seven full-time employees. and four 12-month fellowships. And those 12-month fellowship is also part of the work, man. That's opportunities we give to young professionals to be able to step in, get their feet into the city, get to know the work, and hopefully advance their careers. Next slide, please. Our mission, you know, as Chief said, I remember when we first had this conversation and this was nothing but words on paper. The goal was really to answer what does youth work look like? When local government gets involved and what does youth work look like when City Hall gets involved and in the last one and a half years really everything that we do is to serve the 14 to 25 year old population. by supporting what we've coined the three levels of youth work, which is youth programs and spaces created for young people. So whether that's a school, Whether it's a library, whether it's a basketball court at a BHA site, whether it's a community center, whether it's a youth program. Again, all spaces and programs created for young people. The second level is the adults that work in those spaces and build relationships with young people. So whether it's a librarian, whether it's a teacher or program coordinator, A sports team coach, the security guard out of school that didn't know he was going to be working with kids when he signed up. Again, it's all adults that work in those spaces and build relationships with young people. and the young people themselves. So all the work we do supports that, the programs, the spaces, the adults in those spaces and young people themselves. Next slide, please. This slide I'm really proud of, honestly, just because You know, like how Chief mentioned, when I first took over the office, there were only two established programs under my leadership, which was the Mayor's Youth Council that's been going on for 30 years, and then Youth Lead the Change, which is the city-wide Participatory Budgeting Program where young people decide what to do with a million dollars every year. That's been going on for about 10 years. Those were the only two programs that I took on that were already existing. The other six we created from scratch and they've become and the community of young people. And we're going to talk more about that as we go through the next slides. We'll start off with the Mayor's Youth Council. Shout out to Councilor Fitzgerald. I love the fact that he was on the council and is a great, honestly, just a testament as to the work that we're trying to do with the Mayor's Youth Council. In the last two and a half years, Really, my goal, honestly, when I took over the program was that I always like to say that when I grew up, I remember when my older brother used to give me the PlayStation controller, but it was never plugged in. and just kind of here to play with this. That's the opposite of what I wanted to do with the Mayor's Yukon. So I really wanted them to get into the work and actually be part of the work, especially work that's going to impact their lives directly. We've been able to really reshape the entire program to make sure that there's equity. All young people now on the council get paid, every single one of them. We went from a few times a month to four to five days a week that they're with us from October to May. So it's become really a full-time job for these young people. And some of the exciting points that I want to share in these last two and a half years is that The NYC team, the young people on the council have been all the way as far as to Germany. We send them on a trip to meet with their youth council over there and really strengthen relationships across other city departments. and even institutions like the ICA, MFA, SPARC, Streets Cabinet, and even the Mass Commission on Status of Women, we've been able to really get them involved in actual work that's happening across the city. This year, excitingly, we added two additional seats for undocumented young people working closely with the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Advancement to make sure that we continue including the voices on the council of those that feel the less heard. and then we just launched NYC Alumni Network because there's a lot of NYC members out there that have been doing amazing stuff. since they were on the council and we're building that network to make sure we connect them to our young people and we've launched we're launching a coalition of youth councils so there's a lot of youth councils happening around the city and we want to make sure that we work closely with them to continue building those partnerships even amongst the young people. Next slide, please. You've lead the change over the past two years since moving under the leadership. Again, we've had the highest ideas submitted and the most votes counted in the history of the program. Some of the projects that we want to highlight is the Wicker Free Wi-Fi expansion. They're literally in the process of finishing a Tobin Media Center at the Tobin Community Center that was funded by that. We renovated basketball courts, we're in conversations Implement HVAC systems and BPS to make them, because young people wanted those spaces to be cooler. So again, I'm literally cooler now, but with that, really the goal has been that. One of the biggest things that I want to just highlight with this in terms of under my leadership is that when I took over this program, there were 15 projects that were pending. really the one I'm moving. In the last two and a half years, we've been able to complete three of them. Six are in progress. And we have about a few other ones that are just in conversation. So all the projects are in conversations and really moving forward, if not completed, and on track to be completed and money being spent and everything being implemented. So I'm really excited about that. Next slide, please. So the Mayor's Youth Summit, I know you guys probably heard me talk about this during our budget hearings, but the first one was back in 94. It went on for about 10 years to about 2004. Then there was a 20-year hiatus. We brought it back with this office. We've done two already. We're in the process of hosting the third one now in February. We want it to become Something that young people look forward to every year. We've seen tremendous growth. We had 300 attendees the first year, 500 attendees the second year. We've given out awards to youths for the work that they're doing in the community. We've given out awards to organizations, and we really do that by even uplifting voices. The organizations that we give our awards to, are nominated by young people and the young people that we give our awards to are nominated by the organizations. And again, everything that we do is to try to make sure that we include young people's voices in it, even leading up to the planning stages We do focus groups to make sure that we ask young people what it is that they want to see, what do you want to eat, what day of the week, what time of the week. So everything that we do, every program, we always ask ourselves, where do youth voices live in this process? Next one, please. YouthLine is one that I'm also excited about. This one was really as simple as when I started this office, I asked about resources that are out there for young people. I remember one of my staff members brought me an Excel sheet. I just asked a simple question, is this public? And it wasn't, so we took lead on that and we created the Youth Line, which is a resource hub for young people. We're up to over 500 resources and opportunities on this online dashboard. The whole goal is to make them more accessible and just really instead of navigating over 400 different websites, we want young people to just go to one central location to be able to access the resources they want. We know that not everybody would be technology savvy and or comfortable navigating the technology, so we also created an intake form and we have full-time members who are here, so if the young person needs help navigating that dashboard, they can fill out an intake form and it creates a referral program. It's not a case management program, but a referral program. and my staff takes that intake form and we follow up with emails or a phone or a walk-in to make sure that young people get the access to whatever resources they are looking for. and we also host a community calendar on our website so my staff is in charge of making sure that they identify any and every youth and many more. Next slide, please. Boston After Dark, truthfully, I think this is one of my favorite ones, I think just because it's a fun one. You know, we just did it for the second time this last summer, and it was really about creating spaces for young people. We realized during the summer of 24 that young people, or 23, during the summer of 23 that young people were already connected to youth programs. Excuse me, and to youth jobs, but they had nothing to do after the 5pm time. So once they finished their jobs, they really had not much to do. So we were proactive and we created. We realized, too, it was mostly on Fridays. On the evening hours, they didn't have much to do. So the first year, on 2024, that summer, we collaborated with BCYF and YMCA. and we hosted over 18 events across nine neighborhoods and served over a thousand young people and all the events looked different both summers it was everything from basketball tournaments to pool parties to Thank you for joining us. We just expanded this last summer with adding BHA sites. We wanted to explore what that might look like on BHA sites, and we were able to work with them. and we were able to expand that to 23 events across 15 neighborhoods and we served over 1500 young people and we're actually In the process of thinking of what does this look like during the vacation weeks and what does this look like during the school year? So we're going to be expanding programming past the summer. And since we serve 14 to 25 year olds, now we're even thinking of what this might look like for the 19 to 25 year old population as well, too, to make sure that they have something to do as well after the work hours. Next slide, please. U Speaks Boston is one that I'm very proud of, man. That's one of the first things that was put on the memo that Chief shared with me when we launched the office. We wanted to get data around what young people need when they're not in school and when they're not at work. So we launched You Speak Boston survey, and it was gathering information from young people of, again, what it is that they need when they're not in school, when they're not at work. We got over 1600 responses. We collaborated with the Boston Public Health Commission, Children's Hospital, and Northeastern's research lab, the Change Lab, in order to put this together. We just launched recently a story map that shares our top findings. We have a data dashboard. that partners can also use. We were demographic heavy on the questions because we want partners to be able to go to the data and filter it based off what they need. So we know that a young person in Dorchester 14 years old is gonna need something different than a 14 year old in East Boston. The same way that we know that a 14 year old in Dorchester is gonna need something different than a 25 year old in Dorchester. So again, we wanted the partners not just to use our findings, but also be able to navigate the dashboard to make informed decisions on what demographic they serve specifically, because we know that there's a lot of youth programs in the city, but they all serve different kind of pockets of young people. Next slide, please. One of the first things we wanted to do was break down the silos. And I'm saying this as a longtime youth worker. We know that's one of the biggest issues in youth work is the silos that exist. So we all serve the same young people. They go to Boston public schools, they go to BCYF centers, they go to community Thank you. Thank you. What a lot of us might know as the Youth Workers Alliance. As someone that grew up in that, I wanted to really take it to the next level and I believe that's what we've done. We have over 1,900 youth serving professionals representing over 500 partner organizations across our network. We communicate with them via newsletter, but also meet with them on a bi-monthly. In the last two years, we've been able to host 13 bi-monthly meetings. We get anywhere from 80 to 100 people at these meetings consistently. It's been at a different location every single time. The last meeting we just held last month had 120 people in it. And again, it's about bringing our partners together to make sure that we're all serving the same young people at our full capacity, and as partners, because youth work is collaborative work. I say it all the time, and it's only done well when we do it in a collaborative manner. and we know that that was an issue too as youth workers. Not only did we have to run programming, but then we got to build the connections, we got to build the spaces. We want to make the job easier for youth workers, which is why we took on the responsibility to hold these spaces where we're able to build partnership. Next slide please. As a long time youth worker, professional development is really what gave me the knowledge and the language to be able to Thank you. Thank you. Work with young people across the city. In the last two and a half years, we've been able to offer 55 free training sessions hosted since October 2023. 292 unique individuals have been trained through our professional development and we've partnered up with over 20 plus training organizations. I knew one of the biggest things for me as a youth worker was one, finding them. Second was convincing your organization to even pay for them. And then if you do convince them, it's usually one person that can go, not everybody. So we wanted to tackle all three of those hurdles. And again, they're all completely free. We have organizations that send their entire teams to these. We have organizations that send specific individuals. But it's as easy as finding the training that you want. and just showing up and getting training that hopefully is helping the adults in the field advance their careers as well. Next slide, please. So in terms of my closing remarks, I just want to say that, and I've said this before, is that I'm a prime example of what you get when you welcome a family outside of the city and you give them resources. I'm one of four brothers, the only one that's still living here. Everybody else kind of migrated to Florida, but I'm a die-hard... Bostonian, and it's been an honor for me to serve on this capacity. I'm a BPS kid, a BCYF kid, a Hope Line kid. Back when, before the Success Link, it was the Hope Line. I'm a whole blind kid. I met my mentor out of BCYF site. He's been my mentor since then and I think just me sitting here next to him today is a testament of What I always say that spaces and relationships is what saves lives. The spaces we create for young people and the relationships they build in those spaces is what saves lives. And I think just me being here next to my mentor is a perfect example of that. With your support, I want to make sure that we continue to provide every single young person in this city with the same opportunities and resources that I was gifted to make sure that they become thriving young people, but also thriving young adults as well too. So I thank you for this space, I thank you for the support, and I look forward to the work ahead.

Thank you so much, Director Cruz. That was truly an informative and incredible presentation, very robust, the work that you're doing. I just learned a lot myself just now. So really, thank you. I want to recognize that we've been joined by Councillor Brayden and Councillor Murphy, but I'll go to my colleagues for any questions they may have. We'll do a six-minute round for everybody. Councillor Santana, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair Coletta Zapata, and thank you, Chief and Director Cruz, for your presentation. I don't necessarily have questions. Pedro, you and our team, we're in constant communication, and we've been able to develop You know, there's ordinance based off that relationship we've been able to build. And thank you for all the information. I think there's even stuff there that I did not know you were all doing. So I really, really appreciate it. and want to give a shout out to your amazing team. I know that you have a workhorse out there of just incredible individuals that are doing so much for our city. I guess my only question, For you all, or for whoever wants to answer this, what does codifying this office mean? I think you touched on your personal stories, but I guess as an office, what does this mean for, you know, for the city 5, 10, 20 years from now, making sure that we know that this office will be able to live out its full dream. And I think now I'm asking questions out of my head. How do you see it changing over time? What are some of those goals there?

So the first thing I'll share is first I appreciate the support and all of that. I think the way I would answer that is that we know that there's already a lot of offices in the city that support young people and they're doing amazing work. I know that our colleagues from MOLA's here too who serve LGBTQ youth. and then, you know, we know Black Men's Advancement serves youth as well too. The Immigrant Advancements serve young people too. I think what makes us different and what makes us important is that We serve, it doesn't matter what neighborhood, doesn't matter what lifestyle, doesn't matter where you are in your life. We work closely with all those other offices. but our two boxes to check are literally, are you 14 to 25 and do you live in the city? And that's our entire demographic right there too. And I think the important part of that, and I'm speaking from someone who's a lifelong youth worker, I'm literally what started off as a summer job and the whole lot has become my career. It's all I've known, to be honest with you. And I think for me, the important part is that I want to become the, I want this office to be the go-to place for anybody that's serving young people. and whether it's us connecting you to the correct offices or connecting you to the right resources, it's about supporting every single adult that's out there that's serving young people and that's what this office is really looking to become and to continue being is that is that go-to partner in the city it's our way we want to be the liaison between the city and the and the community when it comes to serving young people and then in terms of the future of this office is continuing to grow. Everything we've shared today is what we've done in two and a half years. I'm excited to see what this is going to look like in 10 years from now. You know, and I think we have a strong hold on that 14 to 18, 14 to 19 year old population. Strategically, we just met with my team and we're going to be focusing on that 19 to 25 year old population now. because I think traditionally in youth work, it's all about, in the past, it's always 14 to 18. That's the traditional way to look at youth work is 14 to 18, but I think Not just for scientific reasons, which I'm sure we all know, but young people need to pour weight past that. It's not just about getting them out of high school. It's not just about getting them into college or workforce. but it's about supporting them throughout that journey even still so that's really what we're looking to do in the future is to make sure that we're serving not just a 14 to 18 year old population but that 19 and 25 because we really do look at it as those two separate buckets right for 24 And that's really our goal. That's really our goal is to be the go-to person, the go-to team when it comes To youth work and to be the ones that are coordinating it on a quarterback level, on a coach level, along with all of our other city departments, external, internal partners, and all that. I hope that answers your question.

Absolutely. Thank you, Chief Walsall, Director Cruz, for being here. I just want to give out another shout out to my citywide youth council as well, Santana's youth forces for putting this together. I would be remiss, I know you talked about mentors, I would be remiss if I didn't Shout out one of my mentors, Maria Dominguez, who is Executive Director of Phillips Brooks House Association, which I am a product of and where I first got my first job here in the city of Boston. So I want to give her and the organization a shout out. I'm in full support of this, Chair. I think our youth deserve this and deserve everything and all the investments that come from this office. Thank you. No more questions.

Thank you, Council Santana, for your leadership in this work. You've done an incredible job, and your time is at large. And it just speaks to, again, the power of mentorship. I love talking about. Your relationship with the Chief and seeing that, that was a beautiful moment. I took a picture of it. I'm going to send it to you both. And seeing Councilor Santana, shout out his mentor, who speaks against the power of mentorship. Councilor Flynn has left us, so we'll go to Councilor Fitzgerald and then Councilor Breadon.

Thank you, Chair. First, fantastic presentation in terms of all the work that you do in this. Chief Mosso, I want to thank you and your ability to select wonderful individuals to take the lead on this. Pedro you know I hold you in high regard both professionally and personally and the work that you and Deputy Chief or Deputy Director Lindsey Boozer does as well. There's no two better people to lead this up so you know Chief I owe you a thanks for that. I don't have any questions. Again, we talk a lot and we know how important this work is. I think I said it in my opening statement. I hope that in codifying this office, it can only ensure that the youths of the city of Boston for many, many years to come have the same opportunities as the person next to them, right? And that's all we're going to ask for. and I think that's fair and how it should be. And so just fantastic work and I look forward to voting to make this an ordinance. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilor Fitzgerald, Councilor Breadon and then Councilor Murphy.

Thank you, good to see you both. I have a couple of quick questions. One is, in terms of, on the org chart, you know, Boston Centres for Youth and Families and the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. How do those two different departments engage with each other?

Yes, I can start off. So we work closely. We really are, under Chief's leadership, we really are encouraged always to work closely with all other offices under Human Services, but specifically with BCYF. I'll give you one example, the Boston After Dark Initiative. They're the ones that hosted. They gave us the spaces and we provided the programming. So we work closely throughout the summers in terms of bringing programming to all these different sites that we meet with their leadership. The sites kind of raise their hands on who wants to be a partner. and we host events across all their other spaces. We also work closely with them in terms of even the Mayor's Youth Summit. We invite them to all of our summits and we make sure that all the sites have know about these events and resources. The Youth Line, which is our resource hub, we make sure that their staff all know that this resource is there too. So as they're serving young people in their communities, that they know they can refer them to us if they need additional support. and we even host focus groups for the Mayor's Youth Summit at some of these sites too. So again, it's really just, we continuously are asking the question, what else can we do together? But those are just some examples on how we've worked together. And even with our participatory budgeting program, we just funded the The creation of a media tech center at the Tobin Community Center too, so they've also been impacted by that programming as well.

Okay, I was just wondering, because we seem to be in a very difficult position in Alston, Brighton for our youth programming. So how many youth workers do you have out in Alston, Brighton, District 9?

according from Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement or?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so in terms of youth workers, we don't have youth workers that are necessarily out in the community. We work with the youth workers that are out in the community.

Yeah, we don't have, we have very few. We have very few. I think we got BHA to hire somebody this summer. We have somebody who works part time at Faneuil Gardens. Our youth do not have access to these services to the extent that I would expect that they were. So I just don't know how does that work out in a neighbourhood where We have hundreds of kids who aren't getting services.

I know West End House is also actively engaged in network programming, but I would encourage councillors, if you do have access to any of the youth workers that are currently in the community, If they are not already engaged with the network programming that Director Cruz had mentioned, and or the professional development trainings please make sure you know send them their way so there's at least there's some cohesion there um what they're also able to do too along with the newsletters is uplift any programming or events or activities that do take place and also Brighton neighborhood. So that's another way that they're able to amplify it, get it out to the youth population. So at least young people who are in that community could actually have access to it or actually know about it. We could definitely be mindful. I don't know what we did this past summer in regards to That neighborhood for Boston after dark split it for future years and future summers. We could definitely be mindful in coordination with you and your team in the neighborhood to really figure out how we get some activation programming there as well.

Yeah, what I would add is that we did bring Boston After Dark programming in collaboration with YMCA over there too. And most recently, I will say that this actually been on our radar and has been brought to our attention. and Commissioner Rivera from BCYF and myself had actually most recently met with the community coalition that got put together to bring more youth programming over there. I can definitely get back to you with the name of the coalition just to be specific, but it's made up of a lot of community leaders.

I'm familiar with that. The reason we had to do it is because we had kids die last summer and that's unusual for our neighbourhood with increased gun violence and things. So Yeah, so I'd really be interested in engaging much more with your program and your office. and see how we can get everything to work together because there's a lot of silos that don't seem to be talking to each other and in the meantime we have got I think the YMCA does a good job. I think the West End House does an incredible job. Even so, we're still not serving all the kids that need services and help and support and engagement in Alston, Brighton.

Yeah, no, I definitely welcome more conversations. As mentioned, we've started those conversations recently, and I definitely look forward to serving your community better to full capacity.

Very good.

Thank you. No problem.

Thank you, Councillor Brayden. Councillor Murphy.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Pedro. I just want to start by saying thank you for always bringing your true self, your energy, your passion. and your lived experience and it just shows that you are paying it forward not that you needed to but you remember like all those people who helped you. and it was making me realize something I often think about like if you are lucky enough in life to have an adult, a mentor, a coach, someone who's looking out for you, cheering you on, a teacher, you know, someone maybe outside of your family like Our kids need a lot more like that whole cliche about it takes a village. It really does. And you are helping the city of Boston do better for our youth. So just thank you for all you do. And that being said, thank you also for, and I bet it comes from your leadership, just making sure that we really focus in on our 19 to 25 year old kids. I know as a mom, you know, a teacher where oftentimes it's that age group, right? Maybe high school was tough. Maybe they didn't have the opportunities or, you know, maybe just Life got in the way. They didn't go off to college. I know parents often feel that. Thank you. Thank you. but I have children my own kids where that wasn't the path and I think the families and I know that you know that it's not just the kids it's the families that also need the support to how do we continue to rally and not give up right and not Thank you very much. I know there's many different departments and workers here, but it also just shows that you work with all departments. It's almost like every city department is an ally and you do so well making sure that you work alongside them to make sure we're showing up for our kids if it's community policing, all of the different departments. So thank you for that. I will just kind of read in the statement that I have just to say how much in support I am of this. And thank you to the sponsors who brought this forward I proudly support the ordinance codifying the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. Since its creation, this office has been a vital bridge connecting Boston's young people to resources, leadership opportunities, and pathways to civic engagement. By formally establishing it in a city code, we are making a long-term commitment to ensure that youth voices remain at the center of our city's decision making. As someone who spent 24 years as a Boston public school teacher, I've seen firsthand how powerful it is when young people are empowered to lead, to advocate, and to believe their ideas matter. Our youth deserve a seat at the table, not just today but for generations to come. Codifying this office means creating stability and accountability for programs that give our youth access to mentorship, Workforce training, after-hours programming, and the chance to shape the future of their city. I'll continue to advocate for every initiative that invests in our young people, builds their confidence, and keeps them safe, engaged, and inspired to lead. So thank you for all you do. and now I can say my children are adults but I have a one week old Bostonian resident grandson who I know will hopefully like myself will be learning how to swim at a community center, going to summer camps, playing at the parks Being a BPS kid one day, not too soon, we'll let him be a baby for us, but just thank you for all you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Murphy, and congratulations on your grandchild. I'll give myself six minutes. On the outset, support this. Really look forward to diving into the details. We did get back some changes, which are Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I totally understand casting a wide net here and support my colleague and the co-sponsors. and pushing this forward expeditiously. Given all that you've done in the last two and a half years, I'm curious to know how your budget has changed. What is your budget now? And it's OK if you don't have these answers right now. You can always get back to us. In the last two years, what is the difference between the FY23 budget and FY25? How have you done? All of this with what the city has provided for you.

Yeah, I'll be honest with you and transparent with you. It hasn't changed much. I think one of the biggest gifts is that I was able to leverage relationships, really. and I think it's about that it's about really working together you know our partner network all we pay for is the breakfast and the partners show up you know there's really low cost and we get 80 to 100 individuals per meeting right In terms of the Mayor's Youth Summit, we've been able to work with Children's Hospital, Cummings Foundation this year, and Highland Street Foundation, and they've been able to support a lot of What we do with that. So, and just to put it in plain English, really, I think it's been partnerships, man. You know, outside of our budget this year alone this year, I've been able to raise through relationship close to $200,000 on external funding for the stuff that we do in terms of BCYF when we collaborated with them around Boston After Dark. It was about really making lemonade out of limes, you know, and I think, you know, me coming from a nonprofit environment for the past few years, that's what I was trained to do was always doing, you know, high impact with little resources or and that's what we've done. I brought that same mentality into the city and it's not just about the budget that we get and we stop there. We get right to work. I always look at that budget like it's our starting point and then it's about leveraging relationships. You know, even for Boston After Dark, we work closely with Shake Shack who funded some of the food and brought free burgers. So I think it's that spirit of really collaboration that's helped us. And then in terms of the professional development, although we do set aside some of our operations budget aside for that funding. It's also about partners who do trainings for free because they know how the impact that it brings. So again, I just really want to lean in that a lot of what we've done, it's about collaboration, about partnerships, and that's what's really allowed us to have the impact that we've had.

That's really great.

And I'll just share that there has been some considerable investments year after year, as Director Cruz has shared, like when he first started, It was him really trying to figure things out, but we were able to make some investments in terms of, as far as employee growth and so forth, staff population, changing some of the part-time to full-time or like the The other positions, like more full-time positions to set a season on as well. So there was considerable investment from the city side, and that has allowed him to be able to grow to where he is today as well. So on top of the partnerships and everything else that you mentioned.

Excellent and super creative with the partnerships that you've been able to secure and working with the YMCA and all of that and obviously with our BCYF and BPS colleagues. So the youth, as you were talking about, I looked it up myself, the youth line, Resource, Boston Speaks, or Youth Speaks, rather incredible. How are we making sure, I guess a way to frame this is, how are you utilizing The relationships that you have and the partnerships that you have to get this out there to kids. How do you make sure that they know about this if their family is going through, unfortunately, An eviction or they're going through an immigration status crisis. You have legal resources here for them, and that's awesome. So how are you just making sure that we're getting this in front of our youth in Boston?

Yeah, one of our strongest points is our partner network, to be honest with you. We've been able to not only build the ecosystem, but I feel like we're in a place where we own it right now, to be honest with you, and I say that humbly. We communicate with our partners consistently through newsletters. That's those 1,900-plus individuals. We had them on a newsletter. That's specifically for them. So everything we share is resources, grant opportunities, We're actually in the process of even right now building an OEF partner toolkit that has a list. My team has been working tirelessly to create an Excel sheet of all the grants that are out there that we've been searching through to make sure we centralize and put them all in one place. Our PDs, the YouthLine resources and really creating this one go-to toolkit that we're able to give all to our partners so that again instead of navigating 40 different websites it's right in front of them it's all about accessibility and then we meet with them bi-monthly. So we presented the U Speaks findings at our last meeting that we had over 120 people in it. So that's just you talk to a room of 120, they go back out to the communities and share with their communities. We're sharing it. We've actually done presentations across city departments. We're going to be doing presentations with external partners, and it's really about taking the show on the road and making sure that we do whatever it is that we need to do. We share it on our newsletters. Our comms team has been working tremendously to share our findings on a weekly basis. So it's anything and everything to be honest with you. It's everything from our comms to our partner meetings to doing presentations to working internally and externally. We're doing everything within our power to make sure we get out there and we're going to keep doing that for the next However long I'm in this seat, man, it should really be making sure that, you know, and I'll be honest with you, there was, like, even when I joined the city, there was resources I didn't know existed until I got here, and my goal from day one has been How do we make it accessible? You know, because there's a lot of resources in the city and we want to make sure that all of our partners know they exist. And again, one of our goals, even strategically, we just did a strategic planning with my team and one of our goals for the youth line is to make it a household name and we've said that verbatim and we want to make it a household name and we want Not just partners, but family members, young people themselves to know that if they want resources, it's as easy as going to that website and or calling us so that we can, you know, putting us to work. So that's our goal moving forward is to continue doing the work that we're doing. and taking up as much space in whatever rooms we walk into to make sure that everybody know we exist and that we're here to serve them.

That's great. And I have one last question or maybe a suggestion moving forward. I love the example that you gave of giving someone a game control and just saying play with this and it's not actually plugged in. It's not really anything. It doesn't formalize any sort of role. When we were going through the Bunker Hill Housing Development and BHA in Charlestown, and we knew that this would be a project that would last for decades. There's a turn it around group there in Charlestown and so we had asked for then the Boston Planning and Development Agency to embed a youth IAG seat there so that they have ownership over what is being built in where they would be living for the next, hopefully, generation and even generations after that. So there's something to consider, formalizing these roles, making sure that they are sitting at the tables that they deserve to be sitting at with adults. And my last question, just because you're on the ground, you're hearing from kids every single day, what is the next big challenge that they want us to tackle? Like in these conversations of You know where to put our resources and what we should invest in. According to them, what is the next big thing that we all should be working on?

Honestly, I would encourage you definitely to look deeper into the You Speak Boston because it shows our findings and really the main things, but I think one of the ones that stuck out, at least to me, it's not going to be a surprise to anybody here, is access to mental health services.

Thank you. Okay, thank you so much again for being here and for your work. I think we are good for this round, so you all are Free to Go. We'll have our next panel. I just appreciate your work, and we'll be in touch on the exact language before we move forward on any sort of ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you guys so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next up, we'll have the community panel, which... The list I don't have in front of me, I apologize. OK. We have Camila Rojas Pinero from Beat the Odds, if you want to come down and take a seat here in the chamber, Caroline Foscato from the Soccer Unity Project, and Michael Downing. Career Pathways Coach, and Youth Guidance Boston. Actually, as they are making their way down in this transition, we'll pivot to public testimony. Okay, actually, yeah. All right, so we'll start with Tracy, I apologize if I say your name wrong, Lungelo from the BPHC, and then we have Sean Brown. from Youth Guidance in Becoming a Man, Kendall Van Allen from Becoming a Man, and then we'll end with Andre Brown. from DOR. Tracy, please feel free to approach the mic. Just state your name and then your affiliation. You have two minutes. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. My name is Tracy Longelo. I'm Youth Development Specialist for the Boston Public Health Commission. I'm in the Child and Adolescent Division Bureau and the Youth Development Network is a partner at Boston Public Schools. We are three schools and we work with students around chronic absenteeism. So I would like to first off thank, I would like to first off thank everybody for the opportunity to speak before you about OYEA and the value of the office provides to the city of Boston. First, OYEAR hosts bi-monthly meetings with partners that we actually attend. My program actually attends these bi-monthly meetings. They have created space and opportunity for any and all youth serving City of Boston departments, agencies, organizations to come together. to meet, network, learn, hear about the city, hear about what they have done within the city for the youth. All these meetings they also share about new opportunities, events for youth, highlight the work that they are doing throughout the city, provide space to spotlight and uplift the work of our partners. Also OYEAR also provides monthly professional development series to all partners to help support enhance the skills we have. The vital professional development opportunities that they provide have been essential to the work that I currently do For example, earlier this year, we were able to be certified in youth mental health first aid to help support any child who's having a challenging issue in time. So this was very critical and very important. for the work that we do. Also, they foster collaborations among city partners. OIEA has also tabled at Boston Public Health Commission events. Our program has also been able to support some of their initiatives at our partner schools such as Youth Lead the Change. Also, finally, OYEA has revitalized the Mayors Youth Summit, which I'm so happy about because I remember participating in the summit When I was a former youth worker for Boston Center for Youth and Families in being able to engage and have our students engage and our youth engage in that type of programming, which they really benefited from. And our students were able to benefit from that as well moving forward. They've also created space for our youth at nightlife throughout the city. The youth I currently work with look forward to these events within the city. They love coming out. They've actually met City Councilor Santana at the Mayor's Youth Summit. In closing, I would also like to convey my strong support and appreciation for this office. I look forward to working with them for many years to come and also as a former, when it was the mayor's youth leadership core. As an alumni, this is where it's at. They've poured into me. I'm pouring back into our city and to our young people. And this office helps us pour back into them as well. by providing that professional development, providing the nights for the young people to come out to, gives them a sense of going and the ownership of their city because this is their city. Thank you.

Thank you, Tracy. Next up, we have Sean, and then we'll go to Kendall.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Councilor Santana and council members for having me today. Thank you all for your leadership. My name is Sean Brown. I'm the Executive Director of Youth Guidance Boston, where I oversee our two evidence-based, school-based counseling programs in Becoming a Man BAM and working on Womanhood WOW. Both BAM and WAL are strategically designed to create safe and student-centered supports that promote academic and social-emotional development in young men and women in the City of Boston and the Boston Public Schools. I'm here today to advocate for the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement, OYEA, and its importance to our community and young people. I'm a firm believer that no one individual or organization does this work alone. If we want to see the positive results and outcomes we have for our young people, then it's incumbent upon us to work together and have programs like OY. EA. They meet young people where they are. You heard that a lot today. They provide opportunities for our young people that they wouldn't have if it wasn't for programs like such. And leaders like Pedro and Chief Masso One thing I know about our young people is that our young people are wired to be connected to something. If we don't connect them to something positive, there is a whole host of things for our young people to be connected to, right? OYE creates those opportunities by meeting young people where they are on all levels. I've been doing this work for over 30 years. I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Boston. I'm a product of the Boston public school system. I once was one of those young people. And I think about what if I had Organizations like OYE when I was growing up, I would have taken the road less traveled. OYE offers leadership opportunities, jobs, professional development, civic engagement opportunities, and et cetera. I want to take a moment to give affirmations to Chief Maso and Pedro Martinez. I like to say the standard is the standard. and you have two men of integrity who models what it means to be a man. A leader in our community, youth advocate for all youth, and I say all youth. They are truly an example of what we want to see in our young people and who we want our young people to be. Thank you for modeling. Thank you Kings for walking in your purpose and kingdom. It's been an absolute honor to have you both speak to my staff and young people about the importance of youth work and civic engagement. In closing, what we see in their relationship is what's possible for our young people when we think about mentorship and paying it forward. You heard Chief speak about their relationship and how it propelled Pedro to the amazing leader that he is today. All it takes is for one person to believe in you. If you see it, you can achieve it. When I see their relationship, I think about who's the next Pedro Martinez. The Office of Youth Engagement is creating more leaders like Pedro by giving them opportunities to connect with jobs, mentorship, and leadership opportunities. I strongly encourage the city to continue to support the ordinance for OYEA. because they are critical to the personal professional development of our young people in the city of Boston. I stay in contact with many of our alumni from Bama while who have graduated and moved into the next, moved on to life, to their next phase in life, either college or workforce, and they're doing well. Often our conversations I can reflect back to how the opportunities with OYEA has impacted their life in a positive way and is showing up for them now as a professional. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your leadership. Thanks.

Thank you, Sean. We have Kendall, then Allen, and then we have Andre Brown, and then we'll go to our panelists.

Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Kendall Van Allen, youth specialist at Youth Guidance Boston, working on behalf of the Becoming a Man programming. I am stationed at the Maurice J. Tobin School, K-8 school in Mission Hill. And so when I think about the young men and women of the Mission Hill community and communities alike, I think about the work at OYEAH, the programs, the resources. Obviously many things I could say. I think most important to highlight, I think about exposure. I think about programs and resources that create opportunities for exposure and create a chance, create a chance to understand what life could be like outside their neighborhood lines, What life could be like outside of their housing developments. And I think Pedro is a great example of this. And not only that, but just space to be a kid, space to be a youth, because otherwise they may be around, right? They're older cousins, older people, right? And just in spaces they really don't belong in. And I just want to give you an example that really dawned on me. Just last Thursday, I'm working with one of my seventh graders, and we have this thing, structured free play. And so, you know, what do you guys want to do? Oh, let's play cards. Okay, let's play cards. and my seventh grader, Gianni, suggested that we play 21. And not only does he know about gambling and all this, you know, the game 21 or blackjack, He's being the dealer. And I'm like, man, I don't even know how to be the dealer. Are you over here facilitating the game? And this is a 12-year-old. So I just think about what they're exposed to outside our community institutions and in spaces that allow them to be a kid and get a chance to understand Things beyond their neighborhood. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you so much, Kendall. And next up we have Andre. I apologize. I'm saying that wrong. If there's a Y or an I at the end. Thank you. Thank you. You have two minutes.

Thank you. First, I'd like to say thank you all for being here and thank you for letting me speak to the City Council. I'd like to thank Councilor Santana, Fitzgerald, and all the help. First time I came here was to speak about AI. and that was back in February and I spoke how the president was talking about building a 500 billion dollar data center and that Deep Sea came out and said they could do the same thing for $50 million. And then my research showed that we can do the exact same thing for $500,000. So let's not, you know, the president's doing one thing, but as technology goes, things get cheaper. And the reason why I brought this cane before was, I thought that the Boston public school system at that cost of $500,000 should have their own data center. And the reason why I'm speaking about data centers and AI, that's the future. Those are the jobs that'll pay 100 grand plus a year. I'm a veteran from the Air Force. I did communications in the Air Force. I'm a retiree from Verizon. My office was right over here at Bowdoin, Franklin Street, where I built the internet back in the day. Now with AI, that's just the internet on steroids. and right now I started an organization and we're teaching kids how to do chat bots in high school that pays 60 grand plus. Data scientists that pay 100 grand. Even working in data centers, they pay 120 grand a year. So I've started and actually we've got a curriculum all lined up from the first grade to the 12th grade. We got a proposal and a budget about to go to the president of RCC. So we can start teaching robotics, AI robotics at RCC right in our community. Reason why I'm doing this? That's the future. That's where our kids need to be going. And just like Pedro being one resource center for the youth, I want to be the one resource center for AI and robotics for the city all ages because Murphy, I just had my grandchild too a year ago and I want to make sure the future is right for them going forward. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your testimony. Okay, we'll come back to public testimony after our community panel. So we have Camila and we have Caroline and Michael. I guess well just because you're first on my list Camila you'll go first and then we'll go to Caroline and then Michael you have the floor

All right, hi, thank you for having me. My name is Camila Roja Pagan. I am one of the co-founders and CEO of Beat the Odds. We are a creative youth development program based out of Grove Hall. and we're dedicated to providing safe spaces to help youth heal, grow through the arts and through mentorship, really having a trauma-informed lens so that they can thrive and we serve ages 14 to 24. We have been partnering with OYEAH since they started and really grateful for all the partnerships that have been built from that. We go to the meetings. We participate in the summit. It's so important because the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement is centered around Youth Voices, and that aligns so perfectly with Our mission at BTO, being able to say, OK, what do you want? What is going to help you thrive? And really providing those resources. And at any moment, like if there's ever a question, if there's ever like, oh, we're doing this thing and we don't know how to navigate, it's as simple as calling a Pedro and saying, hey, can you help me with XYZ? and then him having certain resources or connecting me with others that would have that resource. So I think they spoke really well about how important it is to partner and collab, and they really have created that community. You know what I'm saying? We really have been, going towards a Boston that is not living in silos, that is more collaborative where you see organizations Really working together who are serving those same youth and just creating these resources and these spaces for our young people to be their best selves and really pouring into them. And I think that's the key. I've heard from everybody I see. Faces that I work with closely, and I love that. And that really doesn't happen without an office like that.

Thank you so much. I will go to Carolyn.

Good afternoon. Thank you esteemed councillors and guests. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in strong support of Boston's youth and the critical and galvanizing work of the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. My name is Caroline Piscato. I am the president and founder of Soccer Unity Project, an organization which serves over 2,000 youth, teens, adults, and volunteers through free programs each year. For the past 18 years, I have had the honor and joy of working with the community to create ways for our youth and their families to have access to the wellness and life skills building aspects of playing sport. We work to navigate the systems and barriers that keep young people, especially those from historically overlooked and marginalized communities on the sidelines. And instead, we create unifying space where youth of all backgrounds can learn, grow, and build community through sport. 76% of our youth identify as BIPOC and represent more than 25 zip codes in 100 schools across Boston. So we feel positioned to speak really about many different types of peoples. An important part of our work is developing teen and young adults through workforce development as leaders, coaches, and referees, and giving them the mentorship and professional development to build their success. This is only possible through strong partnerships and Oya has been a vital partner in this work and developing this program. Their collaboration has deepened and expanded our impact in several ways, including partnering to run The annual resource fair at the Boston Unity Cup, the city's largest soccer tournament, which is a World Cup style and brings together all of our immigrant populations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. for the services for youth and young adults. Also by providing mentorship and professional development to our youth workers and teens, thus strengthening our programs, our impact, and providing support in conflict resolution. They also create a centralized space of connection and resource for young people that historically has not been there. On a personal note, I know how transformative Oya's work is. Growing up, I faced housing instability, financial stress, and family challenges. Having a space like OYEAH, where support, connection, and guidance are accessible and consistent, would have changed my life. to codify the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. Doing so affirms that Boston stands with its young people, walking beside them in support, guiding them to be leaders of the next generation, and lifting them up when they need a safe space to turn to. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your commitment to our community, the future of our city's youth, and for giving me the opportunity

Thank you so much. Next up we have Michael.

Hello. Hello, everybody. Thank you, Councilors, for allowing me to speak. I've had the pleasure of working with Chief and Jose. At Youth Guidance. I've been with Youth Guidance. This is my fourth year with the program. My first three years, I was a youth specialist over at O'Brien High School. This year, I'm a career pathways coach. We've had Jose come and speak with our scholars during our April break career workshop where he came and spoke to our youth. And that was the first encounter I really had with him was Through that and then as I got this position that I'm in now he was one of the first people to reach out to me and invited me to the summit this took place last month at the Museum of and it was an amazing event where I got to network with a bunch of individuals and just create those connections and him fostering those connections allowing us to Just to be able to connect with other people in different industries and be able to use those connections to partner with the OEA office is extremely important to our youth, our summer program, The job for our youth is provided through them where our scholars will come in with us for the summer and they work throughout the summer and they've been doing this for the last three years. Just the work that he does is so extremely important and impactful to our youth and just having a sense of connection that the youth get with us and having that connection with him. It's a great relationship and I continue to want to foster those relationships with those youth and obviously with him. If you need anything, he's the first person that you can reach out to. and he'll provide any resources that he may have or that others may be able to provide. He can get you in connection with them. So thank you for your time today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, all three of you, for your work every single day, everything you do. We'll go to our colleagues for any questions they may have, starting with the lead sponsor, Councilor Santana. Sorry, technical difficulties. This happens. No, it's off. You want to use my mic? Here.

Sorry about that.

Thank you all three for being here. I think, I mean, it's just like... All three testimonies just shows how critical this office is. I think there's multiple organizations, multiple different groups that care about our youth. who do work on behalf of our youth. But it's about are they speaking to each other? And I think that's the reoccurring theme that I keep hearing is like we're connected, we know what we're doing, and if we have questions we have someone in Pedro that we can rely on and I think that's extremely important that's beautiful and exactly why I think my youth council brought this up for me to file so you know I don't think I have any Well, actually, I'll ask one question. In terms of, you know, I think we talked about the professional development. Can one of you or multiple of you just give an example of what the professional development meant for your organization and what that looked like? So we potentially need more of it, as we're talking about budget season and looking at all of that. But we'd love to hear more about that, because this is an area where I was actually unfamiliar that this office was doing this. and I think it's amazing and I think it's needed. So we'd love to just hear from maybe one or two of you about that.

I can go real quick. Yes, I think professional development is so key. I loved when Pedro talked about really moving forward, focusing on that 19 to 24 year old. because they really are a group that is needing that support and really sometimes they're just left out in the wind. I am going to be selfish and advocate that we need more professional development in the creative fields. Just because that's the, you know, BTO is a creative youth development program. But when I say that, I say, like, what does professional development look like to be a tech, you know, to work in sound? to work in videography, so stuff like that. But I have definitely sent my youth, anything that comes through, we send them out. There was a professional, there was one of our youth who, worked through and did a program in the medical field and ended up going there and then that connected her to another program She's now full-on phlebotomy, making money, doing great. And that would not have happened if there wasn't that. So that was a huge step for her into being able to financially sustain her life. as a 19-year-old.

I can speak that a little bit too. So it's the timing of this office of OEF being developed and us really leaning into the workforce development really kind of happened at the same time. It was amazing timing because we've been doing this work for 18 years. We now have alumni coming back to coach with us wanting to work with us and needing supports from us. And sometimes either starting college or not going to college and how can we support them and what can we do for them. In those really critical years of their young adulthood. And it's been amazing because it's the phone call to the chief or to Pedro or But it's them saying, these are the people you go to that can help those people do it, which would have taken like 12 emails and three months. critical time that the young people can't wait they need something now like how do we get them to the immigration services how do we get them to whatever it is they need they can help them and many more. A lawyer that were supposed to come and speak this week. They're not able to come. I can call their office. They can give me materials that we can fill that gap and we can help do that where otherwise it would have been like scrambling. And the last thing I'll say too is it's, It's the professional development for the young people that we're serving through our program, but it's also our young staff. So it's giving them the resources and the confidence that either through directly through the OYEAR office or through I love it all. I think we need more of it.

So this will be something that As we're approaching the next budget cycle, we'll see how we can, as a council, with the help and support of my colleagues, see how we can put more support on that. But thank you so much for being here. I'm not going to ask many questions because I do know that we have A lot of people signed up for public testimony and I definitely want to hear particularly from our youth. I really appreciate you all being here and the work that you all do every single day on behalf of our youth.

Thank you so much.

Just really quick, Councillor Brayden, if you have any questions.

No, just give a shout out to Caroline. I think we just met two weeks ago to talk about bringing soccer to Alston Brighton, so we're very excited. There is a void there that we're very happy that you're going to help us work and fill that. So it's good to see you and I look forward to learning more and developing these partnerships because we really do need to do something.

Definitely. Very excited about the work. Thank you for the shout out.

Awesome. And I have no questions. Thank you all so much for being here.

Thank you.

Appreciate you. We're going to head back to public testimony. Okay, the next four, please feel free to queue up at either microphone. We have Corey Evans. Javeria, Lagunas Alvarez, Betsy Gibbons, and then Maria, I believe it says Dominguez here. Okay, great. Okay, then after that we have Jesse Lamb, Jalil Bell, Jose Barrientos, Gavin Stevenson, Joaquin Lombos, and then Bridget Blair. But we'll start with Corey and Kaveria first. Corey? Hi. Excellent. You have the mic. Please state your name and your affiliation.

You have two minutes. Great. Good afternoon. My name is Corey Evans, and I'm vice president and senior director of education at the Box Center. The Bach Center is a nonprofit performing arts organization in Boston that is made up of the Wang and Schubert theaters. I've been leading the education and outreach programs at the center for 14 years now, and prior to that, worked in Boston public schools for eight years. The City of Boston has been a key partner of ours during my time at the Bach Center and I have seen many changes not only in opportunities for youth in the city but also resources for our city's youth and most importantly access to these resources. The Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement has accomplished something great in a very short amount of time for the young people of Boston. They have taken a comprehensive approach to supporting Boston's youth by providing programming and space for young people at a time when Boston's youth are more vulnerable than ever. We know that youth mental health needs have skyrocketed. We are living in a time of unprecedented Many young people in the city are working to contribute to family finances. Families are experiencing food and housing insecurity and fears around immigration issues. The list goes on and on. Not only does Oh Yeah! provide a centralized place for young people to seek resources, but it also provides space and events for Boston youth to come together and just have fun and be teens. all while teaching young people to advocate for themselves and giving them opportunities to learn real-world skills around advocacy, leadership, and youth voice to empower Boston's youth to lead us into the next generation. They are doing this by building coalitions across city departments, providing a centralized place for young people to find resources, opportunities and safety, and providing professional development opportunities and resources for youth workers. and youth serving organizations across the city. This has allowed organizations like ours to strengthen our programs by building partnerships and relationships with other youth serving organizations and in turn creating a stronger network and Safety Net for youth across the city. They have embodied the phrase, rising tides lift all boats, because at the heart of it, this department exists for the young people of Boston and we owe it to our Future and to their future to continue to invest, support, train, and lift up our young people. It is my honor to advocate for the codification of the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. I urge you all to make this investment in our young people by promising that this department, this critical resource and hub, will be available to them for years to come.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Javiera Lagunas-Alvarez, and I'm the Associate Director of Education at the Box Center, where I manage our City Spotlight's leadership programs. I have 16 years of experience working as a youth serving professional in the city. As soon as I learned about the launch of the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement, I knew I needed to participate. My immediate reason was to connect with other youth serving organizations and individuals. The City provides a vast number of resources for young people, so attending their partner network meetings has helped me get to know other professionals working with the same teams I'm working with. I can refer teens to the right programs based on their individual needs. Knowing who I'm referring them to, I can follow up and support Our young people through any process that might feel unknown or daunting for a teenager. Personally, talking to other youth serving professionals in the city, I have been able to brainstorm through challenges, learn and apply best practices, and explore new perspectives Oya has become a central hub of resources for out of school education programs like ours. Creating spaces where all of us doing similar work serving the same community can connect with each other makes youth development in our city more successful and efficient. And we know that youth development is the best prevention. An example of that is the May Youth Summit and Boston After Dark. I can attest that every year our team participants consistently share wanting and being grateful for opportunities to connect with each other. They consistently share wanting and being grateful for opportunities to connect with each other. The summit and Boston After Dark provides that, creating an opportunity for them to find like-minded people, build their own community, and do it in a safe and supportive and inclusive environment, providing a healthy foundation for those connections. It fosters opportunities for networking, whether it's presenting the work they're already doing at organizations, their own ventures, directly connecting with new resources, and engaging in conversations about what matters to them. The Summit and Boston After Dark are clear moments and spaces that the City of Boston is telling young people, you matter to us and we want you to succeed. Besides, they're having fun at a time when a lot of young people are having to be adults. We know this is what our young people need, as they told us in the Youth Speaks survey funding conducted by OEA. They're seeking safety, belonging, and community at a time where they need it the most. A city that wants a bright future will care about their young people will care about what their young people have to say. And Oya is a concrete example that Boston is doing that and should continue to do that for generations to come. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, next we'll go to Betsy and then Maria.

Hello, I'm Betsy Gibbons, and I'm the Director of Teen Programs at the Institute of Contemporary Art, or ICA, here in Boston. We have been working with young people for the past three decades to create the ICA into a space that really feels not just welcoming, but also a place where young people can really be and be themselves. And OEA has really amplified our work. It's been a really important way to connect with people in a single space every month or so in order to reignite partners, remind us of the things that everyone's doing across the city, and learn where people have moved and what they're looking for. It's been really powerful for me, and I've been doing this work for a long time, but it's been really powerful for my younger staff members, many of whom are alums of the teen programs at the ICA. who are really the up and coming youth workers that we want to pour that professional development into. One of them just got promoted from being an alumni assistant with us into being a program assistant partially through the professional developments he's done around youth mental health, around C.P.R. around supporting LGBTQ youth through this network. And it's been really important for us as a team to think about the partnerships we might wanna look at to have this central place where we all kind of gather spread out, meet other partners, talk about what they're doing, and come back together to think strategically about how we want to partner with people. It's also been a really fantastic resource for our teens as well as our alums. And we work with alumni up into the beyond 25, but especially closely with alums who are the more recent graduates of high school. And it's been really wonderful to have the people who are teens in our programs attend the Mayor's Youth Summit, as so many have said, but also to have been possible to have them part of the Mayor's Youth Council's Community Council. and then this year they're becoming part of the Boston Coalition of Youth Councils. And we're just really excited to have the data from Youth Speaks to add to the data that we see and know every day in order to guide our path forward. So I just want to thank you all in OYA and everyone who's supporting them to make this work possible. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Next up we have Maria and then Jesse.

Hi, everyone. City Councilors, thank you for letting me testify today on behalf of Codify and the Office of Youth Engagement and Achievement. I am Maria Dominguez Gray, and I'm here testifying in three capacities. The first one is that I'm the executive director of the Phillips Brooks House Association. We serve over 800 low-income youth. across Greater Boston. But I'm also here as a parent of a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old. Both of whom have benefited from Success Link and other programs that are through OYA. And I'm also here as one of the kind of original old school Founders of the Youth Worker Alliance and the Youth Jobs organizing initiatives that we've done over the years in the 90s. For PBHA, our staff is young. They're emergent. They're 19 to 25 themselves, are a little bit older. and Oya has been incredible as an opportunity for them to come to the meetings and other people spoken to to be able to to participate in the professional development. And that's been incredible. I think the other thing to just say is that as somebody who a lot of people call across Boston from different years, to say oh I need this Maria or who can I talk to about this just having oh yeah as a touch point to advocate and be a resource for people who are trying to get involved in youth work or trying to find The right path or trying to find other resources has been incredible and something that we didn't have in the past. I want to speak a little bit more, though, as somebody who's been trying to organize youth workers and youth for over 30 years. As many people may know, with Youth Worker Alliance and Mayors Youth Summit stuff, those kind of weren't sustainable and they fell apart. They were driven by community. But they had filled such a critical need in our community, many of which has been alluded to. And I think OYA's role in doing this and making sure that this is something that can be sustainable is critically important why we should codify and make sure that this isn't something that deals with the ebbs and flow of finance. So from a really pragmatic standpoint, I just want to remind the city councilors that the investment that we're putting in OYEAH is important in terms of educational opportunity and success for young people. It makes a difference in terms of decreased numbers in youth violence. We know that from the studies from back in the day. And it also makes a big difference in terms of professionalization of the field and the quality of programming that's being provided to the young people. So I appreciate you letting me testify today. Thank you, Councilor Santana, for bringing this out. Thank you, Pedro. and Chief Masso for all that you do for young people. And I really, really strongly support codifying, oh yeah, so that we can make sure that this is something we're investing our young people sustainably into the future. So thank you.

Thank you so much. We have Jesse, Jesse Lan, and then Jalil Bell, and then Jose and Gavin.

Hi, everyone. I'm an academic support coordinator at Inquilinos Puricuas en Acción, which is a community development corporation in the South End. It oversees affordable housing and also our youth development program in the Villa Victoria neighborhood. I'm speaking today because I strongly support the codification of OYA into the City Council ordinance. The Code of Ordinances. I've been working with youth in my full-time career for four years, and I've grown exponentially in the last two, specifically because of OEI professional development and the resources and support they've offered. Oh yes, free PD trainings offered me my first opportunities for formal training and exposure to several competencies that are essential to working with youth. I want to highlight four in particular today. I attended trainings on social emotional learning, trauma-informed care and healing, navigating chronic marijuana usage in young adults, and motivational interviewing. Before becoming a youth worker, I taught English full-time for two years in a charter school in Boston and didn't have access to such robust PD where I would have also been using it every day. Today I practiced the skills I learned from these trainings on a near daily basis. So I want to highlight again that the resources and professional development offered through OYA are exceptional and not the norm. and they're essential for early career professionals and I'm sure youth workers of all experiences. I also want to amplify that the OEI partner network meetings are a great resource to learn from others. Through a presentation offered by the Mayor's Office of LGBTQ Plus Advancement, At the OEI presentation, I was able to connect with their community engagement specialist. From there, we customized a training specifically for my team to better support LGBTQ youth in our program. because we noticed that we had a gap in knowledge from across the board on our staff. OYA has also been a huge direct support to our program because all of the OYA current fellows attended our job readiness workshops hosted for our youth. They acted as mock interviewers so our youth received individualized interview prep and practice. OYA leadership has also spoken at panels for our youth and much of the OYA team has attended our end of cycle showcases to celebrate and uplift the youth with us. To close, I recently saw a bumper sticker with the words thoughts and prayers written on it as we face tragedy and the frequent challenges of living everyday life. However, on this sticker, the words thought and prayers were actually crossed out and replaced above it were the words policy and change. Codifying OYA would be a tangible policy change that ensures we continue to better serve our youth and our collective futures. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Next up, Jaleel, and then Jose.

Good afternoon, and thank you for having me. I'm Jaleel Bell. Thank you, Councilman. Thank you, Pedro. I am the program supervisor at the Gallivan Community Center. Um, and I just wanted to say that I'm in support of the events that OYA has brought about, Boston After Dark, and on the Youth Summit. These events are giving my youth the opportunity to represent their community. They give the youth a safe place to go to be a part of their community and uplift it. It allows the youth to Give their parents a first-hand view of the leadership that they do possess. And it bridges the gap between different communities, allowing kids to go to communities that they might never go to in a safe way. It empowers the youth and it gives them the opportunity to be a voice in a positive way, in a healthy way, to create memories for future. And the work that... We have been doing with these youth. It creates future leaders. And I'm proud that the kids that have these roles are hitting the ground running. These programs give youth support and resources to help advance our communities and their members that are looking to be better for themselves. In their circumstance, putting them on a platform where they can be a voice that matters. And they have a fighting chance to make a difference for their peers and youth to come. Thank you very much. I appreciate you.

Thank you, Jose, and then Gavin.

Good afternoon. My name is Jose Barrientos. I'm here in support of codification for OER. I want to start by saying that I was a first wave Phillips Brook House Association kid back in the 80s. So my heart runs deep. I want to offer my support by showing the council a real-life, immediate event that transpired through OEA and Pedro Cruz and his organization. First, I want to say is we all know the term generational wealth and generational poverty, right? I have two grandchildren that Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching. and it just broke my heart. What do I do as a grandparent, right? Because this is the result of my daughter. Fortunately though, I prayed about it, first and foremost, and I had the recollection of Pedro Cruz and his encouragement, his fortitude for the youth of Boston. So I just reached out to him and I laid out my plight to him. And he got back to me. He said, I'll get back to you in a couple of days, right? They live in Madison Park Village. We're talking about networking, right? He was able to network for these girls to get them into a program to not only Get them, you know, spirits lifted. He got them able to, they're now in another course, the college program, which is beneficial. They can work on their timeline. Not only that, Madison Park Development Program got them employment opportunities. When you strip anybody of hope and purpose in life, they are... Destined to fail, no matter where you are in the social circle. Never mind these young kids. So now they're empowered. I spoke with their mentor, Jenny Matos, And she shared with me, she goes, Jose, it's night and day, these girls. When they first came out, they didn't even want to lift their hats. They couldn't look at people in their face. And through this program they have life, they have purpose, they have opportunity. And to codify that, I vouch that you increase their budget tenfold. and like these children didn't even know. They lived right next door to the MDC program and they didn't know about the opportunities. They need a budget for advertisement just to be known. Good things can't be kept inside. And this is a good thing. This is a good man. And I want to close with this. Our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. The Gettysburg Address. He said it's a government of the people, by the people, and most importantly, for the people. So I vouch that this government be for the people of the city of Boston, no matter how old you are or how young you are.

Thank you. Next up we have Gavin, and then Joaquin, and then Bridget.

Good afternoon, Boston City Council. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Gavin Stevenson. I'm a student at the Roxbury Latin School, and I'm a lifelong resident of the South End. I'm a current member of Santana's youth force. The Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement is important to me because it is a citywide commitment to uplifting and empowering young people across Boston. OYAC creates spaces where youth voices are not only heard, but valued, helping us take an active role in shaping the future of our communities. For example, last year I served on one of OYA's many programs, the Mayor's Youth Council, where I got to engage with students from all over Boston's neighborhoods to help bridge the gap between the voices of youth and city policy. Through its programs, partnerships, and services, OEI connects young individuals such as myself to meaningful opportunities for growth, leadership, and support. Whether it's through youth programs, spaces or events that foster a sense of community, training and resources for individuals who work with youth, or direct engagement with young people as we navigate education, employment and civic life, OYEAH ensures that every young person has access to the tools they need to thrive. Thank you. And unfortunately, two members of My workforce were unable to join us. Would it be possible if I read on their behalf their work?

I apologize. Can you repeat that?

On behalf of two of my colleagues, they've written up testimonies. They're unable to attend today.

Sure, of course.

All right. So on behalf of David Huang. The Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement has given me the necessary resources that have supported my active participation in impactful initiatives and community opportunities. As a City of Boston department, OYA amplifies the voices of youth through development programs, services, and partnerships. Apart from me, OYA also serves as a central platform that connects people ages 14 through 25 from all neighborhoods to thriving and empowering networks. By advocating for the youth's involvement in policies and decision-making, OEF values the progression of the next generation's leaders and agents of change. And next, on behalf of Delilah Wardwell. OYA, which stands for the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement, focuses on uplifting voices of young people from ages 14 to 25 by connecting these individuals to city programs, partnerships, and services. Oh yeah, make sure Boston's youth are heard, supported, and empowered by creating and enhancing youth programs and spaces and uplifting youth-facing individuals. Youth and young adults also. Overall, OEIAC connects young people and youth facing individuals to opportunity, community, and growth. The OYEAH office is extremely important to me because OYEAH opened doors for me, helped me gain experience through a real-world internship, and gave me a sense of power in my own community. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we have Joaquim and Bridget and then Amira.

Good afternoon, Boston City Council. Similar to Gavin, I also have two public testimonies from two members. Would it also be okay for me to read those? Of course. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Joaquim Lombos. I'm a student at Boston Latin Academy, as well as a resident of Roxbury. And I was actually one of the youth of many who helped write the ordinance to codify the Office of Youth Engagement. OYEA exists to support young people. The office's focus is to connect youth with resources such as job opportunities and community programs. OYA also organizes the Mayor's Youth Summit, which is a celebration that aims to engage youth all across Boston. For these reasons, I believe that the codification of this office is not only necessary, but fundamental for the development of youth all across the city of Boston. Now for Alexander Kokovides. As a part of Santana's Youth Wars over the summer, we made it a goal to file an ordinance that would codify the Office of Youth Engagement, an office crucial and an office crucial to providing opportunities for youth across the city of Boston year-round. We wanted to focus on it because with the upcoming election and potential for a new mayor, we did not want there to be an option or a possibility to get rid of the Office of Youth Engagement. Codifying the office would ensure that there is no chance of the office being removed Securing a place that students of BPS in Greater Boston can find connections to work and other aspirations that they might have. Carlis Manana wrote, the Office of Youth Engagement and Achievement has been very helpful for me when I was struggling to find a job. They helped me connect with some awesome resources and connections in Boston. Through OES support, I was able to get a job that fit my schedule with school and helped me gain valuable experience. By formalizing their role in city policies, we can ensure that people have seamless experiences and get connected just as I did. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Next up we have Bridget and then Amira.

Good afternoon, Boston City Council. My name is Bridget Blair. I'm a junior at Boston Land School, and I'm a lifelong resident of West Roxbury. I started on the Mayor's Youth Council as a sophomore and I was recently selected again for my junior year. and over the past year at MYC, I've seen myself and my peers benefit from a host of opportunities and mentoring. When I started MYC, I was interested in the government, but I didn't think that there was anything I could do to make a change as just a teenager. but NYC helped to empower my fellow counselors and I to lead initiatives of our own making. Last year, I led this street safety initiative under which I was able to connect and shadow city workers in the Department of Public Works and the Department of Transportation, which have remained connections to me. I actually still email back and forth with my shadow from that time, and we're going to meet this Thursday. Smith, as well as I was able to host a town hall in West Roxbury for my fellow peers to hear about the issues they face and build ramps in South Boston with the actual construction team contracted by the city. NYC gave me and my fellow counselors not only a seat at the table, but also great agency in making our events and initiatives the way we thought would be best and most welcoming for other young people. Beyond NYC, I've been able to witness the good that the Office of Youth Engagement does for young people of Boston. Going to BLS, I've definitely heard a lot of my peers' feedback as far as the challenges they face in Boston, but it often feels as if there's nowhere for these issues to be heard. As I assisted in initiatives such as the Youth Lead the Change participatory budgeting, as well as the Youth Speaks Boston survey, I watched people at my school feel more heard and become more engaged in solving the problems that they faced in their communities silently for so long. Overall, I've been personally empowered by the Mayor's Youth Council. I also know that through their many other initiatives, the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement continues to empower young people all across Boston every day and codifying the office is of incredible importance. Thank you.

Thank you, Bridget. So we have Amira and then Alexander and then Ross.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Amara Settles. I'm a sophomore at Suffolk University and a youth ambassador for Councilor Henry Santana's Student Youth Force. and a resident of Dorchester. I am here to express my support for codifying the Office of Youth Engagement and Opportunity, known as OEA. As a young woman who grew up in Boston and has been involved in civil programs since I was 15, I've seen how the concept of OYAL has opened so many doors for young people who might never see themselves represented in government and leadership spaces. This office doesn't just create internships, it builds confidence, community, and purpose. Through OYA, I've learned professional skills, found mentors, and grown my passion for public service. I've also watched my younger peers find their voices and become leaders who give back to our city at the same age that I started out. My dream of being a political leader wasn't found in my textbooks or class discussions, but through having the privilege of working with several city and state offices through internships and youth programs supported by OEF. Codifying Ollant means protecting the pipeline of empowerment, making sure youth voices remain a permanent part of Boston government, no matter who's in office. Supporting our youth should be non-negotiable, and codifying OYA is how we prove it. Thank you for your time and valuing the voices of young people in Boston.

Love seeing our future leaders out here. This is great. Alexander and then Ross.

Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Alexander Bernal, and I'm a student at Boston Latin Academy. As a resident of Roxbury, the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement is very important to me because it represents opportunity, Empowerment and connection for young people like myself. Growing up in Boston, I've seen how much youth can achieve when given the right support. OYA gives people a chance to explore their interests early and gain real experience while also being heard by the city that raised them. Through youth programs such as Boston Pick and Success Link, I've personally been able to develop new skills and discover my passions, something that has truly shaped my future. Additionally, programs like YouthLine directly connect youth to the resources they need to succeed, whether that means finding a job, accessing mental health support, or having a third space to relax and feel safe. Individuals like Henry Santana with Santana's Youth Force, Jesse from EBA, and Pedro from Mayor's Youth Council have shown how impactful youth development can be when supported by strong city infrastructure. For these reasons, I believe the codification of this office is essential to ensure that every young person in Boston has the access to opportunities and the support they need to thrive. Thank you.

Thank you. And last but certainly not least, especially because he's a Charlestown resident, Ross Wilson.

Hello, my name is Ross Wilson. I'm a senior at Boston Latin School. And as the counselor said, I'm a Charlestown resident. This is my third year on the council. My first year on the council, Myers Youth Council that is, my first year on the council I was part of the school's committee and I worked on curriculum and support for making diverse curriculums for Boston Public Schools. We worked with BPS and we advocated with youth to make a better curriculum for our schools and yeah. And then for my second year, I was part of with Bridget and two other counselors on the Safe Streets Committee. and basically the idea from that came from a need for a crosswalk on Belmont and Medford Street in Charlestown and so we were pushing through the Department of Transportation, Department of Public Works for a crosswalk on that street. Though we didn't achieve that yet, we were still able to get a crosswalk in the south end. We pushed with the department to make sure that we were able to achieve safe streets around our neighborhoods. So these are just some of the examples of what the Mayor's Youth Council provides to the youth of Boston. A great way for youth to be able to express their voices, to express their concerns, and basically have an impact on the goings of the city and have an impact on policy that will affect them. and it really gives you the freedom to pursue issues that you think need to be addressed and I'm just an example of how this council and how this department have supported youth in that journey. Thank you.

Thank you. Really quick before you go away, what did you say? Belmont and Bunker Hill Street? Yeah, Belmont and Medford Street.

There's a dog park across the street from it and basically We pushed last year, but they said like the five-year gap in between them paving the roads. But yeah, so we're pushing that for this year as well. Thank you.

Thanks, look forward to working together with you on that. Okay. Anybody else speak now for a voter piece? OK. I think we're OK. Thank you. That was incredible. Again, I just really love seeing some of our future leaders here in the city. You never know, one of you could be sitting back here, and I hope that you are. So please consider that. And if not, that's OK. We just need some great leadership that is invested in making the city an equitable, welcoming, inclusive city for everybody. With that, I'll pass it to Councilor Santana for any closing remarks he may have. And Councilor Hunter, thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Really appreciate you having us here today and hosting this hearing. I want to give a shout out. I know I've given them multiple shout outs, but after hearing their public testimony, I just want to give a shout out to Santana's youth force and just for being here. They came after school, after class. and just love the passion that you all have right now for our youth you know as youth yourselves just advocating for the next generation already and I really love that you know definitely want to give a special shout out to Joaquim, just for, he was my initial youth ambassador and has, you know, took a chance on the force of itself and it's been able to grow. So, and I just want to thank everyone for being here today, both our panels, our administration panel, that featured the amazing Pedro Cruz, which I think, you know, it's very clear the impact that you've had on our city and our youth, in our organizations, and just looking forward to seeing you know you continue to grow and take this office to another level which I know you're always thinking about so and of course your amazing team Lindsey and everyone who keep it running Thank you, Chair, again. I think this is extremely important. I know my youth are very, because they've been working on this for months now, maybe we can provide an update of what maybe The next couple of things can look like. I don't believe we're going to be pulling it for a vote this week. We've received feedback from the administration That you mentioned earlier, but hopefully by next week we can we can pull it for for City Council vote so not this Wednesday for the following Wednesday and You probably won't be able to be there because it'll be at 12 noon and you'll probably be at school I know it's going to be a big day, especially for the youth who worked on this since day one. Thank you so much for everything that you poured into this and for thinking of our future generations.

Thank you again to Councilor Santana for your leadership. Yeah, and just to outline next steps. So what was provided and what was filed by the youth and Councilor Santana is the first iteration. And it's multiple versions end up We've gathered feedback in the form of language suggestions from the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. And now we just have to rectify the two. Does Councilor Santana and myself and my council colleagues, do we agree with the changes? I think generally we do. You've heard that today. But it would behoove me as chair to ensure that the rest of my colleagues get a chance to look at this, provide any thoughts, suggestions, or comments. And then what happens is that I produce a committee report that talks about the process and talks about some of the changes. and hopefully we have a final product that reflects all of the desires and needs and wants of the youth of Boston. So that's next steps and I think that will take us a week, so please forgive me, thank you for your patience, but certainly by next week we should have a final product.

Brayden. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you Councillor Santana for bringing forward this this ordinance or this to codify the Office of Youth Engagement and Advancement. I learned a lot this afternoon. Thank you to all the young people who came in. Thank you so much. Very, very important that you're here. As Councillor Coletta says, future leaders in the City of Boston, I have no doubt. I also look forward to working with Director Cruz, getting to know you a bit better. I do not think I have met you in person. and seeing if we can collaborate on issues that we're facing out in Austin and Brighton. But this is a very hopeful and forward-looking initiative and I'm very excited to support it. So thank you. Thank you all.

Great. I have nothing else to say, just gratitude and appreciate everyone's time and energy for being here. This hearing on docket 1434 is adjourned. Thanks, everybody.