Two Good Souls shoes and socks campaign

2:45:45Kathy Pearson, Assistant County Ministry of Public Services. We're going to end with some holiday cheer, right? Our Two Good Souls really had made such a huge difference and is going to put a lot of holiday cheer to hundreds of hundreds of children. I can't believe that we're in our fifth year. We just completed our fifth year in October. And for five years, we've collected over 9,390. 14 pairs of shoes and thirty thousand five hundred and ten socks. Um Brian

2:46:15Hoban, our community service director, Tracy Razor, our program administrator, can come up and show you a quick video. Hopefully we'll get that video to work. But they're the heart that makes this happen with along with the hundreds of our team. Throughout Pasco County, that helps us put this on every year. And it was a big challenge this year with COVID, but this team made it work. So with that, Brian?

2:46:40Hello, good afternoon, Commissioner's Brian Hoban, Community Services. And uh before I start with the presentation, I was just gonna ask permission to deliver this book that contains handwritten letters from the students who wrote thank you cards to us for the direct donations that they've received this year. Okay. We

2:46:55don't we're not keeping it, we don't need a motion, so we're just passing it.

2:47:00Thanks.

2:47:02I'm sorry that we didn't get to go have our big thing at the school this year.

2:47:08That's pretty exciting.

2:47:10That was fun. And I love seeing the decorated.

2:47:13Yeah. And and you know, I know he's pulling up the presentation now, but that was that was one of the things that I wanted to bring up. You know, Kathy had mentioned this is the fifth year that we've done this and and I would say arguably um one of the most challenging and difficult, um, but also uh one of the years that we saw the greatest need for it and and the greatest need to come together, um, not only uh as the entire BOCC always does, but also um our partner agencies. Uh we had a partnership this year with uh Dunkin' Donuts that uh advertise and collect shoes and of course the constitutional offices that

2:47:43always participate in this you know act of giving every year. So um wanted to get up here and acknowledge uh everybody for doing that. Um you know Kathy had mentioned the numbers. Um you know I have those this year we collected 1,746 pairs of shoes and five thousand seven hundred and seventy-three pairs of socks. A year that was financially difficult for everybody, and we just wanted to make sure that we did our part to show the community, you know, especially those students in need this time of year, that we're still here. Um as a large group, the campaign this

2:48:13year took a little bit of a different uh different format. It wasn't competition, uh excuse me, competition-based, it was more so uh a gathering of the community to make sure that we could show that you know we're here. year and we want to support you know the students in need. So

2:48:28Give the kids the right pair of shoes and they can conquer the world. And that's exactly what we want to do in Pasco County. We want them to have all the opportunities that they could have. And sometimes, believe it or not, something as basic as their shoes can interfere with their academics and their social lives.

2:48:49Yeah.

2:48:50I see that sometimes where they're kind of um Trying to be more invisible, so to speak, so they're not drawing any attention to them, the more low self-esteem. And they also see some students that are acting out in a way to draw attention away from their shoes.

2:49:06And it's more more families, more kids than anyone could really imagine.

2:49:09And like our number one goal is to make these kids resilient, giving these kids an opportunity, giving these families an opportunity to maybe spend their money on something else and let us provide the shoes and the socks.

2:49:21Oh Matt, listen, when we when we heard about uh two good souls, uh it was like an answer to prayer.

2:49:37Well Two Good Souls is a campaign to provide students in Pasco County with shoes and socks. This is the fifth year we've participated in this great, great endeavor and each year thousands of shoes and socks are donated to these students here in Pasco County.

2:49:52When we see a need in the community, the county's gonna step up. To have shoes held together with tape. You know, that's just not cool. So we're so glad we can help.

2:50:02Good morning everybody. What an exciting day here at the Wendell Cryn School. We are doing our collection for the Two Good Souls event. We have collected for shoes 1,746 shoes, thank you. And for socks, 5,773 pairs of socks. This year with COVID, we really Debated, do we do this or do we or do we not do this? And it was determined that by golly, this is a year that families need this more than ever. So we continued a

2:50:32little bit different this year. We had Duncan Donuts join us, so it was a huge deal for us to have Duncan Donuts join us. We want to say thank you and the amazing team that we have, including our constitutional officers. So this has been a challenge, but we pulled It up.

2:50:47This year, you know, we were able to partner with uh the firefighter charities of Pasco to collect all the funds directly from the firefighters themselves, and then they and their group went out and actually bought all the shoes so and the socks that that uh went into the campaign. So

2:51:03employees, like I say, do a great job, and the campaign is a great campaign and the outpouring of goodwill. from our businesses and from our citizens giving these shoes to these kids. So I think it's just a great thing for Pasco Ken.

2:51:19By doing something as simple as organizing an event to come up with socks and shoes to take that distraction away and sets just one child up for success. Well then it's worth it.

2:51:34you know, it means a lot to me to see all those groups pull together to fill what we saw was an unmet need four, five, six years ago when this started, right? And to now see it growing to to to where it is today just uh really um you know, fills your heart with pride and makes you feel good about the team and what we're doing here.

2:51:55Well I said Pasco County's got a great history of being per capita the most generous county in on the in the USA. I think our employees just emulate that and carry that forward. To provide that feeling to a student, just thank you.

2:52:10And you see it in their smiles, you see it in like they have an extra pep in their step and they're just like really happy.

2:52:15We could not have done what we've done for the past couple of years without two good souls.

2:52:45I don't think you could say it any better than that. Um so you know just in closing, I just want to, you know, specifically come up here, um not only share that story and those statistics with with everybody, but also, you know, give personal thanks. First and foremost, I want to thank the board for their continued support. Um, you know, the five years in a row we were able to do this, five years in a row we were able to make a really big difference to the children in our community. Also want to thank County Administrator Biles, um the assistant county administrator. Of public services, Kathy Pearson, and all the assistant county administrators as all their branches partake in this active giving every

2:53:15year. As well as the branch team leads, of course, our constitutional offices that continue to donate and make a huge difference as well. The school board, they're a great partner in allowing us to use their facilities to partner with us for this particular event. Our media and communications team and our community donor. Dunkin' Donuts that I previously mentioned. And I also want to give specific thanks to Tracy Razor. Um, you know, I mentioned that this was such a challenging year to partake in this. with social distancing, um with with the communication,

2:53:45with doing everything virtually. And she did a phenomenal job of just knocking out of the park and and taking every challenge head on. So I just wanted to give her an opportunity just come up and and say thank you as well.

2:54:00Just want to thank our commissioners, our leadership for recognizing the need for this and everyone just stepping up. It's been a hard year and we still did it and we give back a lot to the community and the video shows how much we care about our community and I that's that's really what I hope the video showed. This this county cares about our kids, cares about our people and I'm proud to be part of that. So thank you very much.

2:54:25Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Great job.

2:54:32Mr Chairman ask a quick question. Did you guys meet your goal? I mean was it or did you really have a goal? Is do it as much as in a they've already been distributed, I take it, all the shoes they have.

2:54:43Got

2:54:44it. Well

2:54:45that's

2:54:45right.

2:54:46Wow,

2:54:46okay.

2:54:48Um I again just because the campaign changed, we wanted a collaborative effort. Um, but you know, I think we far exceeded many expectations. Um just with the financial challenges again, over um fifteen hundred pairs of shoes and um a ton of socks. And and again that shows the need out there in the community for these school-aged children for them to be gone within twenty-four to forty-eight hours with those counselors um handing those shoes and socks out. Um we know that. Our work is far from done. So thank you.

2:55:12I would like to say thank you. I un working with children, I understand the need and how many children go without. So thank you very much. Thank you.