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Ableton On Air is a member of the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter. Welcome to this edition of Ableton On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently able. I've always been your host Lauren Seiler. On this edition, before we get to our important edition of the second part to the Kennedys and their work, we would like to say thank you to our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and many others, including the partnership from the Association for the Blind and Vermont, the Division for the Blind of Vermont, and many, many others. We would like to welcome Dr. Herbert Cohen of the Kennedy Center. Dr. Cohen for many years has been a foremost leader in pediatrics and children with special needs. Welcome, Dr. Cohen, to Ableton On Air. Okay. Dr. Cohen, could you tell us a little bit of your, well, a lot of your work and let's start there. What has been your work in the field of pediatrics and working with special needs for many years? Well, I came to Albin Einstein Medical School under the mentorship of Dr. Larix Taft, who established our program in 1956. And I came there as actually a fellow of his from 1962 to 1964. And I stayed, eventually became the assistant director and then became the director of the sector, which I did until about 12 years ago when I became an American director. And I've continued to teach and until a year and a half ago, see patients of my own and follow them over the years. So I have been a, became a specialist in developmental pediatrics, which includes taking care of children, adolescents, and some adults with developmental disabilities. Okay. So I became a specialist in the field beginning in 1962, really, and then continuing on for the rest of my career until the current time. I'm now an emeritus professor and I am semi-retired. I still give some lectures, but I've not done any hands-on work with any patients for the past year and a half. Okay. How, how important is having a doctor or a specialist dealing with special needs?  So how really important is it to, to get services, especially if you're a child or a young adult with special needs? Well, I have to say that when I first came, we had a small group of professionals, because I learned over the years that the, the pediatrician or developmental condition plays a significant role in dealing with the medical needs of children, also in diagnosing what the problem may be. And, but very importantly in our field, we work as part of a team. And though we may have a leadership role, depending on how much trading and experience we have, we work with psychologists and social workers and occupational and physical therapists and speech pathologists and other people in the field, nutrition, nursing. We've had a very large team that we have worked with over the years. And I consider myself a member of that team, but hopefully an important member of that team in order to provide very comprehensive range of services, including diagnostic and treatment services. Okay. Let's talk about the work of the Kennedys and, you know, obviously we know about Rosemary Kennedy, but what was the historical bias at the time of the Kennedys, especially when trying to find services, like talking about 1959, 1960s, especially when trying to find services for children with developmental delays or disabilities? Well, the Kennedys play a very important role when I first came into the field in the early 1960s. There was a limited number of professionals involved with the field. And also there was a very limited number of options for children and for adults with special needs. And it was also a situation in which families are often embarrassed and people will literally be kept in closets and not provide any range of services at all, except maybe some limited special educational services. But the Kennedys fundamental role was to be very open about the fact that they had, the president had a sister, Rosemary, who had developmental problems. We're not exactly sure what her problem was. She's probably had some delays and maybe even on the autistic spectrum, but we weren't even clear about that. But anyway, but at least the Kennedys announced that they had this family member and Rose would come on TV and mother and say, well, we had a child and they'll be understood or told us what to do. And here they were the first family of the country coming out and saying that they had a family member who had significant developmental problems. Now, in addition to that, the Kennedy and really the driving force of the family was really Eunice Shriver. Eunice was the sister who was closest to Rosemary. And Eunice told me over the years that she felt responsible for her sister because she was like her sister's minor, basically, being the sister who was close to her in age. And so Eunice, I think, pushed the family to publicize what the problem was. At any rate, the president organized a panel on mental retardation, as it was called in those days. And that panel consisted of some consumers, but a lot of professionals in education and actually mostly psychiatry. Maybe there was one pediatrician on the group. And what they did was at his charge to them, they came with a series of recommendations, recommendations in order to change or improve the field and the care of people with disabilities. So that led to the passage of Public Law 88-164, which was the Mental Health and Mental Mediation Facilities Development Act. And it had several components. One of those components was to expand the community mental health services because there were psychiatrists who were interested in seeing expansion of that. And supposedly those centers were supposed to take care of people with disabilities, but that part of it really never was very effective. But the other two components and the recommendations, because we had a lot of academics who were on that panel, and they recommended that there were two things that should be done. One was to involve universities and more research into the field. And that led to the founding of what would then originally tend, quote, mental retardation research centers, now the Cold Development Disability Research Centers throughout the country. And one of them actually was the Kennedy Center, where the federal formulas said that you needed to have a matching money of 25% to match with federal money of 75% in order to have one of these centers built. So the Kennedys through their foundation, they just appeased the Kennedy Foundation named after their son who was killed during World War II. And they gave money, seed money to centers around the country, including the one in the Bronx at the eye of an Einstein Medical School. And then there were some other local donors, and then they had to apply and they eventually got 75% of the money to build that research center. Now, there was also another component of the act and that was the, the, the development of disability centers. It was really to promote clinical advancements in the field and change in the field. In fact, 20 of those were awarded, not one, particularly to the one in the Bronx, but around the country, there were 20, including at special education facilities and universities and so on. But what happened was when one of the Bronx was built, Mrs. Shriver said she wanted to make sure that there were people being taken care of, not just researchers, who would be some work as a laboratory, but people who would actually be cared for. And in our case, we had a small clinic that was founded in the neighboring hospital in Jacobi Hospital. And that clinic was called the Children's Evaluation Rehabilitation Center. And what happened was that particular program was moved into the first floor of some potents over a second floor of that research center. And that's how that got started. Later on, the, what was originally called University Facilities for these clinical programs are found, funded by the federal government. They then modified that and said that you could operate one of those programs and get funding for the federal government without building a new building. So we were then in 1964, doesn't they have to be what was then called the University Affiliated Facility, which was then become the University Affiliated Program. And now it's been renamed over the years to be called a university center for education and training in developmental disabilities. So that's a bit of the history of the Kennedy Center started as a research building, but became a large clinical program as well, without reaching to the various components of the community, which I helped develop over the years. I came there, as I said, a fellow, I became the assistant director. And then in 1972 to 74, somewhere in that range, I became the co-director and then director of the, of the University Affiliated Program and Children's Evaluation Rehabilitation Center. And, and just put the word about that, Dr. Taft, who founded the program was a pediatric neurologist who had trained at Boston Children's. Interestingly, Boston Children's had one of the earliest clinics for children with cerebral palsy. And Dr. Taft was very interested and became trained in that. So that when he came to Albert Einstein after the medical school opened and again in 1956, he came, he established a cerebral palsy clinic, which became a pediatric rehab clinic. And then also became what was called the Development Evaluation Clinic for non-physically disabled children. And the two have actually merged to become the Children's Evaluation Rehabilitation Center, which was the program that moved into the Kennedy Center. So the other one, so the other clinic helped other children that weren't disabled, correct? Right. Well, again, we had two components. One was the Development Evaluation Clinic, which was a clinic for diagnosing to a children's problem were, were at the time. And to, and then began expanding to provide a variety of interventions for them. Behavioral interventions and medications were necessary and physical occupational therapy as well as speech therapy. But the other component was this pediatric rehabilitation program. The best majority of children taken care of were children with cerebral palsy, though we did have children muscular dystrophy and spina bifida and, and some children with the, with the variety of other physical problems who also were cared for in their program. Okay. Now, around the same time in the 1960s, Robert Kennedy called Willowbrook a snake pit. Did you have any, did you have any take or did you have any thing, how can I word this? Did you, did you have anything to do with either helping with pediatrics at Willowbrook during that time? And if you did, how, how was pediatrics during the 1960s, you know, in terms of, you know, the treatment of people with disabilities and how, how has it evolved since then? Obviously it's gotten better, but. A bit of a lot of changes. And there was some early pediatricians like Dr. Taft and there was a one in Connecticut who was connected actually to Yale and a few others, Dr. Cook at Johns Hopkins, who became interested in, in, in the care of children with special needs. But the pediatricians were not leaders at that time in the field. Unfortunately, it was associated more with mental disability and psychiatry.  So that was the nature of things into the 1960s. I'm aware of families who wound up putting their family member into a place like Willowbrook or Lexworth Village, which was a large facility. We really had no significant connection to, to their facilities at the time. But we were well aware that these places were really very poor and very detectable, very poor care people. They were crowded. There were no services. There were no treatments. And he even went to visit some of these places and saw what was going on. But we don't have the power to change now. I think you're alluding to the fact that not only Robert Kennedy, but also the media got into the whole issue of visiting these places and rather, Rivera made a big program about that and showing how poor and awful these places were. Well, I have to say that, again, they were normally run by psychiatrists, but in New York and in some other places like Nebraska and a few other places around the country, they began to be a movement to try to change things. And from getting more pediatricians involved, getting other medical specialists, other professionals involved. And I actually became an advocate for change. And in 1971, I was approached by the director of the Department of Mental Hygiene was called then, but it was an office of people with mental retardation. It was called in those days. And asked whether I would actually start a state program in the Bronx for people with development disabilities and start taking people out of institutions. So we started a program called Bronx Developmental Services, while I was also still running our clinic and center. And what we started to do was we establish a network of community-based programs and we units in various parts of the Bronx where we were based. And we started to help families keep their own family member in the home with the services that we could find them. And sometimes we just try to help develop them on our own. We've established an apartment living program for people who are high functioning people with developmental problems, including physical disabilities.   And helping them found group of homes. We found them by ourselves, the group home, one of the first ones, state operated ones of the Bronx. And we began to take people out of Willowbrook and actually became a component of what was then a lawsuit to basically change Willowbrook and to start removing people from there. I testified and invited a class action suit about the need for developmental programs and to move people out, but also get substantial services even in places like Willowbrook while the people were living there. But I think a lot of that was promoted first of all by the whole issue of the Kennedys making it, quote, socially acceptable to have a family member with a developmental disability and to try to do something about it. And then the media getting involved with the exposés on places like Willowbrook and Lexworth Village and Penn Hurston, Pennsylvania. And there was a place in Alabama where there was a big lawsuit by a first estate technique to try to bring about change. And the change occurred to advocacy, to legislative change and for the pressure of the media and very, very greatly by the pressure from families. I have to stress the importance of that because of the fact that I was well aware and worked with some very key people who were family members who became leaders and trying to both nationally and locally to get people into the community and get improved the kind of care and services. One little anecdote I'll just tell you to give you an idea of what life was like in those days. I became very friendly with a woman named Elizabeth Boggs. Elizabeth Boggs is actually a member of one of the original members of the panel. She was from New Jersey. She and her husband are both college professors.  And she said people would come to their house and say, how could you have a child like this? You're so brilliant. You and your husband, she had a PhD in theoretical chemistry and her husband was a professor. And that really motivated her to want to make changes. So she became the first woman to be ahead of the National Association for Taunted Citizens. She was on various advisory groups that I met her, including the President's Committee on Mental Retidation, which I became Vice Chairman of. Actually through the Shriver's pressure on President Cuada to appoint me. But people like Elizabeth took leadership roles, as did so many of other people, in trying to both the inside the system and outside the system to provide advice and advocacy and develop legislative changes. And then eventually going to the courts to try to assure that there would be better care and services for people with disabilities. Talking about parents and how strong advocacy is. Explain more because, you know, we had Mary Bonsignore and other other parents in the in the developmental disability movement. Explain more about how strong parents were during that time. But why did it take, why weren't things quote unquote, see if I say this right, why weren't things quote unquote fixed right away and then parents had to kind of jump in there? Why did it take, why did it take the work of parents to kind of fix the system? I love Mary Bonsignore. She's one of my favorite consumers. I'll tell you the story of Mary, which is illustrative.  But there were so many parents that didn't know what to do and how to go about effecting change. And some of them build organizations, a little anecdote to the Association for Help of Retarded Children as it was called in New York City. One parent put an ad in a local newspaper saying, I have a young adult son at home and I've got no help or services for them. Other parents like me, 300 applied to that ad. And they had a meeting and that the founding of the HRC or Leshia for our children in New York City. Now it's interesting you brought up Mary as an example, but when we established the Bronx Developmental Services Program, we had a team of professionals in various regions throughout the Bronx. And in the West Bronx, we had a very activist team leader who was a social worker. And we had another person who you've already met, Joanne Siegel, who I know you've already interviewed who was a very smart and very effective community outreach person. And they established a training program for parents to teach them how to advocate, to show them where they should go, how they should do it, where the legislators are, and so on. And people like Mary, myself and Joanne even showed up who Mayor Giuliani wanted to cut actually funding, limited funding for services in New York City that they were providing for people with intellectual disabilities. And we all showed up and we had a rally outside of City Hall and we had everybody from a rabbi to a minister to parents to myself speaking at that. And eventually the pressure on Mayor Giuliani was that he would not reduce the funding for those services. He promised it to a parent. So it shows you that you need to kind of help people, kind of point them in the right direction in order to learn how the system works and what they can do to try to change it. It's not easy to change. I mean, we've all learned that over the years, you I'm sure know that very well that change doesn't happen very rapidly. It doesn't happen overnight. It does not. And it takes a lot of continuing work, effort, and trying to buttonhole people who can affect change who are in the leadership roles, you know, legislatively or programmatically or in state and the local government or whoever. Now, we have some time left the future of developmental disabilities. I know that there's been, you know, different states work differently. But in terms of, you know, change, how do you see this state of development, the services for developmental disabilities? Well, we talked about the past, we talked about a little bit about the present, but how do you see it in the future? Well, you know, every state is different. And that's a problem. We have a trading program for development of pediatricians at the Kennedy Center. It's a very successful program. And one of our former trainees recently became the commissioner for the Office of People with Development Disabilities in Albany in New York State. And he found there were tremendous obstacles to trying to affect change in the job that he that he had. Among those were people who control the budgets. And also you have people who don't want the institutions closed and people who don't want the kind of services that you want to develop in the community because there was opposition to develop in the community residences. That's less now than it used to be when I first started. It was very It's called it's called NIMBY, not in my backyard. A lot of people don't want people with disabilities living. That's exactly right. I went to community meetings and got roasted people in the community got threatened by people in the community. But there are a lot of there are a lot of interests involved. For example, some of the large agencies want to control what happens in the vision and giving out money. Smaller agencies don't do don't have the same amount of clout to even though they may be local, they may represent the minority groups rather than some of the others.  And it varies from state to state. I think one of the driving forces in emptying the institutions by the way is now fiscal. It costs so much to keep an institution running. The last figure I saw that around the country, the average was over $200,000 per year for residents to stay in a facility. As a governor is looking at that and saying, well, maybe I can maybe it's like what's less so I can get out in the community. But putting the community doesn't guarantee you're going to get all the services you need. Is it is it more I'm sorry for interrupting. Is it more to keep someone in an institution versus a group home? That's an interesting question because group home operations are cheap, but they are cheaper in the vast majority of cases in the institutions. But to provide the range of services you need, you really have to spend money to do that. And that includes all the therapies and behavioral dimensions you may need and so on. But it is interesting because under Medicaid you have a program where basically you have the option now of moving somebody into the community. But you have to demonstrate that costs less than it would in the institution. But most of the time you can do that. So I think that the alternatives to social care are certainly there. But do they vary from state to state? Yes, absolutely they do. And as we know there's some states that are fiscally much much tighter and don't have more generous use of Medicaid, which is by the way one of the major ways of funding a lot of the community services, as well as was originally love the institutional care. But not every state is expanded in Medicaid. And we know that that's become political hot potato that some of the more conservative states, they have it. But you know being conservative state doesn't always mean that you can't be progressive. For example in Nebraska they've always had a very aggressive community program development that was led by a couple of leaders, actually physicians in one case as psychiatrists. And in upstate New York another psychiatrist led a development of community programs. But interesting too, another little anecdote. There's a waiver program I just mentioned where you can move people into the community or out of a hospital into care. They started actually in Iowa. There was a woman named Mrs. Beckett and she had a daughter Katie Beckett who was in the hospital and who could not be moved. She was on a respirator, could not be moved in the community because there was no way of paying for it. And she went to a local legislator, a Republican senator who called President Reagan at the time, Reagan at the time.  And he said, let's change it. And that led to the development of the waiver program, which is the means of taking a girl like Katie out of the hospital and bringing her home with her arm with nursing care or whatever under this waiver program. So if you find the right button to press the right legislator to advocate for you, you get a change, but it's not always easy. Let me just read, you know, we emphasize that. I met a lot of legislators in the Bronx and some were effective and some were not. And I won't go any further to describe some of the problems. Do you find, for example, take the state of Vermont, the state that I'm in, do you find that the smaller the state, the better services the person can get? In terms of developmental disability services? I don't think there's a rule about that. There are certainly some small states that have done well. It's a big state. For example, California has had a very wide range of community services developed over the years by governor and a senator called Lantaman, who said Senator, who had developed this regional service group. And New York also has done well because they very, very, very aggressively used Medicaid to fund their services and be able to expand them. And the most in the New York state's budget is a Medicaid budget. So a lot of states can do well, small states can do well. I think one of the morals of the story, example with the Katie Beckett story was that you can be in a relatively small state where you can access your local legislator, maybe more easily than you can in a larger state, or a regional legislator, or a state senator or whatever, and you may be able to press the right buttons in order to affect change. So I don't think there's a cardinal rule that says a small state or a big state may do better because some are better than others. I think a lot depends on who the legislators and who the governors are. And what their point of view is, and I'll tell you some other anecdotes, I remember I was president of the Association of the University-affiliated Facilities, our centers, whatever they're called now. And we were worried during the Reagan administration, they were going to cut out services. And we met with Assistant Secretary, he was originally from California, he was very conservative, I won't mention her name. But she said, I'm going to eliminate your kind of programs. So we said, but, you know, our programs are national and they're every practically every state now. And said, well, we don't care. So we were able to press the right button. So one of the key people, there was a director of a center in Utah, my name is Marvin Fifield, who happened to be friends with Senator Hatch. And he was on advisory group with Senator Hatch. He was a very conservative Republican legislator.  And I'll pick up the phone and call the president. And he did. And right away, no problem, continuing funding.  I went into a legislative office and starting in with a legislator from Illinois, who was head of a important committee in Congress. And I said, what are you here for? I said, well, here because we provide services and our centers provide a lot of services for people with disabilities. He said, you don't have to go any further. I said, I had a brother in law who was intellectually limited. And I know all about the issues and problems. So sometimes if you deal with a knowledgeable person who is a legislator, who is a family member, that also helps get where you want to go. Well, again, we would like to thank you so much for joining us on this edition of Ableton on Air. Happy holidays and thank you so much. Where can people turn if they would like to find out more information on the Kennedy Center? Can you give the website? Well, we have a website. The Kennedy Center has a website. Our Children's Evaluation and Meditation Center has a website. They could find it there. If you look it up, we're in the Bronx. We're affiliated with Albinized Dye Medical School. And we also with Montefiore Medical Center now, which is the parent agency for the clinic. So they could look it up and see the kinds of things that we do. And there are other places around the country that do similarly. But we're proud of what we developed over the years. At one time, we would say we're herming about 8,000 people a year and about 50,000 plus visits. But there are other large centers. And I'm sure there's one in every state now. So there's a program you can look up in your own state, usually federally funded for serving people with disabilities. Anyway, good luck to you, Lawrence. It was nice speaking with you today. Okay. Thank you for joining us on this edition of Abledon on Air. For more information on the Albinized Dye College of Medicine and the Kennedy Center, you can go to www.einsteinmed.edu. That's www.einsteinmed.edu. Thank you, Dr. Herb Gold. Thank you for the good work you're doing. Okay. Thank you and happy holidays. For more information on Albinized Dye College of Medicine and the Kennedy Center, so that's www.einsteinmed.edu. We would like to thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and the partnerships for this program, the partnership with the Roosevelt Kennedy Center and the Albinized Dye College of Medicine, and many other partnerships in Vermont, also including the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and many, many, many others. Thank you again, Dr. Cohen, and this puts an end to this edition of Abledon on Air. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time. Abledon on Air is sponsored by Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to be home in the community. Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support comes together. Media sponsors for Abledon on Air include Parkchester Times, Muslim Community Report, www.thisisthebronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps, Domestic and International, Anchor FM, and Spotify. Partners for Abledon on Air include Yachad, New York, and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Vermont Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Montpelier Sustainable Coalition, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity. Abledon on Air has been seen in the following publications, Parkchester Times, New York Parrot Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, www.thisisthebronx.info, and www.h.com. Abledon on Air is a member of the National Academy for Television Arts and Sciences Boston, New England Chapter.


Hello, welcome to Global Connections on the ThinkTech livestreaming network series. I'm your host, Grace Chang, today here to talk about the Canadian social media campaign Tell America It's Great. And with me to talk about this topic today is Professor Pierre Aslan of Hawaii Pacific University. Hi, Grace. Hi, Pierre. Thanks for joining me today. My pleasure. And you are now in Hawaii teaching history at Hawaii Pacific University, but you are originally from Canada. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. I've been here for 25 years, but I'm originally from Quebec City in Canada from the French part of Canada, really the heart of Francophone Canada. I was born and raised there and eventually made my way to Hawaii for graduate school in the early 90s and haven't been back since. I've visited family, but I've been living in Hawaii pretty much ever since the mid-90s. Okay. And so do you still keep close connections with people in Canada? I do actually. So I've got good friends in Canada, my family's still in Canada. And beyond that, I've got dual citizenship, but I still very much identify as Canadian. It's almost a race or an ethnicity for me. So despite the fact that my life is here and has been here for a very long time, I still, yeah, very much identify as Canadian and also as Quebecois. So you're that interesting acronym or hyphen Canadian American, right? Yeah. The naturalized American. Exactly. And you'll be voting in this election. I will be voting in the election. Absolutely. But we also have a Canadian perspective, which we're interested in talking about here today. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm excited about putting on my Canadian hat to talk about this particular election. And there is a decent-sized Canadian community here, correct? They play ice hockey. They do Canadian things, such as cricket or cropping. And eating Canadian food. Yeah, actually. So we have, there's a good number of Canadians, actually. The place I've met, I guess, the largest concentration is at the ice palace. All good Canadians, I guess, I play ice hockey and I've been playing ice hockey for as long as I've been here. And we've got kind of the odd guys from hockey playing states in the U.S. but also kind of a sizable group of Canadians, guys who've come down here for a variety of reasons and have settled here for the most part. So those guys are my kind of regular Canada connection where we get to talk about things Canadian. We get to annoy our American friends and beyond that kind of assert our identity as Canadians. Canadian immigrants. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Canadian immigrants. Yeah, we're like a small immigrant community. So we're all sort of inundated by this U.S. presidential election and it's been, you know, it's been everywhere in the media. Even if you don't follow politics very closely, it's just hard to avoid, especially this time around somewhat. And a lot of Americans have reported that they are experiencing very high levels of stress because of it. The American Psychological Association has sort of verified this, that Americans are feeling that all of the rhetoric, all of the inflammatory marks, all of the kind of exchanges, images that have come out from this election campaign has been really difficult. So what we're here to talk about today is an effort by Canadians to make Americans feel better about ourselves to kind of diminish the stress and feelings that are coming out because of this election. So this social media campaign launched by this Toronto-based company agency that is called Tell America It's Great. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, absolutely. It's, yeah, I've got the two identities I can play with and in light of this current presidential campaign, I found myself being more Canadian or wanting to be more Canadian. But yeah, so Canada has this very interesting relationship with the United States. I think it's really kind of a love-hate relationship. There's always been more love than hate. It's just that the U.S. is kind of the big, huge neighbor to the South and Canada suffers from what I would consider some kind of inferiority complex. And generally speaking, the view of the U.S. is quite favourable. But yeah, every once in a while Canadians will kind of point to certain problems with America in part because they want to underscore a legitimate problem and also because they want to kind of show that in Canada these kinds of things wouldn't happen. And certainly what's been happening recently with the presidential campaign has been in the eyes of many Canadians, as it's been for many Americans, kind of a low point in recent American political history. So we Canadians, being the nice people that we are, decided that we would do our share and help our American neighbors by launching this campaign, which is essentially kind of a way of giving back for all that the U.S. has given us. And so largely through tweets, through Twitter, Canadians have been encouraged by this movement to comment on things they like about the United States, to make Americans who might feel a little bit self-deprecating at the moment to kind of tell Americans that, no, they remain a wonderful people and theirs remains a truly wonderful country. So what have the Canadians been saying about America? That's so great. What do they think is great? It's very interesting. So you've got people who will praise the U.S. for having produced, among other things, this is from tweets as part of this campaign, right? So praise the United States for producing the largest number of Nobel Prize winners, which is truly remarkable. Canadians praising the Americans for mapping the human genome, but then you also have Canadians kind of praising the Americans for coming up with the golden girls. For barbecue, for tailgating, for the NFL. We've got Canadian football, but somehow the four-down system seems to be a little more popular than the three-down system characteristic of Canadian football. Buffalo wings, there was a relatively powerful tweet about the greatness of Buffalo wings. And there was, I'm looking at Oprah, a reference to Oprah that America has given us, Oprah, which could also be seen as a liability. But this particular person actually thought was a great thing about America. Yeah. I mean, American culture and Canadian culture are so intertwined, right? And we've got Justin Bieber, and we've got Ryan Reynolds, who else? All these actors, singers, performers, and then the new prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is very popular over here. So we're so close geographically, culturally, so it's interesting to know what Canadians think about American culture, what they appreciate about American neighbor to the south. And as a French Canadian, I have to take offense to your failure to mention Celine Dion amongst the names. But yeah, I mean, so Canadians are very interesting, Canadians generally, French Canadians are something else entirely, and we can address that later if we have time. But Canadians often define themselves relative to the United States.  So very often what we witness is Canadians asserting their national identity through references to the United States. So for example, Canadians will kind of suggest that Canada doesn't have the kind of race relation problem that the U.S. has, that Canada doesn't have the kind of gun violence, gun related violence that the U.S. has. And all of these things ultimately become part of this effort to assert what to Canadians is a very distinct and unique Canadian identity. What's happening right now with the presidential campaign in the United States is seen by many people and I think with great legitimacy, it's kind of a low point as I was saying earlier. And it would almost be too easy for Canadians to say, oh look, you know, again the Americans being Americans and us Canadians would never have these kinds of problems. And so I think within that particular context there's been this effort to kind of be nice to the Americans to effectively underscore in spite of all that's happening, the merits of the republic and of the country generally. There's also the fact that, so we have Trudeau right now and he's incredibly popular still at least for now in Canada and internationally, but as you may recall recently, it was a couple of years ago, Canadian politics were kind of rocked by a scandal involving the mayor of Toronto. Oh yeah. Yeah. So as I understand it, I think part of this movement is also kind of subtly intended to make Americans forget about kind of the darker aspects of Canadian politics and by showing kind of the good side and the ability to empathize of Canadians without really referring to Mayor Ford. Remind us about Mayor Ford. Mayor Ford had a very capable individual, but eventually it was revealed that he had kind of a drug problem in addition to an alcohol problem. And the way he dealt with it, it was really interesting because his situation, his consumption of drugs and alcohol was definitely excessive, but it's the way that he dealt with it. He openly, he never tried to conceal it once it was exposed. And on one occasion he was asked about his use of hard drugs, I think it was cocaine. And his answer was something along the lines that, well, yeah, I did cocaine, but I was really drunk at the time, as if that would kind of exonerate or excuse the behavior. But it was funny because ultimately he did own up to everything he did, bad as it was. And his record as Mayor had been quite remarkable. And so, but there would appear to be some, it was still kind of a blemish on the face of Canada because these kinds of things are not supposed to happen in normal, beautiful and peaceful Canada. So it kind of, you know, it made an impression on many people and it made Canada infamous for a period. And so I can't help but think that this campaign may in some way be tied to what happened a couple of years ago in Toronto. Yeah, that's interesting. I know that, I don't know, Americans follow Canadian politics that closely, but I mean, certainly Canadians can't avoid American politics, especially this year. So we'll come back in a minute and talk a little bit more about this. So if you all stay tuned after this commercial break, come back and we'll continue the conversation with Pierre Aslan about Canada's social media campaign. Tell America it's great, see you back here soon. This is Grace Chang, your host. Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Hey, how you doing? Welcome to Abachi Talk, my name is Andrew Lening, I'm your co-host. And we have a nice program here every Friday at one o'clock on Think Tech Studios, where we talk about technology and we have a little bit of fun with it. So join us if you can. Thanks, Aloha. Looking to energize your Friday afternoon? Tune in to Stand the Energy Man at 12 noon. Aloha Friday here on Think Tech Hawaii. Hi, I'm Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist here in Hawaii, and I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii, which is on Tuesdays at three o'clock. Have a great summit.  Hi, welcome back to Global Connections. I'm your host, Grace Chang, here talking to Professor Pierre Aslan of Hawaii Pacific University about Canada's social media campaign. Tell America it's great. Welcome back, Pierre. As we were talking about before the break, Canadians are following American politics and very closely this year, just like Americans are unable to avoid it. So I mean, this campaign is interesting because it kind of plays off the slogan of Donald Trump's campaign, right? Make America great again, which kind of implies that America is not so great anymore, perhaps. So I mean, the Canadians must be watching and seeing how Americans, are they emphasizing do you think we're having basically Canadians who are reaching out to America because they know people who are feeling stressed, or are they just empathizing by looking at what this campaign is, how it's unfolding? I think there's two things that are going on. I think there's definitely this attempt to empathize as I was discussing earlier. But also, Canadians, for the most part, would not particularly like a Trump presidency, mostly because of his position on trade issues. In terms of the position on immigration, in certain Canadian circles, that position is quite popular. Canadian conservatives are concerned about an influx of foreign migrants, and as it turns out, the current Prime Minister, Trudeau, has pledged to bring in 30,000 Syrian refugees this year and has basically skipped his promise. So in some conservative circles, there's concerns about this influx of Middle Eastern refugees, and Islamophobia, of course, kind of fuels the concern. And so there's some support for Trump and his policies as they concern the outside world. But when it comes to trade, the protectionism that Donald Trump has been staunchly supporting and advocating is really raising alarm bells in Canada. I mean, NAFTA has been of tremendous benefit to Canadians, generally, not all Canadians, but a majority of Canadians. And Trump has actually talked about, effectively abrogating NAFTA, about imposing tariffs. He was referring primarily to Mexico, but there's a fear in Canada that, well, if he's going to slap tariffs on Mexican imports, there's a strong possibility he might do the same on Canadian imports. So Canadians are quite concerned about the economic implications of each Trump presidency. And so this particular campaign that we're talking about today and other efforts by Canadians might be in some subtle way an effort to kind of encourage Americans to think along more liberal lines and, at a minimum, not support a Trump presidency. Okay. Yeah. Why do you say that as far as it's veering towards a more liberal orientation? Well, because the policies, this idea, I mean, Canada has economically been very, very close to the United States. Because national security strategy is effectively closely intertwined with America's own. And Trump's talk of embracing more protectionist policies, his talk of getting the U.S. out of NATO, which Canada belongs to, kind of compounds these concerns about a Trump presidency. And in that sense, his kind of emboldening Canadian liberals, and young Canadians in particular, who can't really influence the American election directly, but through kind of these kinds of campaigns, can perhaps suggest that we want America to be of the world. We want America to continue assuming its leadership role in the world. And thus, indirectly, we would prefer to have an America under an individual other than Donald Trump. Okay. So Canadians tend to see then Clinton as a more status quo candidate, as far as maintaining these international relations that Canada's interests are deeply intertwined with. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, and there's no question that Hillary Clinton is a tainted candidate, but the reasons that have caused her to be tainted are not reasons that most Canadians would think are really significant. You know, this idea that somehow private communications could be extremely revelatory. For Canadians, this would be lost on many Canadians. For American conservatives, there's tremendous concern about Hillary Clinton as a Democrat in her position on guns, for example, which for Canadians is kind of a non-issue. So Clinton is a much more palatable candidate to Canadians. And at a minimum, the fact that none of her, none of the broad contours of her domestic and foreign policies suggest kind of meaningful negative implications for Canada is kind of reinforces the notion that she would be better in many respects for Canada and for Canadians. Yeah.  And many of the tweets have been about how Canadians appreciate American diversity, American music, especially people like Beyonce and music by the late Tupac Shakur, everything like that. And I think it's, yeah, it's kind of a signal that there's appreciation for how this country is extremely diverse and that, you know, maybe that is, I never thought of it that way, maybe kind of a statement about how we appreciate diversity. And so, and this is an element that it tends to be lost on many Americans, right?  Now, there is obviously a race problem in America and it doesn't appear on the surface at least to be as pronounced in Canada, but then Canada has, it may not have a significant race problem, but we have the language issue, which is kind of the bane of Canadians. And just as Americans find themselves really struggling to address the race issue, Canadians have been struggling for four decades now to address and redress the language issue.  But I mean, I think ultimately, Canadians and Americans have much more in common than they have that separates them. And so this particular movement is kind of consistent with what most Canadians deep down feel about the United States. But there's definitely an appreciation of diversity, which is, which again, I mean, it's truly remarkable in the United States. And the acknowledgments of the limitations of integration in America, but again, we have similar limitations in Canada. So, yeah, the English language politics, although Spanish and Chinese maybe, in turn to the mix. That's what's so interesting, right? So there's concern in the U.S. about kind of, you know, creeping Spanish, right? I mean, California will be voting on language-related issues come November. In Canada, I mean, we still talk about languages, specifically about this dichotomy between French and English. These have been going relatively well economically for Canada, so the issue has kind of taken a back seat. But it remains there. And should Canada experience any sort of major trauma, particularly of an economic nature, my sense is, the whole Quebec secessionist movement would kind of reassert itself once again with the kinds of really dramatic implications that we kind of experience, to some degree, in 1980 and 1995 when we had referendums or referenda on Quebec separation. Mm-hmm. Well, would you say that the separatist movement in Quebec is kind of parallels, is it sort of xenophobic? Does it parallel kind of the anti-immigration positions of some politicians or political parties? It starts out in part as a kind of a Marxist-Leninist movement, ironically enough, in the 60s. French Canadians, they've always been kind of, they've seen themselves and to some degree have, were truly kind of America's, or North America's labor force, unskilled labor force. So a movement, the movement, the Quebec independence movement begins in the early 60s effectively as a labor movement, but really kind of a Marxist-Leninist movement. In time it kind of transforms, and today it's more than anything else, as you point out Grace, it's kind of a xenophobic, there's that element of xenophobia, too, with. But it's, you have kind of staunch separatists taking a position on ethnic issues, but they're specific to language. So if separatists, secessionists, want to keep others out, it's less because they're brown or black than it is because they're native speakers of English, let's say. So if you're Vietnamese and your family speaks French, that's going to be less of an issue than if you're Chinese coming into the province of Quebec and your family speaks English. It's a really interesting situation we have with the politics of language in the province of Quebec and Canada by extension. But yeah, it's a xenophobia informed less by race or ethnicity and more by language. Yeah, so the Tell America It's Great campaign I think maybe recognizes that despite all the deep divisions that this campaign and the presidential elections are revealing in the U.S. that Canada and every society has its own sources of division and that there are things that we can still look forward to that are going to go away just because of the stress caused by this campaign. There is, yeah. Although I have to say that this, you know, I mean the sort of nativism that Donald Trump has been kind of spewing, it's kind of consistent with what's happening in many other parts of the world. But what Canadians that was looking at the Twitter feeds, what some things are becoming concerned about, which is exactly what many Americans are becoming concerned about, is Trump's suggestion that somehow the American system is so flawed that a Hillary victory would underscore the failures of the Republic. And I mean one of the things that one of the Canadians wrote on the Tell America It's Great is just that one of the great things about America is this ability to have these peaceful transitions of power and Trump stands to kind of compromise that. I see, yeah. And so, you know, preserving the stability of the system that we're doing okay, we don't need such a radical transition, is that what you're saying? Pretty much, yeah. But ultimately the Republican system in America, the Republic works and has worked remarkably well despite, of course, being far from perfect. And as a historian of U.S. foreign relations, you can speak a bit about that. But we're a little out of time, unfortunately, so thank you so much for joining me here today, Pierre. It was my pleasure, Grace. My absolute pleasure. Okay, and thank you all for joining us here on Global Connections. I'm your host, Grace Chang. We just finished our discussion about Canada's social media campaign Tell America It's Great with Pierre Aslin of White Pacific University. See me here again next week on Thursday at 1 p.m. Aloha.


So much for the kind intro. Thank you so much. Well, um, yep, I'm JP Zibelich. I'm the CTO and founder of pipe hit. We are a control plane for our good workflows. Um, I'm currently based in Paris, France, where in my free time, I love to butcher the French language. This, why would you, uh, this, this week, we had a very fragmented landscape of orchestrators. We had already a few concerts on platforms that focused on, like, doing model training where you see deals and stuff like that. Yeah. Thank you, well. Yeah. So when we set out to build pipe kit, um, it was kind of roughly the like 2017, 2018 era. Um, and we spoke to a bunch of data scientists and engineers about their problems. And they all mentioned like, Hey, we're running into problems with dependency management and scaling. And the obvious solution to us was like, well, why not just use Docker and Kubernetes? That's like what those things do. Um, and they said that the tooling wasn't there. Um, the dev experience wasn't mature enough. And so we got to work on trying to figure out how to bridge that gap. We then found Argo workflows as being the workflow orchestrator that seemed to be winning in the cloud native, like workflow orchestrator wars and said, like, all right, let's dive in a little bit there. That led us to find that many people were building out these workflow orchestration platforms or these data science platforms internally and spending a lot of resources doing it. So he said, Hey, why not like use our expertise and start building that out as a service? So there's a set of common requirements that both of our platforms had. Obviously we all wanted to use like Kubernetes for our compute layer. Both teams agreed that Argo workflows was the orchestrator of choice that we wanted to go with because it's built using like Kubernetes native primitives. You're interacting with like pods and all the same things that you'd be interacting with. Like if you're just like writing, you know, any sort of like application definition. We also needed to both scheduled jobs across multiple clusters from a single control plane for Bloomberg's team having like a consistent rest API was super important. And for us on piped it in addition to a rest API, our customers are asking for like tight integrations with their Git providers, such as GitLab, GitHub, and also a CLI that ran on top of what they were already using for Argo workflows. Going along with that, our customers needed strong role based access control so they could say what users have access to work with. Our customers were asking for like tight integrations with their Git providers, such as GitLab, GitHub, and also a CLI that ran on top of what they were already using for Argo workflows. Going along with that, our customers needed strong role based access control so they could say what users have access to what resources on what cluster, which expands like an extra dimension than what you can currently get if you're running like a single cluster set up with Argo workflows. And then one other thing that was kind of interesting is we both wanted to set up some sort of workflow template versioning within like a vanilla Argo workflows setup, you have access to workflow templates, which is how you like reuse code, but you only get like one version. And so we wanted something similar to what we do with like Docker images where you get like, hey, I've got like my ID service or whatever and I've got like a, you know, half a million like tags that are associated with that. We wanted to replicate that for like easy rollbacks with Argo workflows templates. We also wanted to render a library of cluster workflows templates to give our user a standard way to do things such as HTTP requests or then a Slack notification. Concerning further, we also value stability and security and Argo is so flexible about whatever you want, while we don't really want our user to run whatever they want. So we only allow cluster images that's built with field types, and then we want our workflow templates, their names to follow a semantic versioning standard. So our user will be able to name their workflow template something like my auto template that's 1.0.0. This way it's easy to control the variation and it can be widely used in the game mode. And lastly, workflow templates must be promoted to product environment. So that means we don't allow workflow templates environment to be created directly. They have to exist in the environment first, and then maybe the recovery itself is very important. So if in an event of one visitor being wiped out, there's something hurting or whatever, we don't want to use certain templates and anything going on there. So, but the Argo frameworks will, you know, fit all the deal because those frameworks are counter-specific. So we use an internal source assistant Chrome scheduler to do our Chrome scheduler. And then lastly, we want to do an auto support blueprint. We don't want to enter requirements for cell 8. So we'll do it from cell 3 to 6, but I don't use 3 to 4. Great. So we have some pipe kit specific requirements and approaches that we needed to tackle when we were setting out to build our platform. So they can be filtered into like three broad areas. The first was ease of use. The second was security. And then there's some just kind of like additional, I don't know, let's call them like junk drawer features.  We'll put them in that category. So when it came to, you know, just like using the platform, again, our customers had like three things that they wanted. One was like a CLI where they could schedule workflows on different clusters from that single spot. Essentially something that would be like a drop in replacement for the Argo workflows CLI, which performs wonderfully for like a single cluster setup. Second, they wanted like an HTTP API. So if they were using like some sort of like web hook or something like that, they could integrate into that nicely, specify like a workflow definition, specify like the cluster name and send it that way. And then lastly, something that we get asked about all the time are these like Git provider connections. So connections with like GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, things that are going to be, you know, like a dedicated GitHub app or GitLab app, whatever the BitBucket equivalent is so that we can read those like web hook events, like pull down the code that might be like hosted, you know, run things and then update whatever the like checks are on each respective platform with a good, you know, like check if like the workflow succeeded and acts if it failed so on and so forth. And that just does a lot generally to like make the dev experience like much smoother and easier to use from the security standpoint. Initially, when we set out to build the product, we were thinking like, hey, people want like, you know, a hosted version of the platform, right, right. Well, that turned out to be wrong. Like people wanted to bring their own clusters, especially if you're running like data processing. You know, you don't want to trust that to like a third party. You want to say like, hey, I have X number of Kubernetes clusters under management. I want to bring these clusters. And additionally, I want to make it so that these don't have to be exposed to the public internet. So we were a little limited in like, say, setting up like endpoints on each cluster. We had to figure out what is like some sort of like poll based or like what we went with was like a queuing based system so that, you know, we could easily say like, hey, you know, we're going to limit like the security footprint here. And then lastly, like similarly was like bringing your own logging provider. So again, initially when we set out, we thought like, hey, people will trust us with their logs. That turned out not to be the case. People want to bring their own like logging back ends and that's something that we support as well. Then circling back in on the workflow template setup, whereas Bloomberg and company was able to go with that Kyberno based solution, you know, using like a very opinionated setup and a mutating webhook. That isn't something that scales for like multiple like companies that are using like the single platform. We have to be like very flexible in what sort of like workflow template names and tags that we allow. Whereas like Bloomberg was very intent on like, hey, we need to limit you strictly to that semantic versioning like we as a vendor can't be opinionated on what like an end cut company like wants to do. So what we did instead was say like we're going to rely on the get provider to give that back end there and say like those are where the workflow templates are stored. And then the get tags, whenever like a user cuts a get tag for that repo or that like workflow template file, that'll serve as like the tag which the Argo workflows like runtime will then have access to. Hopefully it'll make sense when we get to the diagrams. Anyway. Thank you. Yeah, I would resolve faster and send a buyer to the cluster. This is what an order number one folks kicking. So basically our camera. Why would you go check if the workflow is using those. And along with some data. And then a. And. Thank you so much. So our architecture follows like somewhat similar patterns, but there are some restrictions that we run into. Since again, we're not just serving like one company, but several companies. So we'll break it out in terms of layer. So the top layer is how our customers are interacting with the control plane. Again, I mentioned that CLI HTTP API and then the get provider like back ends. Next, each one of those is going to send what is essentially like an HTTP request to our hosted control plane. Now with Bloomberg's approach, you saw that they use like Postgres as a source of truth for state across their multiple clusters. And we use what is our hosted control plane, which is essentially just a Postgres database, but with API layers on top of it. Right. Like if you're connecting like multiple different people to like, you know, a similar database or the same database, you need to have good primitives for authentication and things of that sort. So it wouldn't be safe to just say, like, hey, we're going to open up like a Postgres database and, you know, let everyone like directly connect to it. So the pipe gate control plan serves as like a like central API layer for storing state for all of our different customers. Now next we've got this message to layer. I'm going to briefly jump into that and get into what like the individual clusters look like. So whenever a customer like registers their cluster, they have Argo workflows installed on that cluster, but they also have the pipe gate agent. And that does a lot of the things that you saw will cover previously such as like garbage collection and things like that. But it also reads in our case from these like message queues that get spun up one per cluster. I think now we've done it with like multiple message queues per cluster. Right now we're using SQS as our message queue provider of choice. But we're thinking about moving to Redis to have some other like nice primitives such as like cancelling in-flight messages and things of that sort. So each cluster then, you know, is reading these message queues and saying or listening to events that are emitted by the pipe gate control plan. And once we get that event that comes in, that tells us like, hey, we need to schedule like an Argo workflow on like this namespace. And on this cluster or actually never mind, it's in this namespace, right? Since each message queue is dedicated per cluster.  And throughout the lifecycle of that, it's sending HTTP requests back to our like hosted control plan to update the state of what the workflow is doing. And so that each one of our users can have insights into what's happening across their entire fleet of clusters. All right. Now, let's bring it back to some like contrast and comparisons between our two solutions. So the first problem that we both tackled was like multiple or multi cluster scheduling across different sets of clusters. And a pipe kit, we also went with an agent based approach. The difference being that we are relying a bit more heavily on message queues, given that we don't have as much like direct API control and control over the infrastructure that Bloomberg does. We're also providing that like host to control plan with, you know, again, a dedicated API layer providing that source of truth instead of the direct access to the Postgres database. And a pipe kit, as much as I would love to force everyone to use some verb because I think it's, you know, awesome. We just can't be as opinionated as like a Bloomberg platform team can. So we set things up again to just read workflow templates from get tags. And that gives people the flexibility to, you know, make like tag whatever and just kind of send it, which, again, you know, I would like to be a little bit more opinionated. On that one, but that's not always realistic for everyone's needs. All right, let's get into a demo. So I'm going to go ahead and show importing a cluster in the pipe kit UI. We're going to go ahead and create this cluster within the pipe kit organization. And we've already got one cluster running, but I'm going to show you how to install like pipe kit on my Docker desktop. Cool. So we went ahead and created this like cluster manifest. I'm going to go within our terminal here and apply the YAML that we generated. This is going to spin up our pipe kit agent. Currently we already have like a functioning Argo workflows instance running that you can see here, right? We've got the server and the workflow controller. And we've got a 30 second, you know, readiness check just to make sure that everything's working. Looks like we created our message queue successfully. And in seven seconds, this guy should be live. Yeah, all right, let's go be left. Cool. Yep, it's live now. All right, so now that this is live, we can demonstrate how to submit workflows to multiple clusters. We have a cluster that's hosted remotely. That's called like a runner cluster. And so first I'll show you like what YAML we're going to send to it. This is just some like dummy test YAML. You can find this in like the open source Argo workflows setup. It's going to log, you know, a whale to the console. So first we're going to submit this to our like remote cluster and we can see that we've spun up a new workflow. It is currently running. We're going to get the logs of that workflow available to us. And then we can see on our local like Docker desktop that nothing's there since right, we submitted it to that remote cluster. But next, you know, when we submit another workflow, we should in this case be able to see like, hey, this workflow is running on Docker desktop. So we went ahead and submitted it or not yet. I'm going ahead and submitting it here and we're specifying JP Docker desktop, right? That's our new cluster. And boom, I'm going to refresh the page here and we've got another DAG that's been declared here. We can see like this is the state of the workflow that's being run on the second cluster that Docker desktop that we just imported. And so we have the logs coming in live and we can see like the global state of the workflow. And if we go to our like Kubernetes visualizer, we can see on our Docker desktop that again, this workflow is running. The pods are getting spun up and we have access to information about these pods, right? So we can see on the first cluster, the workflow has been completed. And if I go back to the Docker desktop cluster, we are completed as well. I think that should be it. I think do we have time for Q&A and seeing the 10 minutes in the back? Yeah, we probably have time for like one quick question. So get your hands up fast and then we'll do it. Yeah, we'll go over that. Yeah, I love the approach by the way. That's really cool to see like, you know, how like a company implements it as well as a vendor like alongside and the compare and contrast. I don't think I've ever seen a talk like that. That was awesome. Great presentation. Do you plan to integrate it with Argo events? Like integrate with Argo events. Was that the question? Yeah. Yeah. As a vendor, I don't know, right? That's something that, you know, we got to like just pull our customers figure out like how tight of an integration they want, or if they want the integration and, you know, go from there. How about Charlotte Bloomberg? Thank you. How good. Great. Alright, I'm not going to keep everyone because I think it's time for a break now.  We have three fantastic talks lined up afterwards. So yeah, thank you again. Let's have a round of applause for Will and JP.


Well, a wonderful thing it is to welcome you all here to welcome people that have been working on this project for many years as well as so many kids and families that we know are going to enjoy this for years to come. You know, in my time as mayor I've gotten to work on many great projects working with the community. We've opened major projects of all sorts from roundabouts to roads to new housing, train stations, transit stations and a number of new parks including the new frame landmark on the waterfront. And each of these efforts has their own challenges and rewarding moments and serves the community in different ways. But there is nothing more fun and hopeful as days like today when we get to open a new playground. We've done this, this is the seventh new playground over the last decade and this is not just any playground. The new Oakledge universally accessible playground, this opening is a particularly joyful day. As we say, this is a project that was, this is a project that was driven by the vision and the collaboration of this community. And as a result, it is the first of our playgrounds to be designed from the ground up to be universally accessible for kids and families. For all kids and families. Thanks to the early advocacy of parents and neighbors, broad community engagement and participation, careful design and creative problem solving, this playground is safe and inclusive space where people of all abilities can play and explore together. I am especially grateful to Oakledge for all. We're going to hear from them in a moment, which has been incredible through this process. I'm very thankful to the Parks Foundation as well for their unwavering commitment to seeing this project through. Despite many setbacks and challenges and we see you have the head of the Parks Foundation here as well. Thank you for being here. We're killing. And I want to thank the Parks team that has Parks Recreation Waterfront team that has worked so hard on this project over many years as well. The first, if you're on the Parks team, raise your hand. It's been a great effort. The first beginnings of this project were over a decade ago in 2010 and this team has stuck with it and made sure we got to today. We hope that the lessons that we've learned together through this project as well as the joy that it is already bringing to Burlington kids and the region's kids will inspire other communities across the state to prioritize equity and inclusivity in the design of their own public spaces. I know that with this new playground, the accessible treehouse that we've been fortunate to have here on the other side of this park for many years, as well as the new universal beach access that's just behind me, Oakledge will become a destination for families from around the region and really around Vermont because of the unique experience it offers. Together, these projects show the power of great collaboration and Burlington's commitment to being a place where everyone lives in a place and everyone who visits here is valued and belongs. With that, I am honored to introduce Julia Wayne from Oakledge for All, truly without the energy and enthusiasm of parents and neighbors of Oakledge for All. This exciting project would not happen, so Julia, welcome. I would like to welcome the OFA committee members, Oakledge for All committee members up with me because I don't think I should be the one to be up here alone. Ten years ago, we've had many different amazing people along the way and some of them are here today with us. Liz, I see you. You're under our orange tent. She's manning the tent for us. So I'm Julia and on behalf of Oakledge for All, thank you so much for being here today. After ten years of creating a vision to make an accessible playground in Burlington, one that provides equal opportunities to play for people with disabilities, we are finally here. It took the courage and commitment of many community members, advocates and champions to make this possible. We are also appreciative of our long-time partnership with Burlington Parks Recreation and Waterfront and their vendors, as well as all of the friends and families that have shared their expertise, experiences, time and love. And thank you for our many generous donors along the way. So to truly take apart the traditional playground concept and reinvent it so that as many people as possible can have fun, make friends and get some healthy play outside in our community spaces, spaces is a paradigm shift. So often the greatest barrier to people with disabilities is not one's own ability or limitations, but simply having access to opportunities. And it takes a lot of good work, understanding and imagination to create spaces that are intentionally accessible. Where play spaces themselves are designed to be engaged by as many users as possible. Here's to making a dream possible and making our world a better place for everyone that we care about, one playground at a time. With that said, every project has its learning moments. This playground is still a work in progress as we are working to improve access to the slide. Please scan our QR code. You can find a QR code at all of the tables. And please give feedback on how this space feels to you and how it might be better. Good, thanks Manny. He loves it. We have come a long way and in order to keep improving, community input is so valuable. A big thanks to the Parks Foundation. Parks Foundation! For many, many years. So thank you, big thanks to the Parks Foundation. They have an exciting announcement today to make a new project for continuing what we started here at Oak Budge. One playground is not enough and the Parks Foundation is launching a fundraising campaign to improve the accessibility of other playgrounds throughout Earlington. Okay, so we hope that you can lend them your support. Starting with a raffle that we have today. So under the orange tent, we have things to raffle off today. But they'll be speaking in a minute to tell you more about that. So we will now hand the mic to John Adams-Polts City of Burlington Parks Project Manager and our longest standing partner of over eight years on the team. He loves very much. Without John as our champion as well as his team, we would not be here celebrating today. Julia, I'd like to turn some attention to me, to attention to Julia, who we would not be hearing about, who ten years ago came knocking on the door of the Parks Department and said, Hey, do you want to build a universally accessible playground? And we said, kind of what? And over the course of the next couple years, we got our ducks in a row. We did a comprehensive plan for the whole department. They said, build a universally accessible playground. We did a sighting study for this particular park, Oak Legs. And that sighting study said, build the playground in this location. And from there, we set off and put together a team that could design and build this playground. Of course, with lots of input from the community and lots of input from stakeholders, the two little men brought to the table. We did have a lot of community input and a lot of real deep creativity and commitment to play from our landscape architecture team. A brand new design of some of the Massachusetts, unfortunately, they were here for an hour at the beginning of the afternoon but had to go back home to take care of the kids. So they were instrumental in putting together the design of this playground. They really are visionary and really well known and becoming more well known for their design of playgrounds. And as Julia said, we're always looking to make them better and they are helping us work out some details with the slide to increase its accessibility to participate in. I also want to thank the greater teams that it takes to build a project like this. I believe I see Ben from ECI over at the base of the stairs. We have an incredible contractor working on this project. They really got it and really paid attention to all the details. And happy to say when I would come here in the morning, they would have slid down the slide or tried out another piece of goodness. They weren't shy about that. We also had resident engineers keeping an eye on everything and they were a crucial part of the team. And I don't know if anyone knows that Oakledge Park has an angel. But Alicia, who's over there under a white cedar tree, is the angel of Oakledge and kept an eye on all of the construction. Got to know all of the crew members and brought them treats and all sorts of great stuff. And of course, we can't build something like this without money. So I want to talk a little bit about the sources of funding that I took to build this project. It's not a normal project. It may not look super expensive, but it was super expensive. Penny for Parks, of course, is our reliable source of funding for playground improvements. They got us started. The city's bond, the land, water and conservation fund, federal money managed by the state of Vermont. The building community's grant from the state of Vermont. And finally, the Dana and Christopher Reeve Foundation, who helps pay for the slide, you'll see their stickers on the slide that we just put there this morning. We also wouldn't be here today without the city's larger team and their support, including of course Parks director Cindy White behind me. The mayor, Laura Weinberger, who for many years has really supported this project and I think wanted to see this day happen and I'm happy it happened before we say goodbye to you. And lastly, I hope the kids are getting ready to line up behind me because we're going to smash through a piece of paper, falling all children. Almost, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. All right, before we... Hi, how you doing? We have one more person to hear from and that is Brooke Gilman of the Parks Foundation. One awesome thing that happened during the end of this project is the Parks Foundation came on board and we developed a... I know you really want to slide. So do I. And we developed this plan for initially five years and five playgrounds but it really is going to go on forever. Brooke, you want to come up and tell folks about that. They've already raised a bunch of money for a pomeroy, which is the first playground that we're going to undertake. And I will let you decide. Between joy and a little bit of information for all of you. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. I am Brooke Gilman and I am the current chair of the Parks Foundation for Burlington. Thank you, everyone, for joining today. This is incredibly exciting and before I make my remarks, I first want to acknowledge all of the current and past Parks Foundation board members. Please raise your hand. There's a lot of them here. Yes, a lot of depth of support. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. So the Parks Foundation of Burlington, it's a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We were established 10 years ago to support our great city of Burlington's park assets as well as recreation programming. And it's with this mission that and our operating with a full volunteer based board that we support our parks either directly through fundraising or in instances such as today as a fiscal agent and sponsor for truly inspirational and transformational efforts that community based groups like Oak Ridge for all bring forward and want to contribute to the city. So essentially we can act as the fiscal agent to help facilitate that when other community based groups want to get involved and bringing wonderful things to our community. So thank you again, Oak Ridge for all. I'm going to thank you many times, but that's the first. So, but it's with that that inspired by what has happened here at Oak Ridge for all and where we are today and seeing this amazing joy and play that we are excited to announce that we are establishing a playground for all playgrounds forever fund that with the mission to raise funds to make all playgrounds in Burlington universally accessible forever. There is a need to replace playgrounds currently. Many of our city's playgrounds have been removed. You may wonder why there's not many playgrounds left at certain key city parks like Letty would be a great example of that, but there are others and many are also on target to be removed because playgrounds have a life cycle and you know you can't have broken play structures and the risk of injury and such. And so together with the funding that the city has already put forward through the pennies for parks and the commitment that the city is making to our playgrounds we have a goal to raise $1 million, $1 million, $1 million to support the next five playgrounds but with that we can't stop there because that still doesn't solve all of the needs and so that's why this is a playgrounds for all, playgrounds forever fund so our goal is to raise the first $1 million to support the next five playgrounds and then beyond that to keep going and going and going until all city playgrounds are universally accessible. So today I am excited people have already, John and others have announced that we have some good news to share and I am excited to be able to share with you that we have already raised over $130,000 towards this goal. So it's a great start and we are forever thankful to those that have helped to kickstart this incredibly inspirational and transformational goal. The first $130,000 together with the funds from the city will go a long ways towards building that first next park that it will be accessible at Conroy Park in the Old North End and that's going to be a reality hopefully within the next year plus or minus, yeah, plus or minus project work of course. And so today I want to thank our key lead donors that believed in the vision for accessibility and inclusivity with our children and with play and thank you in particular to Pat Robbins and Lisa Schromberg also to Lisa Steele, thank you to Sarah Meiskins and Michael Grunen family and thank you to the OD family and with the support of these amazing donors as well as the rest of the Parks Foundation Board and support that that board has given through donations as well we are a long way to our first playground and we feel like we're off to an amazing start and are confident in our ability to move forward to continue raising more funds to make this a reality all throughout the city. So we welcome the whole community to get involved in this whether just through spreading the word, directly fundraising, donating or through advice and knowledge and information sharing of how we can make the playgrounds more accessible and improve and make improvements even from where we are today. So we have community stakeholders and partners, Oakledge for All being the most important so thank you again to Oakledge for All for not only just inspiring but helping us in this path forward as a key partner and we'll have other partners as well such as Ramon Adaptive and other community stakeholders that have a key to advise us in this effort. And so with that you can go to the Parks Foundation Parks Foundation of Burlington's website for more information about how you can get involved and I just again want to thank Oakledge for All and the team at the Burlington Parks and Recreation Waterfront for all of their support and for inspiring not just today but what will come tomorrow. So thank you all let's keep going and let's keep playing together. All right now we get to go to the Exciting Burger but the kids if you want to start gathering down here right behind you. And in just one housekeeping item we brief the three amazing cakes today that we can celebrate. We're really trying to be aware of allergies so the cakes that are on the left table are gluten free and then we have treats on the other table that do have gluten in them so please just be aware if you take cake from the gluten table or you take something from the non-gluten table it's really important that you don't mix them because there may be some children and adults here with real allergies so again just being aware with their allergies when you enjoy some beautiful cake and we are going to be ready let's take a few more kids here if anybody else wants to. Let's hold it tight. Do you want a countdown? Sure. All right we're going to do a five second countdown are you guys ready? Yeah!