Travis County Commissioners Court
November 29, 2005
Citizens Communication
Citizens communication is next. And this item is intended to give residents an opportunity to address the Commissioners court on any matter not on the agenda and two residents have signed in. Samia joseph, sammy? Samuel?
>> okay. And alicia robertson. Have a seat, make yourselves at home. Give us your full names again, we would be happy to get your comments.
>> thank you, I’m samia joseph this is alicia robertson, we are here representing the children's hospital of Austin volunteers. We are here to tell you about an incredibly fun, new event that we are putting on to help raise money for a -- for a -- benefiting the children's hospital for a volunteer program. The event is called the miracle market. It's going to be held at the hospital, next Thursday, December the 8th, from 5:00 to 8:00. And it's going to be a wonderful time to do some holiday shopping, we have wonderful restaurants that have volunteered to donate their food and beverages and we will have some live music and it's all put on by the children's hospital volunteers. And alicia is going to tell you a little bit more about the event and a little bit more about the hospital.
>> thank you. The reason why we are here to tell you about this event, why it's so important is the children's hospital volunteers are part of the dell children's medical center being built at the mueller airport site. And that is a -- a wonderful opportunity for our community, this new medical center will allow for families to stay in Austin for their health care and their medical care. For the first time in central Texas we will be doing transplants such as bone marrow transplants which is incredible. This 200 million-dollar project is on time and on budget. We are scheduled to open in the summer of 2007. We are charged with raising $75 million for this project. The volunteers have signed a one million dollars pledge to support this project through events such as this miracle market. We are going to meet that million dollar pledge and be able to transform health care in our community. We just want to get the word out that we've had significant focus on some wonderful families who have made large gifts, large corporations have supported this. And this is our chance to show that it truly does take a village to raise a family. This group of volunteers, it's 175 volunteers, raising one million dollars. And that's rather significant and we are proud of that and want to get the word out.
>> I would like to invite all of you as our guests, all of the Commissioners as guests of the hospital. The tickets are $20 a person and you can get those by calling the hospital phone number at 324-8678 or you can get them online and we encourage you to inviolate all of our friends -- invite all of your friends and hopefully we will make a miracle happen for all of the children.
>> let me ask you a question. You gave that number, can you repeat that again so the persons viewing this will maybe have a chance to jot it down.
>> okay. It's 324-8678.
>> our website for ticket scales is www.children'shospital.com.
>> you mentioned earlier that you had some restaurants and other persons interesting in participating in this endeavor. How would a person know who and what restaurant in other persons that are helping this cause, how would you know that particular restaurant is participating? Is there any way to know those kind of things?
>> they are all listed on our website.
>> they are on the website, also.
>> we also have a brochure. We have posted around the city and we'll be happy to leave one with you, but just to run down very quickly, some of the restaurants salt lick, aqua rls rellee.
>> blue bell.
>> hudson on the bend.
>> it's very exciting. It's exciting to see that so many wonderful community partners are joining us with these efforts.
>> so all of those partners and relationships are all on the website as you --
>> that's correct.
>> as you mentioned. Okay. Thank you.
>> thank you very much for giving us --
>> what's the date?
>> the date is Thursday, December the 8th at the current children's hospital site and it's from 5:00 to 9:00.
>> we are at 15th and i-35.
>> alicia, while you are still here, there is tied into announcement that I wanted to make, as most people know one of our colleagues, former county Commissioner, former mayor bruce todd had a very serious bicycling accident over the weekend. He is doing much better, it's guarded but everybody is optimistic. One of the things that elizabeth christian, his wife asked, if you want to help, think about buying a helmet for a child. We were visiting right before court, there apparently is something through children's hospital in terms of a preexisting way for people to follow through on that desire of connecting a helmet with a kid. And I wanted to take this opportunity, if you could give us that name and where somebody could find out more information for all of us that are keeping bruce's family in our thoughts and prayers.
>> we do have an organization within children's called the injury-free coalition and it's a group that does preventive action such as these, fire safety in the home, bicycle helmets, car seat fittings, things like this. If somebody is interested in dropping off a bike helmet, they are free to do so at children's hospital. They can come to the circle drive and drop that off in the lobby, we will be sure to take care of that and get that to a family who will use that.
>> if somebody wants to write a check, you guys can basically match up a kid with a helmet, that's the same kind of thing.
>> absolutely, that can be dropped off at the lobby as well.
>> one of the desires. Again we have mayor todd in our thoughts and prayers and hopefully things will work out fine, but that's a very fine way to honor the former mayor, but also the former precinct 2 county Commissioner.
>> what a great way to do that, to honor somebody that way.
>> before you leave, you mentioned a million dollar goal that you set for the 175 volunteers to help raise, partnerring with whomever, whatever we are trying to do here. What is the deadline to reach take goal of 100 -- of the one million dollars?
>> well, we signed it just short of two years ago, we gave ourselves 10 years to raise it, our goal is $100,000 a year. We have just [indiscernible] in the hospital, that's our main revenue source, staffed completely by volunteers, with the hard work of folks like samia we will get our pledge met earlier. It's neat because the million dollars is going to fund what's called an integrated operating suite. Dell children's will be the only hospital that will have this, all of the equipment suspends from the ceiling, the physician comes in, punches the code in, the table rises to meet the specifications, the lights go accordingly, it will all be kind of futuristic but allowing and enabling us to do the best health care we can, free access around a patient is really neat.
>> we are invited to come and bring a $100 or bring a million.
>> we will take a million.
>> we will take you as our guests, share it with everyone you know.
>> or 20.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you for coming in.
>> now, finally, off the record, has john been helping out?
>> of course.
>> yeah. [laughter]
>> yeah, we both --
>> I saw him here a few minutes ago, I didn't know whether he was hustling limelight or what.
>> we actually met through volunteering at children's, that's why we are so passionate about it.
>> thank you.
>> December 8th for everybody.
>> that's right.
>> happy holidays.
>> happy holidays to you all.
>> anybody else for citizens communication, whether you signed in or not?
while we have got you here, is there a reminder about the big wellness thing this weekend? Because I know that's the thing that cindy has worked on, but I’m sure was in the back of their minds as they presented this award to them. Notice how I cleverly --
>> yes. You are talking about the race?
>> the brown santa.
>> yeah. The brown santa race at --
>> let's go back to citizens communication to get this announcement.
>> thanks, judge.
>> is there announcement that we have got related to the brown santa race this weekend that you all can be helpful with?
>> dan mansour has been very, very involved, he has all of the details on that. He's right here.
>> this Sunday is our second annual brown santa 5 k race sponsored by brown santa and the wellness committee. It will be out at the expo center. I believe the race starts at 8:15, it should get out there early to do your streches and get ready for the big walk and run. So we look forward to having a large crowd and it should be another fun affair.
>> judge, we have had quite a few of our employees going through the run Texas sponsored training, part of the Thursday after work group, we had 18 people in our particular group. I know they have been running a number of groups on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So this is the culmination of our 8 week training session. I think Gerald are you running?
>> yes.
>> and I will be walking. So we have the run and the walk on covered.
>> [multiple voices]
>> this Sunday, right?
>> this Sunday.
>> run tex still offering free tennis shoes to county employees.
>> they are not free, judge. [laughter] there's a very deep discount.
>> I think it was a discount.
>> very much discounted and very much appreciated, but I know that we have all been enjoying our training sessions and looking forward to seeing if we can continue this in the springtime.
>> there is a lot of interest in continuing the afternoon and morning sessions and evening sessions, so we are looking for volunteers to step up. We will be talking to run tex about how we can promote and continue that walking and exercise program.
>> the registration deadline for the weekend walk-run is when?
>> the day of the race. The early registration I think is probably about over. But the -- but you can register right up to the minute the race starts.
>> mccracken: for a small fee of?
>> I believe it's $15.
>> all of the benefits go to brown santa which is associated with the sheriff's office and they deliver toys at christmas time to needy children.
>> also kind of a wellness fair taking place, about 15 or 18 exhibitors that will be at the expo center and the banquet hall. This is also in conjunction with the -- with the Austin runners club who will have the decker challenge going on simultaneously. So [indiscernible]
>> way serious runners.
>> fun and good exercise.
>> that's true.
>> since we are making announcements, let me remind all Travis County employees at our combined charities effort, that our combined charities effort is still underway. We are at this time about $40,000 under last year's total. But pretty close to the amount we had raised at this time last year. Annually we extend our deadline of late October to December 15th, so there's no reason to discontinue that good practice this year. So we have another two weeks to generate an additional roughly $40,000, I’m confident that we will achieve that, but a lot of our employees kind of like the county judge, would kind of like to make that big contribution at the last minute, so we are really standing out. That last minute is fast approaching. So employees do your thing between now and December 15th. Thanks.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Congratulations again, keep up the good work.
>> all right. Thanks.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 30, 2005 9:31 AM