good evening and welcome to alameda county is giving back program this evening we have a wonderful program set for you with three very handsome young men yes from a program that i know that gives and offers yes we're here to really highlight a program that is doing wonders and the executive director right now is jeffrey that our i'm doing well thank you and it's so wonderful to have you here with two of your we want to have a conversation about how this program started and how you got involved ok on the program actually originates in san jose it was started by pastor tony ortiz a nineteen eighty one thousand nine hundred ninety nine  you that i do remember tony and i was at a royal park which you know was a home for some of the games and when he came to royal park we talked extensively and it's the same for me to be as old as i am to  what you started and forget the name and i apologize to you but the program made that is a program that started with you know god intent is a wonderful and right now let's your young people to come to your program for us so i'm stationed at two different schools on the supervisor so i'm all over the place for one but my primary schools are midwest high school know a lot of avarice the ones that we work with or the gang involved or you know have issues with substance abuse or delinquency at st academy which is on the between twenty nine use our resources use our skills to contribute to overall public safety we l'abri with other agencies other organizations because labrat with probation with schools that the overall design of the program is to  reduce violence more street outreach team is primarily stationed in the elmhurst erik district and they have a score district and the goal is to reduce homicides and shootings by a number of twenty percent workers are in all of them primarily in the schools or are they when you say out there in the streets are they in community certain communities walking the street or you know how are they for station you know the two of you  as supervisors of certain areas how are your people in your you know quadrant are in your area and going out into the community how is the demographic where do they you know station  intensive outrage in those particular areas and that's their target so for instance with a homicide was to happen in the haven support area that our team leader would get a phone call that would be a crisis response and they will respond to the homicide and work with the family work with  that we may have offices for the case managers that are located on those sites but they're all around the school you know they're not just located in one area because it's not only via the prevention you know through when a young person comes to either one of your facility in general can you go through the process that they would go through how you would register them how you would you know reach out to the family can you just give us an idea  able to reach the clients a little bit here and some of those older guys yes it works out really really well because they're able to have a connect ability with the clients yeah that they can relate to them well when they are in the school who report i mean i you that the principals can refer you when you go through the steps that those young people i know that his parents are out there and i know you feel that you're out there and you might be in a situation to where you don't know what to do with your young person again they might be you know influenced by others if they're in your school how do you see yourself reach out what is your process if i was a parent who had a child that i was concerned about so like i said before we're in most of the alternative schools around open we'd like to get into some of the major schools hopefully all the major schools in oakland high schools then branch down the middle schools in the elementary schools but california youth outreach if there's any case manager or youth intervention specialists on that campus and from that referral the principals can talk to one of the case managers or youth intervention specialists and we can meet the client like  coworker do and say we can meet them where they're at we come up with a case plan if the miners are interested in sports if they have drug abuse issues if they're delinquent they have gang issues or if they're on probation you know we can meet the clients where the rat and kind of redirect all the energy that's negative into a positive thing and yeah we can also get young men and women into jobs you know we have lots of resources from our organization and like jeff said you know we're from the community so we have this is not only reputation but connection so you know a great lots of the young people kind of a latch on to us and i think that's what makes us different about lots of the organization and because we are a little younger and we have that reputation in the streets and in the open so on you know we back up what we talk about that's that's really a profile statement to say for an organisation that you are grounded that is very rare and jeffrey and knowing that you have an organisation that is grounded in oakland you know what is the aspirations that you have that you want for the citizens of oakland and for your organization i would like to see the organizing container grow that there is no possible way that we can hire enough police officers to fix the problem why there is also no way to have just services and no law enforcement so i would like to see a better collaboration with law enforcement the community and community based organizations like ours i would like to see the program be replicated in other cities in the surrounding bay area right now i believe that we are grounded open open is our home base but violence to start to spread to suburbs also yeah so what we would like to do is replicate the success is that we've had in oakland and tech and other cities and that way we give young people outlet we give share challenges issues concerns really collaborate on resources that are out there and we do our best to make sure that the vision and mission is still the same so we do work with we do work in conjunction with other cities but the and trying to reach the population that you are a part of the population trying to reach in realising what tony's dream last and knowing that you guys are all out there and that there are twenty one of you in oakland alone get funded me i asked what what is it that you how are you being funded how are you getting the money to make all of these young people that are in your organization just go out there because i know it's not a lot so you know is formally known as measure why it's now called open united we get a majority of our funding from the source of our schools are primarily funded through the schools the schools are so happy to services they directly invest and see wow services right ok and those of the school districts they have no child left behind funding i believe that is due in dealing down and going away but it is going to be more and it's going to change his name but it's still not enough it's not enough or all these programs that are and this one that is doing the on hand grips we want you to incorporate the man and the females in your program how do you you know i doing in making a difference please know that this organization is the best the best i feel and i'm saying this because i interview so many but i really have to say there's very few this  time looked out there for me please and tell them from your heart how you want them to come and then the more of their come out and have a support know there's something really unique about this organization and when there's trouble at schools big major high schools you know they call us you know when all hope is gone and there's something major that happened at the high school they call us they say we need your help california outreach we need your help because we have those connections i mean the collaboration between the street outreach and the school based guys we all know someone from some area in hood or some turf and you know what's unique about that is that you know we can be there to help individuals and you know schools some schools don't have that that that resource  campuses and also as far as the school based we can greatly appreciate you know those schools having our guys on your campus and you know help fund this is a great thing that's going on in oakland stop the violence and you know give our young people another shot even more motivation someone from the streets to relieve you know who's gotten out of it and someone who's who's been through it so they're able to see that someone can get out of it is no you know there is hope so you know that's not only to our school base but straight hours to them so you know we we have a lot of hope for the organization a lot of hope in oakland so we're asking for your help there were they are making a difference every single