City Commission - Workshop Meeting - Aug 11, 2026

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the workshop meeting of the Delray Beach City Commission this Tuesday, August the 11th. If the clerk could please call the roll. Deputy Vice Mayor Marker. Here. Commissioner Mullica. Here. Commissioner Cassell. Here. Vice Mayor Burns. Here. Mayor Carney. Here. Great. We have a quorum. We're starting off the meeting with public comments. If there are any members of the public wishing to address the items that we'll be discussing here on the workshop agenda, please come to the lectern. You'll each have three minutes. You give your name, zip code for the record. Seeing none, public comment is closed. That's good. To Mr. Orrish, are you going to be introducing them in order here, or how are we going to do this? Yes, sir. They are on the agenda in the order in which you should receive them. Mr. Mayor, somebody expressed an interest to speak. Oh, I'm very sorry. Please. Public comment. I'm here to speak on the subject of traffic problems. Well, we're really only – we're only – the public comment for this is for – just for the items on this workshop agenda. If you wish to speak on traffic, then at the regular commission meeting, which starts at 5 o'clock. Two more hours. I'm sorry? Okay. Two more hours. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome, ma'am. Thank you. Today. Yeah, 5 o'clock today, right. Two hours. One hour and 55 minutes. All right. Public comment is closed. Mr. Orrish. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. Today, what you have is your annual presentation from those nonprofits that receive funding from the city. They're asked to come to you and give a 10-minute – up to 10-minute presentation on what they've done in the past year. Five minutes are allotted for commission questions and comments after their presentations. We can start this year with Delray Rocks. I believe they're in the room, and they have a presentation ready to go. Everybody should be queued up when they're ready to go, so we should be able to move along. Good evening, everyone. Commissioner Carney, Burns, Murlock, Castle, and Malona, city manager. My name is Claretta Pickett. I currently serve as the park representative for the Delray Rocks Youth Football Organization. This is my 19th year as a volunteer with the Delray Rocks. I started volunteering when my son started playing when he was 6 years old, which was in 2006. The Delray Rocks – thank you. The Delray Rocks, this year we're celebrating our 60th year being in existence. We were founded in 1966 by Mr. William Bill Smith, and this couldn't be possible without the support of our city, our community, our parents, and our participants. We have eight football teams and seven cheer squads. Taking on the responsibility as the park representative is sometimes challenging. Trust me. But with amazing coaches and volunteers, we're working together to become bigger, better, and stronger. Adding a few things this season, we had our coaches' clinic that focused on the focal point of football and mental health. Thank you to Ms. Odom and Kenya Chaney-Madison for organizing and presenting for mental health. We also had one of our coaches that organized a community cleanup. And thanks to Commissioner Burns, the SET, Attorney Lee Cornwood, 1-800-CALL-LEE, and the Delray Beach Housing Authority that also came out and helped us with that community cleanup. And we recognize and are very appreciative of the support by the city of Delray Beach. Okay. Your presentation? Yes. That's great. Questions from the commission? Just to ask Mr. Orr, because I'm trying to get on the internet, what's the funding level request? Is it the same as last year? Yes, we're requesting the same amount, yes. Okay. Do you mind me asking what is that dollar amount? I would believe I didn't bring that because I had it on the presentation. It's okay. No, no. Mr. Orr, can... The organization currently receives $100,000 in direct grant to them for operations and other expenses. They also have received about $45,000, $46,000 in a wage, special event costs and fees. So $100,000 and then a $45,000 or $46,000 in waivers. Okay, thank you. Thank you. How many kids in total participate? So our football teams, the allowed number per team is 35, which seven of those teams are at the max number of 35. One of our teams have 21. So we're at the max. Some kids actually had to be cut to make it. But we do have teams that's within our league that they can either go to the Boca Braves or the Boynton Bulldogs. So it's up to the parents if they want to send their kids there to play, if they have openings on their teams as well. We actually, this past Saturday, was our first game of the season in which we swept apart all eight teams won. So that was a good thing to start this season out with. Go right. Yeah, so not only with me being the park representative, I am also a team mom for our smallest teams. It's six years old. We did win the Super Bowl for our division on last year. So that was very exciting, especially for six-year-olds. That's something that they got to experience where the league also gave them rings. So that was a very big deal for the little kids, yeah. Wow. Yeah, I've seen them walking around with all the shine, the victory. Yes, that's so cool. Very nice big rings, yes, that the league provides, yes. Look, Mr. Moore, like so. Here's me with a picture of them all in front of the public as they're out doing a fundraiser. I want you to know they're out hustling all the time to try to raise money for themselves and to do that, which is why they're real great community partners. And I appreciate everything you guys do. Could I just clarify one thing, Ms. Burns? I was – did you say you – do you have to turn children away, did you say? Well, each team, the rosters can only hold 35. Okay. So it's not a monetary issue. No, it's not a monetary issue. Okay, thank you very much. I didn't have a question. I just wanted to thank you for all you do for the Delray Rocks. I am an avid supporter. And just go Rocks. Thank you. Continue to do what you do. And we have to remember that all of the adults are volunteers and they really are dedicated to our community children. So thank you for what you do. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, next up is the Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach County. To kind of jump to the quick, they do receive a grant in the amount of $25,000 from the city. All right. Good afternoon. I'd like to thank all the commissioners, the mayor, city manager for allowing us to be here. My name is Pablo Tejada. I'm the chief impact officer for Boys and Girls Club of Palm Beach County. And if we can go to the next slide. I always like to start with this because this is what we believe we are all about. We're basically enabling all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens. That's our mission. And our vision is really to provide a world-class club experience that assures success is within reach of every young person who walks through our doors. You know, with all members on track to graduate from high school with a plan for the future, demonstrating good character, citizenship, and, you know, living a healthy lifestyle. Next slide. There's a clicker. There's a clicker on the podium. You should be able to control it yourself. Thank you. Cool. It's just a little bit of a general overview of the organization as a whole. You know, we have 20 locations. So Delray is one of 20. We service about 9,424 young people across the county. We do outreach, believe it or not, to 48,000 roughly, serving about 57,000. But 96% of our club members at school are basically receiving free or reduced lunch. The vast majority live in households within an annual income. It's just, this is an incredible stat, but less than $30,000 a year. All of our sites, including Delray, we operate 51 weeks out of the year. So just imagine this. We just ended a 10-week summer camp that starts at 730 in the morning and goes to 6 p.m. because we focus on servicing, you know, working families, mostly single moms. And that ended on Friday, and today we opened up our after-school program right at the first day of school. That was yesterday. The only week that we take off is Christmas week, so the staff members can take a break, celebrate the holidays with their family. During school days, we operate from 2 to 8 p.m. We're also open on non-school days, including summers from 7, 30 to 6 p.m. And we do all of this, all of this, just for $30. So a parent can sign up for everything, after-school, during non-school days, summer camp for just a $30 fee because we focus on the very poor. That's our most important. Let me go back. Let me go back. So I'm going to pass the mic to the executive club director, Frankie, who actually runs the day-to-day at Boys and Girls Club of Delray. All right. Hello, everyone. For those who don't know me, Frankie Pierre-Paul. I'm the executive club director at the Boys and Girls Club of Delray Beach, literally down the street. This is my third time speaking to you guys, so shout-out to you guys. You guys are family now. Some of the programs that we provide on a daily basis, of course, Mr. Pablo went over the after-school hours, summer hours as well, academic enrichment, mental health. That's something that's really near and dear to my heart, the mental health aspect. A lot of our kids are getting kicked out of school. A lot of our kids are getting kicked out of other after-school programs. It's not because they're horrible kids. I'm realizing that the parents don't understand that these kids sometimes have their own spectrums and they don't know how to speak to that. So we provide resources for that. Workforce readiness, hunger relief, family support services, especially with the TPS that's been going on running rampant around here, STEM programming, sports and fitness, cultural arts, college and career readiness, AmeriCorps services, and community events, which we'll dive into into the next slide. Delray at a Glance. So some of our freedom schools that we pick up from is Pine Grove, Plumosa, Carver Middle School, Orchard View, Village Academy. We don't pick up from Village, but literally our next-door neighbor. We have a lot of kids that walk over as well. Atlantic High School is another school that we pick up from. We do service Spady, Elementary Spady. We have kids come from Spady as well. As people start to know about the programs that we provide, because the perspective about Boys and Girls Club is that we're like a drop-in center. I've been doing my best alongside a lot of my staff members, going into the schools, going into the community, and letting them know we're not just a drop-in center. Yeah, we open until 8 p.m., but we provide extremely exceptional services and programs to our kids. I want to highlight a few. The Ocean Guardians Sea Turtle Adventure Program that we have over the summer. I realize, like, myself, even growing up, I always like using that. I was never prone to programming as such, right? For one, I don't know how to swim. I didn't know how to swim, so my parents would never let me go to the beach or even go see sea turtles get hatched, right? So these are things that our kids will speak on. I'm like, okay, cool, let's go out and see if there's any organizations that we can partner up with. Again, it's $30 a year. So we've got to raise our own funding, and we've got to have like-minded individuals that want to partner up with us. Another one is the Florida Youth at Risk, which is they tackle stage production, live performances, and cultural arts and arts education. Why that programming? A lot of kids want to be rappers. They want to do music. They want to do songwriters, but they don't know what it takes to build the stage, right? You can still make money in that aspect as well. So we're kind of opening up their horizon when it comes to that. So shout out to Florida Youth at Risk, which is Friar. Who Got Game assists us with employment assistance, housing support, which is extremely essential. We cater to the inner city community, so some parents will come to me and say, Mr. Frankie, I may not be able to pay the $30 because I've got to pay my light bill. Okay, cool, no pressure. Bring your kids. We have an organization that can help you out, that can support you. It's all about the family atmosphere. It takes a village. Boca Helping Hand has been helping us with the Hunger Relief Program. We also have a community garden. Mr. Terrence, Mr. Jeff had an opportunity to come tour that. You guys got to come back. It looks much better now. A lot of more things that we added. STEM program, the FPL, Cox Science Museum. I've got three minutes. It's perfect. And our College of Career Readiness, Cultural Arts, Opera. We partnered up with the Opera of Palm Beach County. And to piggyback on the mental health aspect, Center for Youth, Center for Child Counseling. What I realized in the past year, school is getting more and more stressful. I don't think it's because of the household or the parents not understanding the kids. I think it's more so of a language. And it's not even the language barrier. It's how we speak to it, how we speak to mental health. Growing up telling someone that I don't feel well or I want to, quote, unquote, kill myself, we kind of look at that person and say, you're crazy. You need to go see someone. Now it's kind of catered more differently, right? So I wanted to provide an opportunity for the kids, not only the kids, our parents, but an opportunity to come in and cater to our kids. So the Center for Child Counseling came in, and they were with us for at least eight weeks out of the ten weeks for summer. What they did, they came inside, they watched our kids for about two weeks, and then they came back to me with clinical saying, how you can say it, clinical wordings, right? But I told them, I may not understand that, I may understand that, but the parents don't know how to speak to that. So we held meetings, parent meetings with these parents as well, so they're able to understand your child don't have an issue. It's not a mental health issue. Your child just has an issue when it comes down to loud noises, when it comes down to them being screamed at. They like to elope. So we are able to bring those resources to our members that we service. I want to give a shout-out as well to our community partners, but before we do, I want to go over our impact, my last two minutes that I have with you guys. 75% of regular attendant members maintain a passing grade or increase by one or more letter grades from the first to the last grade period. 75%. 84%. 84% improved their attendance versus the prior year. 93% of our graduating seniors progressed to either college, the military, or a certification program for skilled employment. Huge, huge jump. 99% of our high school seniors graduated. That's another clap, 99%. Compared to 86% of the school district, economically disadvantaged youth. So our numbers are growing. Like I said, it's because of how we're speaking and how we're addressing the issues in our inner-city youth. Our partners, special shout-out to the city of Delray Beach. Special shout-out to the city of Delray Beach. We recently held one of our first athletic forums at the Boys and Girls Club. Our first shout-out to you, young man. He was able to come out and show love. Our parents came. Our kids came. It was a very successful event. We also had a government. I'm going to make sure I give her a shout-out. Where are you? Government Day. Mr. Jeff, thank you for allowing us to have that here. Where our kids were able to come in and witness what you guys do behind closed doors. Without you guys, a lot of these things are not possible. So a few other partnerships that we have is with the Boca Helping Hands. I spoke with that briefly. FAU, Fresh RX, Christ Fellowship. Christ Fellowship came in for two weeks out of the summer and provided programming to our kids. Center for Childhood Counseling, Lynn University, the school district. The school district is a little intricate. Why? It's a beautiful question. Because when it comes down to a lot of things that the school district is doing, we want to try to mimic that the best way that we can. I'm big on academics, right? It's great to come in, do enrichment, do the sports, and all that. So on and so forth. But if you can't read, if you can't write, if you can't comprehend, that's a big issue. I'm going to land the plane right now. It's a big issue. So partnering up with the school district, talking to the teachers, talking to the principals is essential. And that's something that we have been doing. So I cannot do this with great leadership. And I cannot do it without you guys. So shout-out to you guys and everybody else in this room. Thank you. That's my time. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Any questions for the Boys and Girls Club? Yes, go ahead. Thank you so much. I always appreciate seeing you here, your enthusiasm. It's fabulous, and I'm sure the kids adore you. $30 a person is, to us, right, a small amount of money. But to some of those families, they don't even have that. Do you do sponsorship programs? Are there ways for kids who don't have even an extra $30 in their household to get involved? And the second question is, how many children from Delray Beach Schools, how many Delray resident children do you say you serve? It doesn't have to be exact if you don't know, but approximately. Last year we served about 660 kids from Delray. Wow, that's amazing. Thank you. And on average we have about 200 plus per day. Wow. And growing. And then with respect to the $30 is there. So no one's turned away. We have scholarships, sponsorships, and many times we just scholarship the kids. Thank you. You're a good organization, and I'm glad that we can help you. I don't even think we do enough, really. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Anyone else? Just want to say thank you for what you do, extending the education for families and supporting our families and our community. It's amazing. I've been there, so I know what you're doing, and I just thank you. Thank you. For hanging in there and being so passionate about it. Absolutely. Commissioner Marker, anything? I just want to say thank you. I enjoyed my visit recently, and it was great to get to know you and some of the other staff. So thank you very kindly for what you're doing. It's appreciated very much. Thank you so much. Love for you. Thank you. Yeah, just excellent work, and I love the passion you bring about your subject. You clearly love it. So thanks for all your good work. Absolutely. Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So gentlemen, thank you. And, of course, you acknowledged the field trip Ms. Torres and I had an opportunity to experience back in April. So that resulted in the Youth in Government Day you talked a little bit about in your presentation, and the shout-out should go to Ms. Janai Bowens, who is Assistant Director of Neighborhood and Community Services slash Education and External Opportunities Manager. So while you were making the presentation, literally a minute or so after your dialogue and compliments to that effect, you mentioned about giving a shout-out, and so she actually entered the Commission Chamber. That's my interest in acknowledging her to assist your contribution and dialogue. So thank you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry. You want to ask a question? It's relevant to some of the things you remember recently is the entrepreneurship program you've been running the kids. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Yes, absolutely. So, again, my goal is to provide the kids with opportunities that they least expect. So the entrepreneurial program is for our middle school and high school members that come in. We try to bring in organizations that cater to that, whether it's Lowe's, whether it's Office Depot, whether it's plumbing through the city. We bring them in, and they're able to actually work internship jobs through these programs. So it's been monumental, something that we've been doing for about two and a half years. NDRA was something I've been pushing, but we've been doing it for years, years throughout the whole Palm Beach County. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you. Great. It's going to be nice to the presentation. What service and everything? It's a museum. Thank you, though. Thanks, sir. What happens when a home becomes a living piece of history? Welcome to the Spady House. If you've visited us before, welcome back. If you're new, we are happy you're here. Now is a time of celebration. 100 years ago, Solomon D. Spady built this home, and 100 years later, his legacy of education and hospitality remains alive and well. Because when you step across the threshold, you can feel his handshake, strong and sure. No visit is exactly the same. We make sure of it. The Spady Cultural Heritage Museum is where history is personal. Stories of Delray Beach's pioneers are shared with a smile. Our archives are explained with accuracy. Each room is placed into context, and every artifact has importance. The Spady Museum tells South Florida's history through intimate portraits of leaders, activists, artists, and ordinary people who did extraordinary things. Visitors leave with a piece of Delray Beach in their hearts and minds. With a staff of three, the Spady Museum reaches thousands each year. Kwanzaa celebrations welcome children and families to our backyard. Our signature Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. brunch has a seat for hundreds of friends, allies, and advocates. And our innovative Black History Study program takes lessons out of a book and into real life for students of all ages. This is where we hold conversations that help visitors to understand and explore. This is where guests feel safe to ask questions and get answers. This is where history is appreciated and shared without an agenda, without bias, and without division. 100 years of legacy deserves to continue. Support us as we do this important work, making education interesting, accessible, and inviting. Help us keep the Spady Museum a special place where history is personal. Afternoon, everyone. I'm Charlene Farrington, director of the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in beautiful downtown Delray Beach. As you know, the Spady Museum focuses on preservation and education. We understand that the preservation of American history is more important than ever right now, and our job is to make sure that Delray Beach and Palm Beach County are not obscured by historical narratives that are designed to entertain and pacify, rather than educate and fortify. The widespread application of AI is a good reason for the need to preserve source material in the environment those materials stem from. Some of us already find ourselves singing along to AI-generated songs performed by AI-generated pop stars. How much longer will it be before we are no longer sure what C. Spencer Pompey actually sounded like, or what John Shaw Sunday actually looked like? For that reason, we spend a large portion of our income on maintaining and protecting the documents, artifacts, structures, and stories that are entrusted to us. That can range from humidity control to cybersecurity. This work requires time and manpower, so with the help of young volunteers, we carefully review and maintain our collections to ensure their integrity for generations to come. Our young volunteers are high school and college students who work with us to earn volunteer hours, and in some cases, an intern stipend. We are grateful for their help, and we are committed to training and inspiring the next generation of history and preservation workers. The training and contacts that we provide are invaluable to those students who choose careers in the history field. This year, we worked with five high school students, one of whom just graduated from FAU High School with an associate degree in history and earned a spot in the Mellon Foundation's Summer Institute at the Schomburg Museum in New York City this past July. Our three college interns this year are from FAU and Palm Beach State College. One of the three graduated this year with a bachelor degree in history, and another, who was a sophomore this year, is here with me today, Rosalie Karp. This painting is a new addition to our collection. This is a Doc's Thrash oil painting, which is rare because Doc's Thrash is best known for the printing technique that he co-created called Carborundum Mezzotint. This oil painting was donated to the Spadey Museum by Harvey and Virginia Kimmel. It has been in the possession of Doc's Thrash's niece, Roberta Townsend, who was a Delray Beach resident until recently, and we are grateful to Mrs. Townsend and to the Kimmels for their generosity. We're also grateful to Chuck and Pam Halberg for connecting us to the Kimmels. The Palm Beach Reggae Music and Arts Festival. Last year, we were approached by an entertainment attorney and event promoter who has been creating music festivals globally and who wanted to create a reggae festival here in Palm Beach County. He asked us to collaborate on the festival, and we were happy to do it. Reggae music not only represents a large sector of Palm Beach County's population, but it is beloved by legions of people from all over the world, and the Spadey Museum loves bringing people together around black history and culture. After scouting potential festival sites all around Palm Beach County, he finally agreed with us that Delray Beach was the best place to roll it out. The first annual Palm Beach Reggae Music and Arts Festival was held March 20th through 22nd of this year in the Old School Square Vintage Gym and Amphitheater. It was a successful first run. I can't thank Laura Simon, the DDA board, and staff enough for rolling out the red carpet for our first time. We're currently planning for the festival's year two in April of 2027. The Spadey Museum's annual programs and events are on schedule for the coming year, and they are a minimum of four new history and art exhibits with activities for children and adults. The annual Kwanzaa celebration in December. The bi-monthly Ride, Remember, and Discover History bus tours that run January through May. The annual Martin Luther King Jr. brunch in January. The annual Palm Beach Reggae Music and Arts Festival in April I just mentioned. The annual celebration of Freedom Day called a Delray Beach Family Affair on May 20th. The annual Juneteenth celebration on June 19th. That's seven. And eight, the bi-monthly Black History Study Program for Youth and Adults that runs from September through March. And, new this year, and I'm so excited, we are implementing a tri-monthly program called The House That Memory Built, The Memories We Weave. This is a specially curated exhibit of images designed to spark memories in our visitors suffering from dementia. The images will be coupled with sensory experiences for the sufferers and for their caregivers, workshops, and support led by local medical professionals in the field of brain health. This will be a collaborative project that pulls together our Palm Beach County nonprofits and our educational institution partners to benefit our residents who find themselves figuring out as they go how to deal with brain health issues in themselves and in their loved ones. We began this journey of doing the absolute best we can do for the city of Delray Beach in 2001, and we're 25 years in. We have seen our town cast off its old nickname, Delray, and dare anyone to try to use it again. I'm proud of what we've all done together, and I hope we can continue this journey together into the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions from any members of the commission? You know, no questions, but comment. Go ahead. I just want to say thank you so much for being the keeper of our history here in Delray Beach. I love the Spady Museum, and really, is the internship program new, or is that? We've been doing it, I'd say, at least six years now. Okay, great. I love it. I like that, and very excited about the new program because, you know, we need more for our dementia residents to do. My mom passed with dementia, and my uncle has it, and I know about four or five different seniors in our community, and so this would be something great for them to do because they need that interaction. So thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah? Yeah, I would say I would just carry on with what was said by my colleague here. I took care of my father-in-law when he was suffering from dementia. It's very challenging, not only for the individual, obviously, but for the family and the caregiver. It's quite a task, and I know the library has those boxes. Do you still have the boxes, the memory care boxes? There's so much we can do together to help out, and, you know, I appreciate that you're looking into that. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, as far as presentations, the Achievement Center is coming forward. The Achievement Center has two different grants they get from us for programs at, I'm sorry, I've gone blank, Ed. Our out-of-school time programs, Village and Pine Grove, and the main campus for our early learning programs. Thank you. And to remind you all, that's also done as part of a tri-party agreement with the county school system, and that agreement will be coming back to visit you soon. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I'm particularly honored to be here among so many incredible organizations. And I'm going to put my daughter on the spot. She leaned over right before I came up and said, I don't think I'm going to get through this presentation without crying. What an incredible community. So, again, thank you for the opportunity. And before I share some highlights from our impact report, I do want to mention and thank Jeff for swapping out our presentation very last minute last night. We had a calculation error and a typo. So, if you have something in front of you, it might be different in two spots on this slide deck here. All right. So, since 1969, Achievement Centers has been part of the Delray Beach community, lifting up the strengths and potential of every child. We partner with families so they can build on their own strengths and provide a stable nurturing foundation for their children's success. At the heart of this report is a simple idea that access matters. We work to make high-quality programs affordable and accessible for families who need us the most. And we do that through a continuum of care that includes early learning, after-school, summer and teen programming, alongside family support services. This year, we served 174, I'm sorry. This year, we served 745 children across 551 families. 69% live in Delray Beach, and our families have an annual average household income of over just $20,000 per year. For many families, our programs and services are not extra supports, they're essential supports. Looking across the organization, this year was a year of both reach and access. We provided 181,000 free meals, delivered 3,900 service hours, maintained a 99% satisfaction rate with our parents. We engaged over 700 volunteers who contributed 2,500 hours of service, valued at nearly $88,000. We paid $4.4 million in salaries and wages to 101 staff members, and of that, $1.74 million to Delray Beach residents. So when we talk about impact, we're talking about both human impact and community impact. Children are better supported, families are stronger, and the local economy benefits as well. One of the most important things our impact report shows is that our continuum model works. When academic support, family support, nutrition, and safety are all connected, outcomes improve more effectively than they do through isolated services alone. Our early learning work begins at the most important stage of development. We provide high-quality care and education designed to support the whole child, focused on social-emotional growth, literacy and language, physical development, cognitive skills, and foundational math. Early learning is where long-term success starts and is one of the clearest examples why early investment matters. This year, our early learning program served 139 children ages 1 to 5. Parent satisfaction here was 98%, and 100% of the children were screened and supported for developmental delays. This is the updated slide. Thank you. We had 27 children with developmental needs that were identified while in our program, and they were addressed and connected to additional resources. Notably, 86% of Achievement Center's children demonstrated kindergarten readiness on the state's early learning progress monitoring report. Our program also earned a class rating of 5.65 out of 7, which is well above the Florida benchmark of 4.0. Class is a statewide assessment used by four VPK providers to measure the quality of teacher-child interactions. So this score is a strong indicator of the quality that's happening in our classrooms every day. This means ultimately children are entering school more prepared, families are receiving support early on, before language gaps and developmental concerns become more difficult and more expensive to address. As children move into the school age years, Achievement Center's provides out-of-school time programming. We offer academic support, arts, recreation, social-emotional learning, and a safe nurturing environment during the hours when children are most vulnerable to disengagement. In our out-of-school time programs, we serve 483 children and provide more than 110,000 free meals. 98% of students reported a positive climate marked by safety, belonging, and engagement. And 98% of parents were happy with the programs and activities offered. All students received nationally accredited, high-quality programming. Ultimately, Achievement Center's programming is structured in evidence-based environments that keep students engaged in learning and help prevent truancy and at-risk behaviors. One exciting highlight this year was the launch of our Empowered Tutoring Program. It's a personalized academic intervention that combines tutoring, mentoring, and social-emotional learning to help students overcome learning barriers. It started as a pilot this year, and it was made possible through Impact 100 Women's and the Hamilton Family Foundation. And it reflects our belief that students make the strongest gains when support is personalized and connected. Through Empowered, 88 students received support with 271 hours of tutoring. Among our K-5 students in the Literacy Group, 94% demonstrated measurable growth. Among our 6-12 students who had been flagged for core course failures, 81% successfully passed their courses. And overall, 99% of participants were promoted to the next grade or graduated. So this small pilot shows promising results, and we're excited to see what possibilities are when we expand greater throughout the organization. Our teen program is built around the simple goal that preparing young people for what—our teen program is built around a simple goal, preparing young people for what comes next. Through leadership opportunities, career and college exploration, community service, field trips, and relationship-based support, teens gain skills and confidence they need for adulthood. These are truly the years when a sense of belonging and a sense of direction can make all the difference. And as a parent of two children going off to college, I can attest to that personally. This past year, we served 150 teens. 99% were promoted to the next grade level. 87% reported a sense of belonging. And 17 completed paid internships with job training and mentoring. We also provided more than 17,000 free meals in this program, including on the weekends, that helped met basic needs. 27 students participated in Hacktivate with the City of Dauri Beach. We cannot thank you enough for participating and allowing us to come into the city's infrastructure and provide that learning opportunity for our students, particularly Janai, who has led that for the last two years, and the city staff that has been just incredible to work with. I especially appreciate these results is that what they show is that our teens not only are staying on track academically, they're building leadership, workforce readiness, civic engagement, and confidence in who they can become. Our work with children is strongest when families are stable and supported, which is why family support remains such an important part of our model. Through workshops, case management, goal setting, referrals, and emergency assistance, we help families navigate immediate challenges and also build long-term stability. When families have trusted guidance and access to resources, children are in a much better position to succeed. This year, we served 616 families through our family support team. 274 families received case management services or achievement plans. 310 members of the community not in our program were also connected to critical resources. 54 families received emergency assistance that typically helps with keeping them in their homes, transportation, or food. And we made more than 1,200 connections through referrals to help families get support that they needed. That was beyond our ability to help. Most importantly, 97% of families that were in our family support program improved their self-sufficiency. So it's a really powerful outcome because when families are more stable, children more consistently learn, they learn more effectively, and they experience a stronger foundation at home. Beyond the Numbers, this year was also filled with so many moments worth celebrating. Our students were recognized for their achievements, leadership, and talent. We had a second place winner at the summer countywide spelling bee. Our platinum steppers earned multiple awards and accolades across the whole county for their multiple performances. Our teens just returned from an incredible trip to Research Triangle, where they were exposed to new opportunities, did some college visits, and saw possibilities for their future. And we also saw our parents and teens step into leadership roles, sharing their stories at events and inspiring hundreds of people in various crowds. And one of those parents is now a leader in our parent forum and also serves on our board of directors. These moments are powerful reminders that our work is about so much more than the numbers. They bring the impact to life through growth and new possibilities. In closing, as we look ahead in one minute or less, we're excited to continue our work and keep the community engaged through some of our iconic upcoming events that I know you're all well familiar with and attend. Thank you for your support. In closing, we're renewing our tri-party agreement, as Jeff said, with the city of Dahlre Beach and the school district. That will be coming across your desks very soon. And I did hear what the commission said at the last non-profit funding meeting. I ensured that the language did not commit future commissions to funding, but rather it simply states, based upon approval of each commission annually. So thank you for your continued support. Thank you very much. Good presentation. Anybody else? Do you have any questions? Comments? Yes. But I do have a question. Sure. You said that you helped 310 residents that were not a part of your program? Correct. And how does that program, they were referred to other resources? So our family support team allows for families outside of the program to be connected to us. I could invite our COO up here who oversees that team. But we often get referrals from outside community members, schools, the city, and depending on what they need, we treat them as if they were in the program, minus the child care part. So they might have, they might be involved in a case management plan. They might be connected through a referral or a linkage to an organization that could help them. They might need resume help, job search help, those kind of services. Okay. All right. Thank you. I just want to say thank you for what you do. I know firsthand about your structured programs. And I actually was an employee of the Achievement Center. It was a part-time job, a teacher, and I was moonlighting, I guess. But it's very rigorous, and I appreciate what you do over at the Achievement Center. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? I just was wondering if you could talk about the separate money, the money for Pine Grove. Specifically, how does that work? And then why is it just Pine Grove and not the other schools that we're incorporating somehow into the program? And lastly, I would say I always appreciate seeing you here. You know, you're a part of our community. And also, your daughter sang for us, I believe, at the 4th of July celebration. Oh, yes. Right? The National Anthem. And that was super lovely. Thank you. So, we have two agreements. I think that's just how history evolved. One was for the early learning program, and the other was in 2004 when the city asked us to enter a competitive bid process to run the services for the out-of-school time at Village Academy. That second agreement does cover both Village and Pine Grove. That's what I was wondering. Thank you so much. Anyone else? Thank you very much. Thank you again. All right. Up next is the Arts Garage. Marjorie Waldo is here. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for having us. Marjorie Waldo, proud and very grateful president and CEO of Arts Garage. I brought with me today some very important people. I have my team members, my volunteers, and a couple of board members, which all stand for two seconds of my time. Stand so they can see how many of you took the time to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. We're a very passionate group. All right. So may I ask you? I couldn't let Charlene show me up. She brought a painting. I didn't bring a painting, but I brought props, too. So I have one for each, and there's one for you, too. Thank you so much. I'm going to attempt to use this without messing it up. All right. Okay. Where do I point it? Can you show me what to click? I'm going to see the attorney, I guess, too. We've got an extra one. Okay. Turn it right side up. Okay. So hopefully this is going to populate. It is a video. Oh, please tell me. It populates on PowerPoint. Does it not show for you? Nope. And now I don't know where I am. Okay. So I could sing it for you. But there is a really cool video depicting our thing. You can't see that on the download of the PowerPoint. The video doesn't populate. It's not the PowerPoint. It worked in what I had. But that's okay. We'll skip it. Okay. So our programming. That, by the way, is nine-time Grammy Award-winning Christian McBride, who is part of our ongoing music program, our visual arts program. We have two galleries now, both the Marshall Family Foundation and the Black Box Gallery at Arts Garage. Our current exhibits include Summer Breeze and Through the Portal in the Black Box Gallery. It's open through August 31st, the same days that Arts Garage is open and free to the public. You know, we do comedy and magic. That's Monique Marvez. We do a lot of really cool theater that's incredibly thought-provoking. This coming year, we have a season of four shows. We do a lot of arts education. This is from the first week of this year, this summer's places, where I think about 70% of the students were scholarshiped through donations and fundraising. We also do other classes for adults and kids. Our volunteers, we have several of them here. You should clap for yourselves. They do about 10,000 hours of volunteering a year for us. There are over 80 of them. Marianne, they should all get an extra shift for coming today. They take their currency, their Arts Garage currency, through volunteering and use it to purchase tickets for themselves. Our podcast, and I'm excited to tell you about this, it's dedicated to sharing the perspectives of artists, donors, community and political leaders, educators, economic development, and arts and culture leaders. Our senior series, we've served since December of 25, over 1,000 seniors in five Palm Beach County senior service centers throughout the county, in improv, and in movement classes, 32% of those seniors have Alzheimer's or dementia. Our Kimmel family series, if you're not hearing the Kimmel name, they've done a lot for the city too, I know. So those of you that might not have heard of them, they're amazing. So that painting is one example. They sponsor this field trip experience. And let's watch this video, not play. Nope. So there's a video that I can describe of the kids getting off the bus and coming in and seeing performances on the stage. They're professional performances by touring groups, and the kids love them. We serve, I want to say we served 2,400 last year in field trip. We pay for the transportation as well. And this coming year, we'll have three shows, two days each, 6, 12, 3,600 kids we'll serve. Sorry about the videos. Our Artist in Residence series, we provide over 1,000 complimentary tickets to seniors in our community since this program started. There's our Places Summer Camp and some of the kids. That's from last year's photos. Our partner program, so the Spady or the Library or the Historical Society, any organization that's a not-for-profit can sign up to be one of our partners. We send last-minute ticket opportunities for their staff or their clients to attend shows at Arts Garage, attempting to increase even further our impact in the community and our access to everyone in the community. Heartfelt is a donation drive program that we've been doing for years. It started in the schools. Vice Mayor Burns was still at Village Academy when we did a donation drive for Village Academy with a whole bunch of art and music supplies. Now we're doing food-based music supplies, I mean food supplies. We have, I wrote down the numbers, we have funded thousands of dollars of patron donations to schools and hundreds of pounds of non-perishable foods to organizations that are feeding people who need our help. The economic impact, I've talked about this a lot, you can read, but I would like to tell you I gave you some homework and in the front, well not in the front, but in the left-hand side of your folder, there is something from Americans for the Arts called Palm Beach County and it shows the economic and social impact of non-profit arts and culture organizations. I also included National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and on the second page, I highlighted a portion that talks specifically about what we do and why it's important. We attempt to make sure that the dollars that are spent at Arts Garage are feeding the city of Delray Beach and the businesses in the city of Delray Beach. You can see our volunteer hours there and their value, how many full-time equivalent jobs we're providing for performers and staff, the household impact of paychecks, including performer fees, and the local and state revenues. This is a really cool, when we did our first survey, we do them twice a year, so we'll be doing one soon. I hope we do it in September, but I want to get the summer crowd to answer. We had a very high response rate to all the patrons who attended shows in January and this is the spending they indicated they spent in Delray Beach before or after the show. So, that is times, I don't know how many people were there during January, how many attendees there were, but we serve about 31,000 people annually. So, if you even take the 25% average and multiply 31,000 by 50 bucks, it's significant. The impact of the city funding, and mind you, this was only through July because I had to give this to Jeff Orris, who is a taskmaster, and made me hand it in way earlier than I wanted to. But that tells you how much we've done through July, and that didn't include August, September, or October activities. Delray's support has allowed us to do a lot of the things that we've talked about because we have been able to do things for other people in our community because of the support you extend to us, and we could not be more grateful. Family Series, 1674 attendees last year, that's what it was. Senior Series, that number is now over 1,000. Air Series is now over 1,000. So, you can see 747 pounds of food. We've done a lot of rentals, and our rentals are not rentals to make mad money. They're for, like, the Miracle League, who does their prom for their kids. Once a year with us, and we strip the costs down as low as we can. If you were to value the last seven events, if we had charged full price, it was $71,000 in in-kind support to nonprofit partners. There we are at the Delray Affair. We try to do as much outreach as we can, and there you all are at our ribbon-cutting for our 15th in April. Again, the podcast. This is Kelly Smallridge. That episode was episode 11, and it was very informative as to what she needs to have available to show to interested businesses who might move to this area. I will also point out that our second – that's not right. I don't remember which episode it was, but Charlene Farrington was on our podcast several months ago. I want to say in January. And the episode – the second episode we did to finish our conversation aired this morning. So it's a really great way to showcase some of the work we're doing in the community. That was only as of July. The 60% would be higher by the end of September. Pictures of those sold-out crowds. Patron reviews, which you can see on Google or Yelp, and that's how you get me. But let's not share that with too many people. I really, really am grateful for all of the work that you do as mayor, vice mayor, deputy vice mayor. Mayor, you came at 6 o'clock in the morning to help us on WPTV for our fundraiser, the Doodle Auction. I can't thank all of you enough for being there when we need you. I'm very, very grateful. I was just going to be sleeping anyway. You were going to sleep in anyway. Might as well. Might as well. Well, I'm glad you chose to spend the morning at Arts Grudge. It was fun. Your drawing of a basketball court should go for a million. Nobody bought it yet. Nobody's bought it yet. If nobody buys it, I'm going to buy it because I'm going to stick it in my office. I was going to be a really crappy artist. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from the – or comments from the commissioner? I would. Again, as always. Well, first, I'm sorry about your video. I did attend the children's presentation, and it was amazing. So if you want to just forward on the videos, I think that would be great. Also love the podcasts. Very informational. Thank you. And noting the spending in January, that's good information for us, and also your in-kind support to other nonprofits in the area is greatly appreciated. It takes a village. Thank you. Thank you. No question. No question, but I just want to say thank you for all you do. Your passion about what you do is so obvious, and thank you for all your stuff. There's a couple of really good articles in there. Make sure you read them. We put them at the top. Thank you. Thanks. I just want to echo Angela's words. Thank you so much for what you do. The Arts Garage is a great partner, and we love the programming and the fact that you've got so many wonderful volunteers. Thank you, guys. It's really appreciated. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Y'all have a great, great afternoon. Mayor, next up is one of the ones that's always interesting. Winnie Diggins Edwards from the Delray Beach Historical Society, and why she's always interesting is Winnie tries to shove as many slides as she can into her presentation to show off all the great things and events that she's done, and she's limited to 10 minutes, and I believe this year you broke the record with 89 slides, is it? 69. Oh, I was up by 20, but yes. The clock gets going. I just want to, well, please help me welcome our president, Terry Daughton. Terry, Kristen Finn, and our treasurer, Sylvia Piccaro. My fellow teammates, Tom Warnke, our archive coordinator, and our archivist, Kaylee Howald, and our event program coordinator, Heather Kim. Okay, clock's on. Good afternoon, commissioners, city staff, and friends. I'm Winnie Edwards, director of the Delray Beach Historical Society. Thanks for inviting us here today to share this past year with you. We signed our charter in 1964, so we're 62 years old, and this coming year will be our 40th year working with the city, so thank you. We're so proud of our growth, and today is a great day to recognize the dedication of our community, and especially the city leadership, towards the responsibility of preserving our shared history. All three historic cottages on our one-acre campus are jewels in Delray Beach. It bears repeating that two of them were saved from demolition, and our award-winning learning center built in 1908 is the oldest farmhouse in Delray Beach, the home of the city archives. These rare cottages represent a unique and disappearing architectural style full of stories and of our colorful past, which we share daily with our visitors. Our mission is to encourage and inspire everyone to look back at these stories and to the people who lived here to study, to be surprised, to question, and to learn from. We're sharing these archival images today because each face is attached to a family and a time, everyday life, a historical milestone, a captivating story that made Delray what it is today. The city archive is one of the most important places in our town, holding nearly 200,000 items, including rare artifacts and thousands of images, all professionally managed, upholding the highest of archiving standards. Our mission includes also remaining mindful of a changing demographic, progress, and technology, and to strategically insert our local history into the conversations as a reminder of what came before, whether in the 1800s or the 1980s, to help us determine the best path forward in shaping our town. Heritage tourism is an important part of Florida's tourism industry, bringing nearly $7 billion into the economy. Seventy percent of visitors to Florida visit a museum. So thank you, City of Delray Beach, for helping us invest in the protection of our historic districts, our historic places, and the legacy of those that created them, which has shown to produce positive and measurable results for our local economy. 2025 through today has been a wonderfully active and lively year. We last visited you in the middle of summer as we held our summer lecture series and art and nature workshops. Guests enjoyed exploring our heritage gardens' native habitats. All four of our history exhibits and the Archive Research Center services were open all summer. When fall arrived, students and schools returned, as well as group tours, family reunions, garden tours, and garden tours. We create curated and unique experiences for each group based on age and educational goals, and we always include a garden component. We had a record number of student visits this year and hope to increase next year. We held our 10th fall fest this past year with a barbecue. The town attended with the same joy and spirit we always love and appreciate on our campus, with our mainstays, the costume contest, bake sale, story hour, and an outdoor movie. We also offered our first Shakespeare event. It was an open mic night with a live reading of the most haunted of Shakespeare stories by the Palm Beach Shakespeare Ensemble. We welcomed back our valued partner, the Institute for Regional Conservation, for their Do Good Delray Chamber fundraising event. It was a really great night for them, and we introduced new visitors to our campus and exhibits. Our Cottage Book Club enjoyed a third year and is still going strong this summer, and our Elder Circle is enjoying its 12th year, and we just love these. We just love these folks. Our 11th year of Heritage Lectures launched in the fall. We covered topics such as preserving the Lake Worth Lagoon, clear Havana cigars, and Cuban Independence in Key West, Florida and the Civil War, creating your own bird sanctuary. We did that with the city and Audubon Everglades, Artists in Paradise, Finding Inspiration in Delray, The Seminoles of African Descent in Florida, Women of Delray, How Courage Built Our Town, Prohibition in South Florida, Protecting Our Ocean, Waves, and Beaches in Partnership with FAU, Shipwrecks in South Florida, 100 Years of Surfing in Delray, and The Swamp, The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, with award-winning, nationally renowned author and historian Michael Grunwald. This event included an environmental forum with six area nonprofits and Palm Beach County's environmental resource management. We offered our second year of historic walking tours of Delray Beach, including the history of A1A and the Beach, Sundy Village, and Historic Atlantic Avenue. All of our tours sold out, so we added more tours mid-year and plan to add more sites this coming year. We offered History Happy Hour, which is so much fun. Here we are at the hideaway with a historic presentation, history trivia, and prizes. In addition, we continued our off-site presentation in schools, homeowners associations, and community organizations at a rate of one to three per month. Workshops included painting Florida style with renowned local artist Carol Caliccio. We're excited to share two fun ways local history is making a permanent mark in Delray Beach. Our historic markers are now installed at Sundy Village. There are a series of 14 chronological monuments along the pathways, taking people on a historical journey from the 1800s through the 1950s. And our friend, Michiko Kurusu, continues to work on a city project of stamping archive-inspired poetry and words into sidewalks around Delray as part of a public art project. Community connectivity continues to be one of our foundational principles and a great way to introduce new people to what we're all about. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce, we participated in several programs, including Leadership Delray and the Business Expo, and we welcomed the Y-PAD group for contacts and cocktails. We continue to participate in the DDA's Art and Jazz, sharing history and opportunities to sign up. We volunteered at the Achievement Center Home Tour, and we welcomed Japanese students during our Sister Cities visit. As part of our Sponsorships Perks program, we offer to host a small gathering to spread the word about the society. Here's Douglas Elliman enjoying a class on our historic districts and accompanied by a Thanksgiving luncheon in the garden. During the Easter season, we welcomed back the Achievement Center kids for a reading of Peter Rabbit. Thank you, Kate Johnson's. An Easter egg hunt and lunch. The library and the society extended the Easter cheer by visiting our city partners and dropping off Easter baskets, thanking them all for everything that they do. We also participated in the library's trivia night and cooked for the attendees. This year, we welcomed special homeschool groups, garden clubs, summer camp kids from KOP Mentoring Group, Spanish Exchange students, after-school kids from EJS, and we participated in Delray Reads with the library, other civic groups, Achievement Center, and Roots and Wings. We hosted the orientation and training for Delray Reads on our campus, and of course, we held a quarterly new member social welcoming our new supporters. For the holidays, we held our annual holiday, Mingle and Jingle, to thank our sponsors and our members, and in the spirit of supporting local businesses, we held our holiday luncheon shop as a fundraiser for our garden. Local retailers set up pop-up shops, and guests enjoyed a catered lunch. Our history exhibits were open all day, and it was a really beautiful day. We continue to work on our one-acre heritage garden, working with our professional team, and our garden club volunteers, spearheaded by our chairwoman, Connie Cook-Lyons, who all work tirelessly year-round. This one-acre outdoor classroom continues to be a unique asset for Delray Beach. With six native habitats and lush pathways, we've spent this year refurbishing some of the habitats and rebuilding out an area for seeding and grafting. We applied for and received a grant from the Horizon Foundation for $20,000 to create 11 interpretive learning stations. Our garden is now certified by the World Wildlife Federation, the North American Butterfly Association, and we're supported by the National Garden Conservancy, the Garden Club of America, and the Grass River Garden Club. We take great pride in our campus and our programs, our staff, and our incredible and very active volunteer board of governors, and our garden volunteers, and our interns work throughout the year on event committees, archive projects, and improvement projects, including cleaning gutters, painting touch-ups, and installing enhanced lighting systems. We're proud to report how much the archiving tutorial team and our interns have accomplished this year, processing collections, rehousing Delray's extensive art and original cartoon collection, digitizing transparencies and slides, transcriptions, multiple research projects, and reorganizing our session room. There have been a lot of exciting new donations, including fashion pieces and Simon & Diggins family items, and, of course, the recent time capsule contents. We've installed several pop-up exhibits around Delray Beach, including 100 Years of Getting Around in Old Delray, the history of Lake Ida, Life by the Sea, the history of the beach and marina, most debuting at our Celebrating Our Neighborhoods membership events. We completed several oral histories with local Delray residents. We're currently working on collecting LGBTQ history of Delray Beach through oral histories, and we worked with the city again this year on This Place Matters filming segments. We continue to film our historic backroads videos that we'll be publishing soon. We welcome the Outdoor Channel to the Society in partnership with Captain Clays, filming a segment on fishing history of Delray and its sustainable practices. Our blog is growing even more in popularity. This year, we took readers on deep dives into Delray's literati, writers from Delray Beach, the Sunday family and oral history, Banker's Row, and the trees of Delray, a historic canopy. We had the privilege of participating in the city's July 4th festivities with the opening of the time capsule and a live reading of the Declaration of Independence. The season culminated in our fifth Twilight in the Garden fundraiser. Eleven of the area's restaurants and purveyors donated truly spectacular food tastings. We raised $62,000. I just want to share a couple more things with you, if you don't mind. I've been doing this for 12 years, so I have a lot I want to share. We get excited when we come here every year, so just one more minute. I just want to tell you why we do all this and why we're so passionate about what we do. We are carrying on a legacy that is, you know, over 60 years old that was established by the predecessors and founders of the society. We're also losing our history curriculum in the classrooms, and really our goal is to elevate civic and social connectivity, inclusion, and a sense of pride in community. We keep that in mind every day. How we do this is important. We do this through continued support of our city partners. What you all do for us is paramount and critical. and our robust fundraising program. We have three full-time staff, two part-time staff, and an accountant, and numerous volunteers and interns. They're all valuable to our progress and our success. We have an engaged and passionate board of governors who believe in our mission. We're holding steady with our membership drives with around $60,000 of income every year, about 750 members. We increased our sponsorships this year alone by $75,500. Our operating budget has increased 102% since 2019. Our outreach, campus visits, off-site presentations, and partnerships, social media interactions have garnered us 25% increased engagement over the last two years. 63% of our income is acquired through active fundraising and grant writing minus the city of Dalry Beach. So we're very proud of that. We're currently finalizing our budget for next year. We've experienced smart and steady growth over the last 12 years, and our operating budget coming up is approximately $600,000. And we are respectfully, if we have met your expectations, we are asking for a total funding amount of $200,000 for the fiscal year 2026 through 2027. I want to thank you again for your time, and I'll answer any questions you might have. Any questions or comments? Commissioner Costal. Sure, I'll make a comment. And, you know, as we started this presentation kind of giggling about the amount of slides, I would say they were perfect. It was great. Because as you told the story and showed us, it was really reflective of the value of this organization. And you're right about the passion. I've attended so many events for, you know, five or six years, and your board is so passionate, and your employees are so passionate. And, you know, you just see that the, you know, intense desire to preserve the past, the present, and also looking forward to how do we have that for the future. And I'm very thankful for your organization, for all of your employees, and for your board, and excited to fund this today. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah, I just want to say thank you for what you do, you and your staff, and the whole organization. You know, it's important that we keep our history and know it and that you're sharing it with the schools. I was glad to see all of the programs that you have for us. Us and Spady. So thank you. What's that? Is it us and Spady? Yes, yes. Well, I already thanked Spady. Huh? I know, but I wanted to thank them too. All right. So thank you. Anyone else? Sure. I can't not say we love you any, and all that you do, and all that your whole group does. And I love history, but nobody loves history like you do. Well, we all do. We all do. I know. I know. It shows. Thank you. We have many people on our board whose parents were founding members. Wow. She's so cool. In fact, Sylvia's father was the first treasurer of the Delray Beach Historical Society in 1964. My dad was the first vice president. And Laura's dad was the first secretary, Laura Simon's dad. So we have a lot of responsibility that we take seriously and a lot of passion for the organization. I just want to quickly. And we're all still young and ready to go. Young and ready to go. Vibrant. I just want to say thank you to, again, you and your team. I mean, you do great work. And to have an organization like yours that's keeping track of our history in Delray, and it's just fun to go see it. It is. As somebody who didn't grow up here, it's fun to go back and see it, and it only happens because of the team that you have. Thank you. And we love when you come and visit, too. We don't see enough of Mr. Moore. But we hope to see him coming up. Come over. Even though he basically held me up on July 4th. I held you up on July 4th? It was so hot. It was just brutally hot. Do you remember? I remember very well. Yeah. I mean, we were all there. And a great deal of positive energy and synergy was contributed on both our parts. So I think we should call that good. And you were trying to hide, as Commissioner Moller could just clarify, but we brought you out, and you were in full form as usual. Okay. Thank you. And, you know, Mr. Moore, worth noting, you pulled that together in about two weeks, that live reading of the declaration. Very well done. That's exactly right. I heard, like, a week and a half before, and we made it part of the curriculum. So we were not only responsive but quite attentive, but it was well done by everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you. And thank you to Mr. Orris. And, Winnie, since you brought the Spader Museum in, I want to also say that Ms. Vera Farrington was the first, with EPOC, was the first curator of the Spader Museum and taken over by her daughter, Charlene. So thank you. We keep it in the family. Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's keep it that way. Okay. We're moving on. Our next presentation is from the Sandaway Discovery Center. Hi. I'm a bit different than everyone here, so. She has sharks. Yes. I should have brought a live animal. Next time. I'm going to remember that. So good afternoon. My name is Danika Sanborn, Executive Director of the Sandaway Discovery Center. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share how your investment in Sandaway has strengthened our community over the past year. Your support is much more than funding for a museum. It's an investment in environmental education, tourism, historic preservation, and community engagement that benefits residents and visitors alike. This past year, Sandaway welcomed thousands of visitors from throughout South Florida and beyond. Families, school groups, and tourists experience hands-on encounters with Florida's unique wildlife while learning about the importance of protecting our coastal environment. Our daily educational programs, including shark and stingray feedings, aquarium talks, and animal encounters, help connect people of all ages with our natural world and encourage environmental stewardship. We also have over 50 rescued animals that we take care of. Education remains at the heart of everything we do. This past year, we provided environmental education to 7,676 students, including 6,062 students from Title I schools. And of those 6,000 kids, not one of them paid to come to Sandaway. Many of these children would not otherwise have access to experiences like ours without grant funding such as the city's, making it possible for them to come to Sandaway without the burden of cost. We've also expanded our educational offerings through new technology like ZSpace, 3D STEM learning, and improved our online scheduling system, making it easier for schools to participate. We have our plant program where we go out to five different schools, and we're trying to increase their test scores, and all five their test scores have risen. So we keep repeating that with them, and now they're asking us to come to their middle and high school, so we're really proud of that program. Every child who walks through our doors leads with a greater understanding of Florida's ecosystems and how they can help protect them. One of our most significant accomplishments this year was completing our new entrance and gift shop renovation. This project transformed an aging porch into a safe, hurricane-resistant entrance while creating a welcoming first impression for our guests. It also created much-needed office space, storage, and freed up room for future educational exhibits. These improvements make Sandaway more efficient, more welcoming, and better prepared to serve our growing number of volunteers. So this is a picture of our porch before and during, and this is some pictures after. And if you haven't come by Sandaway in a while, I definitely recommend it. We hear compliments all the time. It's much more welcoming, and we're going to feel a lot safer during hurricane season now that that porch is gone. We've also invested in creating exciting new experiences for our guests. New exhibits include our insect exhibit, nocturnal room, educational displays featuring our new kestrel, lionfish, and shark teeth, as well as improvements to our educational gardens. These additions provide fresh learning opportunities and encourage repeat visits from local families and tourists alike. Partnerships are another important part of Sandaway's mission. We continue collaborating with organizations like EJS Project, Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, Delray Beach Historical Society, the Reef Institute, and the City of Delray Beach on sea turtle excavations and blue flag designation. We also partner with the Achievement Center, Paul's Place, City of Delray Aftercare, and Milagro on their aftercare programs, where we bring different programs for eight weeks, and the kids love it. So we've gone back to them since COVID, so it's been a number of years that we've had that program. This year, we hosted our first pub crawl fundraiser, partnering with six local restaurants, raising $10,000 to support our educational programs. It's a lot of fun. This year, we're going to have our second one. Our Muscle on the Beach Car Show, held alongside the Delray Green Market, attracts an impressive collection of classic cars and thousands of visitors to downtown Delray Beach. Those visitors don't just enjoy the car show. They dine in local restaurants, shop at local businesses, visit the beach, and experience everything that makes Delray Beach a vibrant destination. This year's event raised $81,000 to support Sandaway's environmental education and conservation programs, while also generating meaningful economic activity for the city. Muscle on the Beach has become a true community partnership that benefits both Sandaway and the local economy. Working alongside the city, we also organized two beach cleanups that removed hundreds of pounds of trash from our shoreline. These events not only improve our beaches, but also teach the volunteers the importance of protecting our coastal environment. Behind every successful program is an incredible team. This year, we've continued growing our staff and internship opportunities, helping train the next generation of environmental educators and conservation professionals. This year, to help offset increased operating costs and allow us to continue serving Delray Beach residents, students, and visitors at the highest level. We respectfully request the commission approve an increase in Sandaway's annual grant from $31,200 to $35,000. In closing, I want to sincerely thank the city commission for your continued partnership and support. Your investment allows Sandaway to educate thousands of children, preserve one of Delray Beach's historic treasures, attract visitors to our city, strengthen community partnerships, and inspire future environmental stewards. On behalf of our staff, volunteers, board members, and thousands of children and families we serve each year, thank you for believing in Sandaway and for helping us continue making a lasting impact on our community. Thank you very much. Any questions or comments from the commission? I'll quickly say I have been since the renovations, and it's beautiful. I attended with the Sister City program, and I want to thank you. You are very generous, and you put the slide up about the engagement with the community partners, and I think that's why all of the applicants are here today, not just because you are located in property that serves us and because of our partnership, but also the way that you coordinate and work with the other nonprofits in our city. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? Nope. Thank you very much. Thank you for what you do. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, if I may, just real quickly, just also cite that Sandaway House is a historic property. It is owned by the county, leased to the city, and we sublease it to Sandaway. So just a little different structure than most of the other organizations operating on property owned by the city. All right. Up next, last but not least, is the Delray Beach Public Library. Oh, thank you. Showing some love. Showing some love. Before I start, I'd like to ask my board of directors to stand up, please. Delray Beach Public Library. Thank you very much. Coach Sowers, Tim Sharp, and Candace Hedler. I think you guys support me so much for me over the years, and tonight especially. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. There we are. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Michael Bansa, and I'm the executive director of the Delray Beach Public Library. I forgot to mention Kay. You did. The ever-popular Kay Johnson's. Wow. Kay who? I'll take a second of my time to bring that in because I would pay for it later. At the end of August, at the end of August, I've been serving this library for 32 years. In this presentation, I will show the value our library has to our city and to the people of Delray Beach. The library is an essential service, like every free public library is to every community. Our library is essential to the health and well-being of our city. The benefits are long-term, providing our citizens a guided path forward to a better life. A free public library. Free. Our materials, our services, our professional expertise, our help. It's all free to anyone and everyone that walks through our doors. Allow me to quantify that with some figures. If our patrons had to pay for all the materials checked out last year, it would have cost them collectively approximately $3.6 million. If a patron wish to subscribe for access to all of our online database resources, it would have cost that individual $27,000 a year. We circulated over 241,000 materials last year, and nearly 194,000 people came through our doors. People came to our reference desk for help 63,678 times. We have nearly 126,000 items in our physical collection, and over a million items in our digital and streaming collections. Shown here is our robust social media and programming presence. We had 2,227 programs last year, with 11,649 in attendance. We have over 135 community partners for programming and social services outreach. Last year, the library hosted over 1,000 hours of open, free programming for our community partners in our auditorium. In addition, our library in the Go golf cart continued to make inroads into our communities, helping to narrow the digital divide. Last year, the library hosted 522 programs for adults, with an attendance of 3,734. Our TTIL program, Technology Training and Instruction Lab, is designed to train adults and teens in the latest cutting-edge technology, including podcasting, 3-D printing, and our state-of-the-art recording studio. Our children's department continued its long legacy of excellent programming. Last year, we had 810 programs for 6,249 children. The attendance was about a 20% increase from last year with attendance. Our teen librarian hit over 148 programs last year, all programs focusing on teens, with an attendance of 604. This slide represents our library fundraising as part of our overall budget. The Citi Grant of $2.73 million represents about 80% of our budget. 16.5% comes from our fundraising efforts, and 3.5% comes from other revenue, like book sales, library fees, room rentals, etc. The important thing to notice here is that the vast bulk of our fundraising is for library programming, and that programming and that fundraising is restricted. We do a great job raising money for programming. Such a good job, in fact, the Delray Beach Public Library takes a backseat to no library in the state of Florida with regard to programming. Thank you. We are in the very top echelon with regard to the number of programs. Importantly, the quality of programs and the attendance for those programs. We are the innovators and the trendsetters in library programming. What we can't raise money for constitutes that 80%. We need to rely on you guys for that. Grants and individual giving restrict funds that might otherwise cover staff pay, benefits, materials, and building maintenance. All of which require the sustainable funding of our annual Citi Grant. Most donors are driven by the desire for direct programmatic impact and limit operational costs. I spoke earlier about our library's benefit to the community financially, and this slide explains another important piece of that economics benefit picture. Prior to 1967, there was no formal vehicle for funding libraries. In 1967, the Florida legislature created the Palm Beach County Taxing District, which currently imposes a tax at a millage of 5.5491. Delray Beach is exempt from this tax as are the citizens of Delray because the city funds the library directly. If the city did not fund the library directly, the additional taxes for Delray Beach citizens would be $9.7 million a year. So, on to our request, our budget request. Like last year, the city has absorbed the former CRA funding into overall library funding. The former CRA funding is $443,000, or about 20% of our overall budget. The $443,000 moving over to the city remains for this year static as part of our budget increase request. The library is asking for a 3% increase only on the base figure which the city provided to the library last year, which was $1,786,537. The 3% increase of this figure represents $53,596 in additional funding. That's the request. This 3% increase request and the CRA transfer of the $443,000 brings the total request to $2,283,133. I ask for this additional $53,000 so that our library can stay competitive with salaries, benefits, increases, materials, so that our library can continue our tradition of premier library service for the people of Delray Beach. And about library service, why it's so important. Concerning the history of free public libraries, so many great thinkers and writers have spoken of libraries and civilization in the same sentence, in the same breath. The great scientist Carl Sagan wrote of libraries as mankind's great warehouse of thought, proof of human magic that breaks the shackles of time. Sagan wrote that the very health of a civilization may be judged on its support of public libraries. Historian writer Barbara Tuchman wrote of libraries called libraries the very guardians of civilization. The reason I think libraries and civilization are so frequently linked and thought of together can be exemplified by a story concerning the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead. In the story, Dr. Mead said that for her, the earliest evidence of civilization was the discovered remains of a prehistoric man with a healed femur bone. Not a shard of pottery, not a stone tool, not an arrowhead, but a healed bone. This healed bone was evidence of community care. Proof that a person had been carried to safety, sheltered and fed during a convalescence, and cared for. This was the evidence that man had crossed over from barbarism to civilization. Empathy, feeling another's pain and vulnerability as your own, that speechless impulse in evolving man to care for one another, to wish well for one another, simply from the bond of being human together. And it is this impulse that finds its most perfect expression and its historic culmination in a public library. As a culture, we have decided there must be a place where all the wisdom, stories, history of man is preserved, organized, verified, and can be accessed by all simply because it is good for all. A free public library, as a public institution, is a shrine to all the best impulses in man. To walk into a public library is to feel the absolute loving glow of the very embrace of civilization. Thank you. Mayor, city officials, commissioners, it's always a great privilege to speak with you, and I thank you for your time today. Thank you very much. Any questions, comments? I know I'll say something. Did you say 32 years when you started out? My gosh, that's amazing. Thank you. I'm happy. Thank you. For the 32 years, yeah. Believe me. So I've been streaming the books lately. I love having a book in hand, but streaming is so much easier when you're cooking and doing things. I love the service. I love the for sale books. Three dollars. Most of the books are three dollars, and I've gotten some amazing books. Thank you. And I agree with you on the programming. It's the quality is amazing and the quantity as well. And thank you for putting up the slide to show us the 9.7 million that the taxpayers would pay if you weren't here as you are as a nonprofit. Offset by the 2.3, excuse me, our taxpayers are saving about $7.4 million in the city of Delray Beach. And could you just quick talk about the library being closed for anyone who's listening? I think you're closing for some renovations. We have necessary construction coming up at the end of August, three weeks, about three weeks at the end of August. We have to do, our ceiling is aged, and we need to replace the whole ceiling. And in estimating what it's going to cost to replace the ceiling, the ceiling tiles, we discovered that much of our lighting is also end of life. So we're just going to do it all one shot. We're also going to do some revision of the lobby floor coming in. That's what's happening. And you say about three weeks starting at the end of August? Okay, thank you for your presentation. Thank you. It was great to see you. Thank you, always. Thank you very much. Any other comments? I just want to say thank you. I love the libraries, you know. I do know. I come a lot. And I also want to say thank you. You know, you have that room that you make available to the community, and that's an asset, too. And you're very kind to do that, and the city appreciates that. We're here to help. And just thank you for what you do, and congratulations on those 32 years. I don't know if that's half your life or not, but. I don't know how it happened, really. Yeah, I guess. I was hired, like, yesterday, I think. The service that you do serves the whole community, so thank you for what you do. Thank you, Angela. Thank you very much. Thank you, Angela. See you tomorrow morning. Yes, Mr. Moore. So, Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen, that actually concludes the presentation. So, the eight nonprofit partnerships, and my interest at this time is to point out for the commission that fiscal year 2026-2027, current proposed budget considerations do include maintaining existing funding levels. We talked a little bit about that because, of course, out of the eight presentations, six are requesting, as of today, slight increases to their allocations. And, of course, we'll engage the conclusion of the fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget process via the September 8th and September 22nd regular city commissions. Nevertheless, the existing structures are in place based on proposals that haven't been compiled and submitted to date. So, on that note, I look forward to engaging with the commission next month to get direction finalized, and we'll take it from there. So, thank you. May I ask, don't you need direction today to get to that next, our next meeting in September, even though you'll be meeting with us individually, you're going to put numbers forward. Don't you need to know what those numbers are right here now? Shouldn't we just give a consensus, go down the list, check yes, no, raise our hands, and go forward so they can leave here tonight knowing if they've got their money for their budgets, which presumably they're working on, and we know if it's going to be in our budget. I would be comfortable because, again, recommendations have already been made in terms of existing funding levels. Really, what it comes down to is proceeding in that regard, if you would like. I will be more than happy to entertain that direction, and we'll take it from there. You'll have that for us next week, right? The meeting next week. How do you want to do that? We could do it now. The September 8th and September 22nd are the meeting days for the conclusion of the fiscal year 2026-2027 proposed budget process. So, as we talked about back in July, existing funding levels regarding the nonprofit partnerships are in position in that regard. So, should there be an interest on part of the commission to offer direction at this time, that would be a productive approach. I'd kind of like to see it all on a sheet of paper. It's all in our agenda cover sheet. Six remain the same to our requesting more. It's in our cover sheet. All the amounts are on a sheet of paper. So, what's listed on a sheet of paper, your agenda transmittals, are the existing funding levels. Correct. Quite frankly, and we were comfortable in offering that background information because we've provided it before. We provided it before May, June, July, as we engage budget discussions for the upcoming fiscal year, and funding levels are in position to be formally adopted per your process. May I ask a question? Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, yes. So, am I hearing you say that with the increases, the few increases that were asked, that your calculations have included those? No, ma'am. The increases that are being made available by Sandaway and the Derry Beach Public Library have not been included in the upcoming fiscal year 2026-27 proposed budget process. What's included are the existing funding levels as outlined. Okay. So, as we engaged the budget process, we were not made aware in that regard, number one. Number two, it is fiscally prudent that we do what we can to make recommendations known in that regard, and I think we were fairly clear. And I guess what I was saying is if we want to include those other things, maybe we should come back with a list showing what the revised numbers would be, and then we could give direction. Give, huh? I suppose we have to go back and we have to redo the resolution. Yes. Of course. It was about $3,000. Yes, and so the grand total is just shy of $60,000 you just talked about based on what was discussed. And frankly, if there was any interest in proceeding in that regard, we would have to make revisions in advance of the September 8th first hearing to get us to where we need to be. So we would have a little bit of work to do in that regard because it would have to be offset elsewhere. Can you have that ready for us next meeting so we can vote it and send it forward? We won't vote, but we'll give consensus next meeting is what he's asking for. Yeah, we'll give you consensus next. Just show us what all the actual total number is so that we're dealing with a number as opposed to having to go back and revise what they're going to be. Which total number, sir? Please forgive me. Ms. Mary. I mean, right now we just approved the existing funding levels. It does not include the additions for the two entities. He's going to need until September. What he's saying to you is that's going to be part of the whole budget. He can't present that to you at the next meeting because that's not the whole budget. It won't be presented. That's correct. Let's do it in our individual meetings. But can we give a consensus? I think we need to tell him, are we willing to move this forward or not? Because he can't include it in. Do we have consensus that at least as the current funding levels are at, we're moving forward? Yes. Okay, fine. We'll figure out what to do with the rest. Thank you. So I'm all set. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mayor. I think we're finished here. We are, are we, yes? Any comments? Nope. We're adjourned. See you all at five.