welcome to our annual martin luther king breakfast we welcome you all here this is such a tremendous event that is put on every year and my name is shawn landers i'm the high school chorister actor and i was struck a couple months ago when i was watching the opening of the african american history museum and i watched them saying in wondrous voice of lift every voice and sing i said you know what the high schoolers should sing this song and so with wondrous voice we have been working on this and it gives us a great pleasure this morning and on this really special day to sing the song for you we invite you to sing along if you know the words join it is a pleasure to be here this morning to celebrate dr martin luther king jr day on behalf of the ministration faculty staff and students of belmont high school i'd like to welcome you to this special event i would like to extend a special welcome to a few of our community leaders who are here today as i call your name would you please stand to remain standing to be recognize state senator will brownsburg or state representative dave rogers district attorney marian ryan belmont chief of police richard mclaughlin selectman mark polo and superintendent of schools john phelan thank you for your leadership and commitment king's message and towards our students success mason temple he talked about how he was happy to live and the time that he did not despite his tribulations but because of them because he was glad to see that people were struggling to achieve justice in peace after accomplishing so much he was still clearly focused on the road ahead and what was left to be done dr king's speech at the mason temple of one nine hundred sixty eight could easily resonate with the social and political challenges of two thousand and seventeen i believe it dr king were with us today he would not permit us to comfortably lion still need writing and what we as individuals are doing to do right to act or just stand by the sidelines and watch so perhaps the best way to honor d king is to reflect on how he might have challenged us as individuals to take responsibility for peace and justice right here in our own community by being here today you send a strong message that the young people in our community manager was their education safety social motional well being managed to us individually and as a community i would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone in the room and for those who could not be here today for investing in dr king's commitment to a more peaceful and just world thank you for your commitment and standing for what matters most equality for all and the future our young people thank you at this time i'd like to invite pastor a most jean philip from the community church of god to provide today's vocation the morning and barbara watson and i'm delighted to welcome you here all on behalf of the bellman human rights commission and belmont against racism at the moment i have i'm just a few minor instruments first and i wonder if people might give mr richard quest in a round of applause for the last i don't know how many years rich preston has done the sound for this event he come sunday night and then monday morning to prepare for this event and he will be going off to teach next year and so this might be our last year with richard preston but he has given years to this event and i just wanted to thank him for that a williams and i've lived in belmont for fifty years i was so on the committee that worked with the school department to decide to pre med co into belmont and we were it was a wonderful decision we're glad that the recommendation was acted upon it's customary for people to say when they're introducing someone very well known and especially someone who lives in the place where they're speaking that they need no introduction well it's really true of dorothy stone when she needs no introduction to most of us but some of you may not be so thoroughly familiar with her stellar accomplishments dorothy grew up in belmont she's truly one of us she went to belmont schools then to harvard college and she got her and advanced degrees in new york at the bank street school she worked as a teacher in east harlem and did community organizing and working with the youth and one of the things i like most about her inspiration to start youth build was that she was listening to people on the ground the youth there said they wanted to rehab abandoned buildings and she engaged them in that activity and it was out of that that youth build us a was a porn i quote from the new york times article announcing dorothy's recent retirement from the organization she founded misto own wins group changed the lives of thousands of young people who had been imprisoned were unemployed or had not earned high school diplomas youth be old put them into a classroom and to work often build in affordable housing in their communities currently there are two hundred sixty youth be all programs in urban and rural communities in the u s and eighty in another twenty one countries in central america latin america the mid the mid east including both israel and iraq and in africa and this has grown from one committed persons efforts and the beginning of a small program in the community a lesson for all of us through these programs youth bill has helped over one hundred sixty thousand youth between the ages of sixteen and twenty four to not only build houses but to rebuild their lives i can think of no one better suited and more appropriate to address us on martin luther king's birthday dorothy your were and the organization you have built carry out dr king's mission of social and economic transformation these aspects of dr king's life and mission are often overshadowed by his message of peace the civil rights marches and the i have a dream speech but they aren't the real heart of his message and what we need to listen to now martin luther king was advocating for economic justice for garbage workers when he died he had spearheaded the movement to have a march on washington against poverty he was bringing together black and white people to address the issue of poverty sadly we still need to go a long way in addressing that issue martin luther king also tried to bring about justice in our housing in america many of you who have been around as long as i have remember that he marched in chicago for equal housing and he had promises from mayor daley that we would have big full housing these promises have been made by many presidents and politicians there after but we still have not really been able to bring about affordable housing and integrated neighborhoods youth build sets a wonderful example for working on one of america's greatest problems in bed is housing poor people educating people who have not had the opportunities that they deserve as americans i could say many more things about dorothy she has received much recognition for her work with us bill but the one that i like best is that she received a mac arthur genius grant and i think that's wonderful how wise they were to choose her and she is an example for all of us especially now when we need to be alert to keeping our democracy alive in this country her example stands as someone who not only marched and started in the civil rights movement but who kept working for decades and doing it in such a way that it affected the lives of citizens in our country who have become productive and economically independent i'm delighted to bring you dorothy stoneman one of our own dorothy i couldn't be more delighted to be here with this wonderful group of people and to be introduced by county williams who as she said we wouldn't have met co if it weren't for carney for fred paulson who must be here somewhere for all the people  fred who was chairing that committee back then that county and fred made sure that belmont welcomed the macro students the boston students to belmont all the people in this room have done many many things to bridge the racial divide and we heard a wonderful call to action to continue to action from all of the speakers this morning it's true i grew up in belmont i went to when brook school i graduated from belmont high school in one nine hundred fifty nine fifty eight years ago i grew up as a unitarian girl scout i was trained to respect other people's religions and to take the girl scout pledge i promised to do my duty to god and my country to help other people at all times and to a baby girl scout law we said that every week starting at age eight janet putnam mcdonald wherever you are we said it together in second grade where janet somewhere there she is i was raised in safety and with freedom it was safe for my friends to play in the woods to build houses to play in the playgrounds with no adult supervision and with no fear at all i would get on my little blue bike every afternoon starting in second grade and ride from our street to when broke and as long as i was home at six thirty pm everything was cool my parents didn't worry about me my father was jewish his grandfather had fled the violent pogroms in the ukraine in the late eight hundred eighty s my mother was german her father had come here from germany as a white anglo saxon protestant when my parents you loped to marry my mother was disowned by her german father for marrying a jew my mother and father dared to love each other across the lines of anti semitism she dared to have the children that her father told her would be rejected by all people as half breeds my mother was brave and good some of you kn my mother she was the president of the dominant league of women voters in the forty's or fifty's and she advocated for affordable housing in belmont with the people who worked with her to fight for affordable housing before belmont was ready to do it please raise their hands all right and they didn't succeed back then belmont wasn't ready it took belmont much longer to welcome people who were more or less wealthy and people of color into our town ignorance and separation were widespread throughout the national culture among white people who had been consistently misinformed deeply misinformed as part of the justification of genocide against native americans whose lands were taken by the early settlers and the defense of slavery of african americans whose dignity was taken by the early plantation owners who got wealthy from their labor the deep tension between misinformation and true learning about each other is still a work in progress that affects all groups and needs all of us as most of the people in this room probably all of the people in this room have done to commit to learning what we don't know about each other's current reality and history deliberately doing whatever it takes to make real friends across the lines of separation and dedicating ourselves to opportunity and justice love and responsibility for all the civil rights movement and martin luther king jr played a catalytic role in our evolution toward understanding martin luther king jr personified the loving spirit and expressed the vision of society without prejudice and hate built on love and respect for every human being he called for the beloved community a world wide vision without war without hate based on love and community his naming of the triple evils as he called them the triple evils of poverty racism and militar m and his call to all to work through nonviolent activism to eliminate them to eliminate them was profound i personally would like to add greed to this list of things to be eliminated it is important to remind ourselves that nonviolent activism doesn't just mean marching in the streets with peace signs and being willing to be arrested by the powers that be who are defending the status quo it means not hating the perpetrators of injustice not rejecting their humanity not giving up on building a united community based on love and believing in the inherent goodness of our people it is important to understand the hidden pain and the misinformation that has been rigorously imposed somewhere along the way on those perpetrators as king said the non evil not people nonviolence except suffering without retaliation as pastor dean stated this morning nonviolence calls to the activists to look for what is positive in every action and statement the opposition makes somewhat difficult in these days it requires us not to seek to humiliate the opponents but to call forth the good in them this is a profoundly difficult but right discipline this morning's breakfast is to honor from the deep core of our hearts and minds martin luther king jr is legacy his gifts to america of his teaching his role modeling the progress that he and his colleagues produced and his actual life that he gave will never be forgotten i know we are all here to refresh our own commitment to his loving activism ifas stories of the people in this room and all of the things that you have done big and small could be told it would take us many days we are here partly to uplift the stories of less famous people who lived martin luther king jr's vision who chose to become to bridge the racial divide to become what i call bridge people the people who step outside the limitations of the narrow identity of their families and churches who get to know and love and share the worldview of people raised an entirely different context under different conditions with different expectations beliefs class backgrounds religions with widely varied racial and cultural heritage is even with different political perspectives the bridge people which we will call ourselves dare to leave their familiar territory they listen and love welcome and embrace follow and learn step into other people's shoes and communities to understand to serve to join in solidarity in the struggles for fulfillment of the beloved community that martin luther king jr named as the goal and best expression of human society we drop our preconceptions our fears our judgments  hostilities and we open our hearts to each other's reality that's what we all must do if we are to become our best selves and if we are each one to tribute to creating a world in which all human beings can thrive together if we are to end genocide torture oppression racism sexism and classism homophobia and war as well as preserve our planet as a welcoming environment for the human species we must choose to build bridges over deep valleys climb over high walls or even just walk across the street and make true friends with people from different realities with different points of view than our own i was lucky that i came of age in the sixty's so many historical factors brought to my attention the colonialism and the racism the european whites and american whites were imposing on black africans and black americans i was lucky that as a white american college student i was awakened to the injustices and the violence being perpetrated against black people growing up in belmont in the fifty's i never had a clue growing up without a t v not of us no but when the little girls were killed in the birmingham church when the hoses and dogs were turned on the demonstrators when schwerner goodman and cheney were murdered for undertaking voter registration in mississippi we woke up many of us who are still into action at least one of the people that i know well and love dearly in this audience was moved to go to mississippi in the one nine hundred sixty four freedom summer to join the activists in voter registration that says shefflin has been taking pictures all morning has remained true to that calling forever are there other people in the audience who were called in the sixty's to the front lines some hands are going up i also had decided it was my responsibility to go to the front lines i found my way to new york city to central harlem to one hundred thirty seventh street and eighth avenue where i asked if i could please join the harlem action group that was in a storefront there in one thousand nine hundred sixty four as a twenty two year old from belmont i walked into that storefront with no prior knowledge of what it was to be black in america or for that matter white in harlem at harvard i had made friends with a couple of african students that was it there were hardly any african americans at harvard at that time i asked if i could be helpful i was invited to sit in a corner and type reports my father had warned me and it grade that in order to survive the next depression i better learn to be a good typist so i was prepared for my role i sat in that storefront typing and listening i made friends some of them became lifelong friends and mentors who guided me for the rest of my life as a bridge person i made friends i listened more i was one of only two white people there we were called the white girls in the ghetto people wondered why we were there and suspected that we had come either to write books about them or to imagine we were saving them or to steal their man i discovered that the african americans crowded into that tiny storefront in one thousand nine hundred sixty four young and old male and female long term activists or young teenagers eager for the future harvard graduates chuck turner who later became a city councilman in boston was in that storefront and former inmates and drug dealers all of them were completely dedicated and hopeful to ending poverty and justice they were hopeful that it could be changed thanks to martin and malcolm and the new allies emerging from white america they had witnessed a few whites die in their cause they had seen white people march in d c with mao with martin and that provided some new hope all of them had great ideas about how to change society sadly nobody in power was yet listening people in power still do not listen to the ideas of poor and oppressed people as much as they should since the true ideas of the change we need and the details of how to get there exist in the minds of the people who have experienced the greatest oppression and injustice as most of you know from then i story in the belmont citizen written by joanna fellas who is somewhere here i stayed in harlem for the next twenty four years best thing i ever did my husband john bell and i lived in central harlem on one hundred thirty seventh street and worked in east harlem i continued to listen to ask what residents thought should be happen should happen and as candy said earlier for young people in and said we want to rebuild the abandoned buildings in our community there were three hundred abandoned buildings in the style of when i asked that question there now none and everybody said oh the young people they they can't build abandoned buildings they don't have the skills they don't have the well you're dreaming but we said no that's wrong they want to do it we'll get the resources and so they did it it took four years to build the first house but now we've built thirty three thousand other houses across the i consciously at that time said as a privileged wait harvard graduate i have some skills and some confidence that i can use in support of the vision and the ideas of the young people that i'm meeting and their parents in east harlem in harlem and so that was my role is to be accountable to the community and but to bring in the resources and over the last years of the help of senator kerry in massachusetts when he was senator we brought one point five billion dollars in to the poorest communities in america both urban and rural that's how we built those houses and i will say that was taxpayer money and this morning when i talked to will brownsburg or who may have had to leave because he had to go to another town i said what are we going to do he said on twenty eighteen there's something there's going to be on the ballot the opportunity because i said what are we going to do to increase the funding for america because the medco funding has been cut in recent years and he said twenty eighteen and we're going to be able to vote to increase taxes for people who make more than a billion dollars a year as income so be prepared everyone has a chance to bring in more resources to flow to the purposes of ending poverty and injustice in america in one nine hundred eighty eight i returned to belmont with my husband and my daughter to take care of my mother who had alzheimer's disease our nine year old daughter sierra had lived in harlem and attended public school there through grade three she met an entirely new community when we moved back to belmont and high school she helped paint that mural of nelson mandela so i am here as what i call a bridge person who has stepped far enough inside other people's reality to actually internalize deep empathy caring and knowledge it's never complete it's never enough but it is different from not doing that i joined to the people in the black and latino urban communities who were short on money education and opportunity unlike the people in belmont but the people in harlem were not short on love and community energy talent and intelligence and what i learned in harlem prepared me for the rest of my life it has been a truly wonderful journey filled with passionate and loving young adults like my cabanas here with us today spoke here four years ago made it possible for them to leave the paths that they were on the only paths visible to them in their communities and jump to a different path that would take them to education employment careers and community leadership helping to bridge the racial divide and helping to end poverty now we're going to turn our so i someday i will write the book about the whole story because i don't have time today to tell you the whole journey and the jubilation the frustration of always working against the grain of society but the jubilation of liberating the power and the intelligence of young people who care more about ending poverty than anyone who's never  now we're going to turn our attention to a small group of the folks who were sent many years ago by their parents out of their inner city reality into belmont to get a great education to become a bridge people before they were all the nuff to make that choice for themselves but who were those very very early morning school buses in one nine hundred seventy from boston to belmont because their parents had a vision had hope and had the will to open doors to their children three of our panelists started in one nine hundred seventy to commute to belmont from boston in the very first class of boston medical students met coal is a blessing for belmont a gift to belmont's children so that they do not have to grow up in isolation inside an protected bubble made only for white people it is a gift also to boston so that at least a small number of boston black and latino students now three thousand two hundred each year travelling to thirty four different suburbs have the chance to access the best public education available and become bridge people who grow up in a able to navigate the complexities of racial relations but before i turn our attention to the panel i need to share a little bit more about matco because medco didn't come so spun spontaneously and easily to belmont as a good idea supported by there were opponents of bringing black students from boston to our schools fortunately there were community leaders like fred and conny who advocated for what was called then the urban suburban exchange and education not residents as a whole had to stand up to say yes we stand for equality of opportunity and for integration of our schools and society we stand for overcoming the legacy of slavery and exploitation in our nation's history and we stand for a society with equal educational opportunity for all and a chance for people of different backgrounds to know each other through shared experiences but when this came forward there were some people who opposed it there was an item on the warrant a warrant item i guess it's call that opposed that code that had to be taken to the town meeting there were will other people in the audience who joined fred and carney in that period to make sure that matter was welcomed raise your hands and the other people here and we all owe you a wonderful a debt of gratitude deep appreciation for everyone who has stood up and i bet there are people who voted in that time meeting also so now let's turn our attention to the panel if the panel could come forward and take your seats i guess they've been labeled for you they will each introduce themselves and outline their experiences in turn what was great about met co and belmont for them what was hard what advice do they have for belmont and what thanks would they like to give to the key people who helped them bridge the enormous divide they were required to cross as children and we also have a belmont parent who's here who has played a low range which played an active role in organizing us to welcome and support the i'm not going to take time to introduce them because it's better for them to have the time to introduce themselves so i thought she would just go in the order as we're sitting i think that will work unless anthony anthony was expect e my mother put me in this program because it actually made a difference in my life what was good about this to me is meeting different people different races different colors and being able to understand them and them understand me because they actually taught me some as i went on the college of being able to deal with a different race of people and it actually was something really good you would you wouldn't believe from the kids that we grew up with you know i started laughing you know but i think those were the best kids ever i was a kid that my reaction to everything with my hands which wasn't a good thing but that's what i did that's all i knew and she kind of stopped me from doing that and made a difference in my life goal forward like i said and meet new people it really made a difference the reaction of people cannot be with the hand has to be something of ok yeah that was said this was said whenever you got to keep it moving you got to be able to embrace it and hold on  forward you wanted to middle school something different because everything was different that's when kids start to identify themselves and you realize that you're actually different so they really start to notice stuff so things started to change that but i mean so again it was a learning process all over again so something we actually all had to do as a group and it worked we got through that the most dramatic thing that i would say about belmont was probably our first day i school back then that and it was a lot of stuff going on you know where all the stuff going on the south was in the race riots going around so it was really tough so we decided ok we'll get off when to stick together we're going to try to get through this oh by the grace of god i don't know how we find out the senior class president back then with ken polcari he came out to the bus and he talked to us he said you know just wanted to kid just not everybody will feel this way they made us feel at ease which we would say we actually get off the bus and make it through school i mean we had to keep my wits about us but that's what we did in you know good or bad so what you want this is a lot of great people out you know just like the risen bosses so at the end of the day this is about working together and coming together and we spectum one another because we all have faults so to get through you've got to just respect one another and move forward to overcome thank you  and may i may i is it correct to add that that racial slur told you to go home and it was written on the street outside the bus where the bus came so thank goodness you had the strength to walk over that and the class president had the goodness to come and welcome you said just you know just a great experience the whole michael things just a great experience it really prepared me for life today you know it's so easy you know not agree with everyone but it's even harder to try to understand where they're coming from and you know look past some of the things that you know people don't really want to look at as a kid my tongue is a grown up and at a dead end you but look also when for having the courage at it as a very young woman for having the courage to put a six year old child on a bus and fend him sent her to a place where she didn't know she didn't know  but she had faith she had faith that this experience was going to bring me to a place of evolution within myself and it did a did it help me to see in the long run to help me to see sameness as opposed to difference in know you start like lisa like tony said daniel but we were kids we just ran the playground we did a kid thing middle school of course you know you miss you stop talking to a person and see in the color of their skin and you identified with the things that they had in common with you your mom got on your nerves too oh my god you're on your own punishment is what starts the bridge that is what allows for communication that is what dispells ignorance and what crushes racism is the same this because through the that words can express words can express you guys this gave me confidence in my intellect to know that being smart is awesome and being smart is cool and it gave me the to know that being the only black person in an in a certain any particular environment a work environment a school environment it didn't matter it didn't make me feel isolated because i would walk in seeing this sameness i didn't want in feeling isolated to walk in feeling different i walked in as a person and i thank you guys  me upset she said this is about you this is about you she said you're hurting yourself she said because you know what this shows me that you don't know who you are she says i see who you are i know who you are so let's why don't you why don't you know he was why don't you embrace who you are because you're an intelligent young lady and you're just hurting yourself now when she said that i do you think you owe me but now hines like i think her with every fiber of my being because again she let me see that it's ok to be me that it's ok to be smart it's cool to be smart absolutely it's cool to be smart thank you good morning everyone i want to first start off by saying that burbank was the best  you know i started first grade and i laughed and fourth and fifth grade went to wellesley because my brother my mom went to my brother my co my brother couldn't get into bone and and you know come fifth grade you know my mom asked me family even when i left and you know coming back to probably i don't want to say save me but it gave me that path that i needed it gave me that direction that i needed to set myself up for the on in life you know to where i'm at now  i met so many great people and you know i'm so close with just of all people i connected with you know i played sports i was very active and all the jews in that family was my ground you know homework ago i stayed in everybody's house you know it's me i've accepted every single you know second of you know that's why when i was asked to back to speak i was like sure why not you know i like to share my experience with everybody because i think you know any inner city kid who wants the opportunity to come out to a suburban town they should in you know i can still see the things that you know they're doing you know i want to after college i had the ability to adapt adapt to everybody were versus when they went to college they struggled and they couldn't get where they couldn't at every situation you know so i think that's what michael does to it gives you the ability to adapt you know you meet people who don't have the same skin tone as you do maybe in a better situation economically or financially than you but at the same time they still treat you as a person they don't see where you come from they see you know he's he's followed me throughout since high school since i graduated and he just been you know a great guy there's so many people that i could name and influence me and i would take up this whole time if i could you know you know i'm understeer to say thank you in my way of giving and marcus you mentioned your host family and the many families you stay with how many people in the audience have been a host family to medco students and i hope you know how important that is it's been i think everybody on the panel would agree that having a place to stay people who care people listen people open their homes people who as you said take a chance on you and trust you and makes a huge difference so anyone who hasn't ever done that your time is coming and you i say something right ok gifted so a lot of the classes and stuff i had were considered rigorous i guess teaching plans for like eight of us out of the entire their grade class so as a situation where you constantly felt like you were being afraid of resources that your classmates won and even though you it was a situation where you were told to believe you could handle them and others couldn't it kind of made you wonder why not and then at the very beginning of my third grade yeah i probably spent about a week at the joseph leask law and then i left and came here and went to the school and when i got to the wynberg school everything that i was learning in my gifted class was just regular stuff for these kids at the windbreak school and to the point where the there were even things one thing that really a me up was how much they knew about the planets and moon phases and things like that and i knew nothing about it right then a narrative out of magically new sides actually my mother was trying to tell me about when she told me i was switching to a better school district so that was like i guess the shock of it right there and then moving forward it's like everyone on the panel said the community is very welcoming like they're on a lot of situations you have it's an unfortunate situation to get off the school bus the first day of school and see something like that written on the ground  in general i think we can all say we had a pretty healthy experience and attending schools here i can speak enough to value of the host family because it makes you feel like a part of the community it gives you a place to it gives you a it's kind of like a second family and i think of course the people who take you into their home they totally understand what they're doing and take in someone else's child into their home and like given them a safe haven to just you know whether you're i think some people end up in those families with people they might not necessarily be best friends with the kid that they're in school with initially when when their parents choose to make that their host family ideally a probably would be that way but as you grow at that family you start to realise like wow these people really do care about me it just takes time for it to set in sometimes but i think we it's just i mean i have other friends who attend another school district and it's just not the same everywhere i can speak enough to what it's like to wake up at five in the morning when your friends get up at seven to go to school you know late stuff like that and then you come here and it's just like you already mad about that so everything's just go is it is so hard and especially when you're six years old i did it at nine years old and i was mad i could only imagine the six like me in a kindergarten or first grade and having to do that it was probably a lie but i think that over  time you just grow to value it like as you move forward in your life and you see what you're gaining that like your peers where you live and not gaining it's just becomes more and more evident that your parents made a good choice for you and sometimes you want to be you want to be you just want to be  way i went through personally i went through this whole day with my mom where i was like i had a really tough time would just lay maintain and make it i guess i don't want to lose there's a i think there's a fear of like my original peer group where i'm from that you would lose touch with who who they were or who you are and then like they did kind of start to like ostracized for it but it's like as you grow older you realize that you know what if that's what if that's the basis by which she going to choose to judge me then like you don't really want to get to know me anyways and when at one point one point that became important to me was like i wrote in some notes that i had for this for this panel was that there's no there's never going to be a clear cut acceptance from either community because you like you're a blend of both communities you suppose be an example of what with what the best is of both communities have to offer so and that respect i think both communities will always love you but for the acceptance will just come from having been there since day one and that's just not possible so you have to definitely just be able to receive all the love that people can get because they still have their own families their own communities their own lives and you can't let you can't take it personally but there comes a comes a point where you can start to take it personally where you just don't feel like but you don't feel like it's home you don't feel like this is where i'm from but as you let that go and you start to act like you see the same this as a disease you see that you see the things that are actually good you just focus on that it becomes a lot easier to do with everything so i appreciate my time spent here thank you angela talked when we met we met previously together about the ports of that bus ride when you were crossing that bridge back from belmont back home and how you processed what had happened that day there is no longer a bus available to take people home from the high school and that's a loss so angela would you speak a little about it that it it's really important to understand the importance of the bus ride the bus ride where first of all you have to understand that being a medical student is a culture in and of itself it's a culture it's not a mode of transportation it's not a venue of you went to school so you're like a hybrid and being a hybrid as you know a hybrid car isn't the same as a car that drives on gasoline so you're different you're different and being different in that way you need that sense of commonality and that sense of of togetherness and understanding and you can't it's not something that you can discuss with your friends from your neighborhood and it's not something that you can identify with your friends from belmont so that bus is will you sit down and all you all who are doing the same trick who work in the same way because you know we're doing homework that some of our friends from the neighborhood had no idea wh were talking about and then we're experiencing experiences at home that our friends from bill might have no idea what we're talking about so the only time the only people that you can get that sense of familiarity commonality understanding compassion and sometimes like helping you to figure out just how to make your way is on that bus it's on that bus that's where you can come and say you know what my seven o'clock class and you have an exam i wish you would walk into bill my high school into a teacher look i just got off the bus they said yes aren't you blessed aren't you blessed are you ready let's go you know an prepares you for life but the bus gives you that foundation that strong found these two of my brothers do you understand they're my brothers and i know i can call on them at any time  the question it's not even a question it's not even like i'll hear what time it is i have done it to him it's ok to have it is you know did to my brother if there was an issue at the school i don't care if we had an argument on the bus i could go to and be like do you know what song it's all said to me you know they're my brothers and that was developed and grew and strange things on that bus so let's try and get the bus  you can't converse it like that on a bus you can't do it so being on a bus being close and being able to get the school to where you should clear very thing up me sometimes when you're on a bus and just talking to them help each to ease the day  but we had a middle school bus and when i tell you that middle school buses ran so strict that you know on the way to miss cheney right there she ran that by us you know like it was a military that's wh i have to i have to say that what she did we understood she was preparing us for the school day she was it was time for her you know we were already frustrated getting up in the morning having to be at school and then she kind of that gave us a chance to just regroup and rethink you know and she as though it was tough you know if you sat in the wrong seat she'd come and find you know that that's not where you suppose he said it go back to see you know but she you know she prepared us for the day you know your pain you see your parents last time you see it has a one in five five fifteen in the morning you know you have to and then she was like that next pair of you during the day if you had an issue you could talk to her if you had something going on you could still talk to her you know whether it was good or bad and if you got in trouble at school she still knew about it don't know how but she knew it was you know and so that in those days you were allowed to talk you weren't allowed to talk you know that david she granted you guys position to talk on the bus if you got in trouble at school nope you couldn't talk you had to treat it that way and as much as a hard time every day gave her you know i thank her for what she did because it set us up you know for  i before i passed the mike to lorraine i am the same spirit i want to thank foster wright who somewhere here you anthony just said to me he's a great man obviously the feeling is here what foster did when he realized the people were coming into five they were getting there after getting up at five am and they were coming without your hi everyone my name is lowering her mind and as you can imagine my journey in the public schools was quite different than my fellow panelists i was i had the great fortune of being able to walk to burbank get it chandlery and then i figured out by high school i'd try to sleep till the last possible moment and you know get up and then either walk to school or get a ride with friends but little did i know that my fellow  classmates were getting up at five am and making their trek and i would say my first real experience with the meco program was in tenth grade that's where i met my good friend tony over here and i actually roped him into coming today and then he roped everyone else in and so so tony and i became quite friends we met in spanish class and we'd talk on the phone we get together on the weekend and even after we graduated we would meet up in boston and we kept in touch but when i when i look back one of the things i remember is how brave i thought tony was because tony would come over to my house and you have to understand that in the early eighty's the diversity in belmont was irish italian armenian greek jewish catholic you know so for tony to walk through my neighborhood i always felt was really brave because he stood out but he did it and i really cherish that friendship so after that i moved out to l a and i lived in east l a and i worked in south central l a and i think for me leaving coming from a girl from belmont and moving to l a was a huge experience and a very positive one because there i had a lot of friends and coworkers and which diversity was celebrated and that's something that i brought back when i moved back here to belmont with my husband to raise my two daughters and so when i raised my two daughters when we are burbank we became a host family for a  who's since moved away but then in fourth grade i met my good friend mary who unfortunately is not here today but mary's daughter was also in fourth grade so we became friends and actually had invited mary's daughter over to my house but the time mary had met me and i remember mary saying well you know i can't let my daughter come over your house until i meet you and your husband and i thought about it and i thought what would it be like if my daughters were going to school in dorchester it feels like it's miles away how would i feel my girls were going over someone's house and i didn't know the family so mary and i met up and we became good friends and then as our girls and to cherry what was nice is that her daughter could sleep over after school dances over for the eighth grade d c trip when they have to be at school at about five am so mary and i became friends and over time mary really shared the challenges she had of being bridging that gap of living in boston but being in the belmont community and it time she said she felt really uncomfortable because she didn't know anyone here and so from that a bunch of parents and some parents that are here today carol see a belmont mom  joseph we all got together and we made this group called the boston belmont friends group because we really wanted to bridge that gap and make sure that belmont families and boston families have an opportunity to connect so through that we have some fun events we do a open house at the curriculum nights and we also have done skating night at the frog pond we parent nights out we actually had one indoor just in november and our superintendent came and his wife and that was super fun and we also have our biggest event is our bowling night in march and we do that in dorchester at boston bowl and there we have older fifty five family members coming together having fun and it's a total blast so i would urge any of you bossed belmont and boston families to please join us at those events i would say what i've taken from the boston belmont friends group is that one i've met lots of great friends too that we have more similarities than we do differences ultimately as parents we all want the same thing we want our kids to have a good education that sets them up for success rate and we want our kids to be safe so how do we bridge that gap and the other thing i really learned a lot from boston families and also from the fellow panelists is there's so much that belmont families can do to make boston students feel comfortable just opening up your home so people can come out of school do homework have a snack have dinner before evening of bents or if someone's here late in the evening to let them sleep over so then they don't have to get up at five am and make the trek back to belmont so these are the things that we can do i would say from as a belmont resident the benefit i think of the meco program is that as dorothy said it's easy when you live in belmont you can feel like you live in a bubble you know we have diversity but it is minimal and i think through that easily stereotypes develop so how do we break down those barriers and i think it's a real gift for our belmont students to also go to school with boston students and learn from each other  so i just i just want to say thank you all for being here today and again i would urge any belmont families to really think about how can you open up your home particularly if your students intersect with other boston students on sports teams or at the play you know is there a way that you can go up and introduce yourself to a boston family and really open up your home to that child we have at many of the tables we have a sign up sheet and let me show you what that looks like and if if there's not a sign up sheet at your table we'll have one outside but the sign up sheet basically is if you want to be on our list serve list that we do send out announcements about our boston bombing friends group we built we do that both at the cherry level and the high school level and we're hoping to start that at the elementary level as well but also if you're interested in being a host family we're going to connect boston and belmont families and we're going to continue to try to do that so thank you thank you before we close i want to give the panelists a chance to say what they're doing now because we've heard a little bit about what they were doing at butler and burbank generally but what are you doing now in life actually have four kids all of my kids have been a medical attendant different school system have three right now well as the and one graduated from where you live right  i currently right now work for the department of environmental protection as an environmental engineer so i'm right down right down south with this tree in boston  so given my background i'm gonna do proxy like currently i work as a dispatcher for official college police in boston massachusetts but i also do a lot of outreach work in the nonprofit sector so i currently also function as our teacher for disabled youth at  curtis hawk and jamaica plain massachusetts here and i actually work in watertown as well tony and i realized about six months ago that we've been working less than a mile from each other in didn't know that for like ten years so that was kind of a nice surprise so i work at the alzheimer's association thank you and how many if you have children who have been a bad go all of you are just to two of you so right and you're both or so i want to say one of this thing because wonderful as this history is mexico has been cut in the state budget in recent years it's down to sixteen million it was twenty million at one point just a few years ago this is a struggle this is part of not letting martin luther king jr's legacy which spreads in many directions this is one that exists here in belmont that benefits young people from boston and benefits young people in belmont we must not let it  smaller and it is smaller at one point there one hundred twenty five young people in belmont now i think there's roughly one hundred there also have been no new mexico children and it in the early grades i think i was told this is that's is that correct i'm looking at and poles and she knows everything well catherine not correct ok there's it but the superintendent what's the story ok is coming up is going to tell you so we need to be united around providing whatever support medco needs and we would i want to thank belmont against racism for being the sort of a holder a supporter and and ally and adjunct and who raise money for the transportation for mexico and who have held the the vision of belmont being together against racism and against all forms of discrimination for a long time so with the belmont against racism people raise your hands the people on the board thank you very much and i think our time up here is done and my right who's next are diane ok let's have the director of necco in belmont come good morning and bank you thank you so much it is an honor to speak to this group of people because of the difference you make in so many lives and as  a having a brother who is a medco graduate my mother spoke to his host mother yesterday and my brother sixty years old back marblehead graduate class of seventy four so i know how valuable the host family the host parent host family program has been to his life his entire life and he has he meets with his whole family at least twice a year especially when they are in florida for the winter so hope so believe me the impact of the communities who have supported medco for the last fifty years and please remember the twenty twenty is belmont spiffed year the anniversary with medco so we have some planning to do over the next four years to make sure that what you have done for so many is honored i just wanted to update you on a couple of things that your support provides two years ago a junior a very high academic  achievers was recommended for dana farber summer internship program it's a two year internship it's highly competitive after all my burns called me with the application because she's on the board done with burns was the medical director in belmont for over twenty years she saw the application was a bellman high school student who lived in boston so he called immediately but the fact is that the students interview was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon  your support of the late transportation program and the permission of the administration allowed us to utilize our taxi service during that time and she was picked up here taken to her interview and but she had to be brought back here because she was also in the spring play so there were rehearsals that afternoon without your assistance we could not have done this she was not only accepted into the program which is a paid summer internship only about a half a dozen high school students thirty college students out of undergrad and grad she not only was accepted  spent the last two summers with them she's now a freshman pre med freshman at university of massachusetts at amherst she was here visiting on friday and told me that they gave her for her entire undergraduate career for every school vacation you did that you made that  five years ago as a result of our constantly to mention budget we were unable to fund our high school students to attend the met co directors associations annual youth conference why don't we put together an application and everything so we can apply for funds to do other things and as a result of that you have been paying for that registration of ten students in here to attend that conference and one of the things that people have brought up here is this is an opportunity for us to bring two hundred fifty medco students from the thirty school districts together at belmont university for a day because just like the students here expressed they don't get to meet all of the other met students in all of the other districts not all of the time all of those children have in common leaving boston at six and clock in the morning coming home late at night especially when they're involved in extracurricular activities and they don't know the children in their neighborhood they also don't know the children who are in other medical school district so this is an opportunity for that as well as the conference itself is to start to get them thinking ninth tenth grade on planning for their college and careers  last thing that came to mind last thursday evening on channel five they had a two hour special celebrating the opening of the new museum of african american history in washington d c tom hanks came out and introduced the last seven tuskegee airman which is here and haven't the same effect they did when he said one of the seven was colin powell the other one of the seven had graced our stage here because of you had great star state here ten years ago we were very tense here and came out for our support one of the programs of diversity week it was my first year dan richards who was the chair of the committee and assistant principal at the time had really encouraged me to join the committee so i did and i thought you know can we invite the tuskegee airmen and the committee thought that was a great idea they came they did two presentations the only thing that the chairman asked is that we provide transportation it's because of you we were able to send the taxis into boston at ten in the morning they picked them up at charles street church brought them here they did the two presentations and when they left is the first time i realized that all the taxi drivers are also come to the presentation they were supposed to be back at the church of two o'clock  three o'clock the church called and their relatives here waiting to pick up these gentlemen who are the way in their seventy's and eighty's and they haven't arrived so i called the head of the taxi company and he said oh i was supposed to destination not to worry don't have to stay at the church that that was one thing but a month later i still don't have an invoice and i called him and he said are you kidding i can't charge you for this the experience you gave us that day we will never forget and no we cannot charge you for this but the fact is is that all of you every year provide us with the resources to help individual students to help many many students who utilize our late transportation every day and i can't thank you enough for all you do to support this program thank you with just the program just a little bit in about five minutes the children that were in the field house will probably be coming in but right now i'd like to introduce catherine bond from belmont against racism i'm to talk about the fundraising aspect in this case often a bus the m b t a and then another bus to get home and you've already heard these young people are getting up at five in the morning now what are the things that we're talking about bridges today the things that builds a bridge is what you do after school now i know that academics are important but it's an after school that we build those bridges that we make those connections it's in those school government meetings clubs the sports that's where we connect with other people how many people in this room participated in your life for now and after school activities pretty much all of us and i t that where you met people who were maybe like you but also met people who were like you and that's where we make connections that's why it's important that we get our students the opportunity some of them would not be able to stay for after school they wouldn't be in our place they wouldn't be in our musicals they wouldn't be on student government if we didn't provide safe transportation for them home so thanks to mike and belmont against racism we established the what used to be the transportation fun but as diane mentioned we have used it for other programs and in fact across all of the schools we have supported programs that help connect or  students to play together to learn together to they have community together because that is really the community connections and understanding that's really what makes the world community and dr king said everybody can be great because anybody can serve and i'm giving you an opportunity this morning to serve our your tables you will find it on the low we are encouraging you to support this ferry were the fund if you have a check you can make it out it tells you here to belmont against racism and slip it into the arms of lopes could the bar board members stand up please they'll be coming friedman and john robotham are running the credit card service so you can go back to them and pay by credit card or if you happen to not have any sort of war with the new this morning we're asking you to open your hearts and your wallets on your tables conveniently you will find a card please take the card home with you when you get home you can fill it out or our address is on there and you can send it in there with a check i'd like to thank the belmont league of women voters and the belmont p t o of they've been strong supporters of this fund for years and then we appreciate their contribution and i'd like to thank all of those by the school department and because we're running late if you have any questions about the fun please seek out one of the bar members and we can tell you more about the specifics of the fund but it makes a huge difference in these kids lives and you know they've even said to us thank you so much for getting us home safely and as you know last year we had girls we had people in there we've had people in the place leaving at nine o'clock at night without your support these children would be there our children these children would be on the n p t s a place give generously thank you so much please get involved we're lucky to have very supportive legislators here but you know not all are to be information but please please participate in that because this thing we do need the funding  good morning to be brief and in my speech in preparing for today's speech i thought of who the hero would be it could be obviously dr king on the supporting weekend and then it could be want our enthusiastic supporters of necco we have very proud to have it as a part of our community and our school system make every effort to make sure that we welcome students every day off the m b t bus or off the yellow bus to our community to lorraine's point these parent meetings that we are having i think a fantastic it was wonderful to join the belmont parents of the boston parents around the corner from my home in dorchester to welcome them and have an afternoon and get to know folks and i look forward to those continued vents across both boston and belmont to give you a quick heads up as to what what does the budget mean and how does the bus work we lean on and support the support of this organization to provide our afternoon transportation to our high school folks we only have buses for elementary middle school students we are building a healthy elementary meco enrollment because our balance was a little off when i arrived three years ago that we were heavy at the high school in the middle school so we are actually looking out to reach out and having diane reach out for elementary students so we can have a healthy balance at every level to continue that work  and we are asking i'm eco families if they have students in other towns please bring them to belmont so we can keep as many belmont families and michael families together the the budget is difficult we had nine hundred cuts we did remedy that from within and worse able to fund the different our priorities the bum on public schools if you want to take the time to look at our strategic plan is that they are number one and number two for the belmont public schools and lastly i have a whole list of folks to thank but i know we're busy i can't believe those children actually came back into the room quietly if they've already arrived i know they're outside waiting to come in but i have to say after being moved today by many of the speeches i'm reminded  loud that getting to know people and building relationships with people is what this is all about and when you can get to know people the way we've heard some of these stories today and build relationships with people over time i believe all those good things can move forward so thank you to dr king for bringing us this great weekend thank you for dorothy for being here thank you to all the folks are at this panel it's a great place to be don't want community is a great place to be think it's a staff of being here today all the bellman public school teachers and administrators and the folks that were not recognized today amongst all of our politics politicians and folks who work for us as our school committee think our school can do we have a temporary back there so they very much of a great day in order to be here i would like to introduce mo khan to come up please for the next session thank you good morning everybody so i don't want to be the guy single handedly responsible for turning this into m l k lunch instead of breakfast so i will keep my remarks short my name is mini con my friends know me as most which is short a virtually impossible to pronounce longer version of my name which i think i'll buy you lunch if indeed you can pronounce that name but i grew up not that far away from here in new number falls and my family moved there when we were about  seven or eight years old i was seven or eight years old and my parents are indian immigrants and i'm in a american muscle so as a son of parents who were very very strong with respect to maintaining their culture they were very strong about making sure that their habits were proliferated and as a result they would dress me and madrasa plaid pants and rub coconut oil in my hair and so i know you find this very hard to believe but i had a very difficult time fitting in lo and behold you know to be perfectly honest with you i'm not one hundred percent convinced that that coconut oil didn't have something to do with my current full of killer who challenged i'm pleading the mothers out there don't minority in my neighborhood i was predominately italian catholic and jewish kids did i feel like i belonged until it was the met go kids in our neighborhood that took me under their wing they didn't see me as anything different it wasn't then until i really felt like i belonged and so thank you for all of you guys who think that you're only getting from this program coming here i am here to tell you thank you because you're here to give as well so so fast forward forty plus years into the future now and i think all of the vitriol of our this previous presidential campaign has been pretty negative and it's potentially brought for a lot of us questions about whether or not i'm going to have to worry about my muslim children growing up in this country and belonging and so i'm here to tell you that despite all of that i have a lot of hope islam has a very long history in this country in fact the founding fathers of this country had crohn's in their libraries i don't know if you knew this or not but actually the very first country to recognize the sovereignty of the united states was a muslim country in morocco in fact and also th history of muslims in islam his country also some folks believe that some more in the neighborhood of twenty percent of the slaves that came over to this country were muslim as well so despite all of that you know we've heard a lot of of messages that over the course of this past year and i think a lot of people may perceive that the message from the ballot box in november was one of negativity but i don't believe that i have hope i have faith and i have faith because of all of the efforts of truly great american heroes such as the reverend dr martin luther king jr and all of his legacy and the work and the groundwork laid forth that has sparked fires and all of these quote unquote if i may use or with your term dorothy us bri people so i have faith because of that because obviously in this america it's the individual as i'm right it's each of us as unique individuals that makes us so strong and that truly is what makes america great i think all of those of you spent so much time and so much effort if you could take one step back in the rare occasions that you have a few moments to take a look at this mosaic right the tapestry that we i think you find that it's not only really really strong but it's also really and feel free to sing along and drown me out if it gets really bad oh god thank you very much mr khan and thank you everyone who's made today magical on your at your seats you may find the words too if i have a hammer and we're going to end the program today with a big thank you to everyone for being here and for your generosity but now we need you to sing and i wonder if some people like dorothy would come up in a few other people to help us sing this song oh