Travis County Commissioners Court
June 3, 2008
Item 2
2. Approve resolution recognizing the 8th annual father's day rally and parade sponsored by the river city youth foundation
>> I have got the resolution on it. Should I go ahead and read it. You can follow up. Whereas the fathers of our community are a precious resource and play a vital role in the well-being of our children and their future and the future of our community and whereas river city youth foundation has been instrumental in producing a collaborative community event, the annual father's day parade and rally, which aims to increase the positive involvement of fathers in their children's lives, to foster success in school, personal growth, good citizenship and a brighter future. Whereas river city youth foundation fathers active communities in education, faith, ameri group, southeast neighbor alliance, city of Austin, fire department, church of glad tidings, international hispanic ministry, a.p.d. Southeast command, amigos, 78704 community development program, auto zone, academy, appleby's, tinsel town theaters, maxwell chrysler south, home depot, car club, harley davidson and westgate lanes are sponsoring the 8th annual father's day rally and parade on Saturday, June 7th, that will include fathers and kids, bonding games, food and plenty of family fun. Whereas the student winners of the dad essay contest will be announced, therefore be it resolved that the Travis County Commissioners court does nearby declare Saturday June 7th, 2008, as father's day parade and rally in central Texas. Be it further resolved that we salute the river city youth foundation for their collaborative efforts and the betterment of our community and future of our youth and families and I move approval.
>> second.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. It's wonderful to be back. For this now 8th annual event. Amazing. I知 mona gonzalez, I知 the founding executive director for the river city youth foundation in dove springs and on my left I have lisa scalla the coordinator for the summer of safety. It is a program that will be happening at savior lutheran in a partnership with river city youth foundation, it is for keeping kids safe in that community. To my right I have alfonso ricon, he's the entrepreneur who started this wonderful organization. Face, fathers active in communities and education. I want to thank you for the proclamation. I want to thank you for caring about families. I want to thank you for caring about the children and for supporting something so simple, a parade is a simple thing. It really is. I want you to raise your hand if you have ever been in a parade. Okay. You almost didn't raise your hand there. I know that you have been in a parade. A parade is fun and exciting and think about all of the memories that you have of having been in that parade, whether as a person walk in this the parade or as somebody that had a role in the parade. But in our parade everybody has a role, the dads have a role, the children have a role, the business leaders in our community have a role. You have a role as well. All of us have a role in this parade. We've been researching and if someone was in the viewing audience can let me know if there is another fathers parade I would love to know because we have been asking and asking. So far we have not run across one. We have run across a lot of picnics and celebrations but not a parade. So guess what? In australia, in sydney, australia, there is a university professor there who is interested in having a parade over there. Why? Because the need for dads and the importance of dads is universal. So river city youth foundation has created something that -- that isn't so much keeping Austin weird but -- but it's putting Austin on the map for doing something universally, for families. I want alfonos, what does the research say? On why dads are important?
>> good morning, thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning with you once again. I think one of the things that I want to underscore is that -- this program has been going on for 8 years. You may wonder as Commissioners when you are going home after a long day at work and serving the community, you wonder what impact am I having. I want to share with you really wonderful news. And that is that I have a project in south Texas involving six school districts. I知 developing father involvement models under one umbrella. Is this year I integrated the model that we have been developing here in Austin with the essay contest. We have students from three of the six school districts submit essays, these are middle school students. You may or may not know it's at fourth or fifth grade where parental involvement nose dives, what exists is primarily mothers. What we did is had middle school students write about their dads then we had an interdistrict celebration at the new regional fair grounds at robsville, pulled the kids, staff, dads, news medias into one huge event and highlighted the program or anchored the program, if you will with the six top essay writers. The point I want to make, that is in a small way these proclamations are going way beyond what's happening here today. You as Commissioners have a credit that I want to acknowledge right now about how far reaching your work is and the work of river city youth foundation. The other thing kind of a parallel point is that fathers are essential and crucial to the education and development of kids, especially in an age when higher education is so important. What I知 learning about working with so many schools, principals and program directors is that I知 learning what are the deficiencies in elementary schools and higher grades. And it's simple things like measuring. Simple things like math. And these dads are out there in construction jobs, in drilling jobs, in accounting jobs working math all the time. Or doing hobbies at home. And so we are bringing dads into the schools and they immediately connect with themselves as teachers because they know these skills and the kids just love it because they light up when their dads show up with their tape measures or other tools, the strength of having metric background, that's what the schools are trying to see teach the kids is a metric system. It's a very natural collaborative connection between the father population and school systems and what we in Texas, all the counties, and all of the school systems and higher education are trying to accomplish. Ie kids that are prepared beginning at before pre-k to graduate from high school and go on to higher education and succeed there. Dads have a very, very powerful role for that. The other thing that I want to mention is that -- that this -- this gathering, this program is happening right now, during the school day. Or during the -- during the business hours. What we're finding is that a lot of dads are willing to come to the school systems and participate and collaborate with teachers, classroom teachers while they are teaching. They are not only interacting with their own kids, but teaching other kids in that environment. We have 50 dads, 50 kids, each dad gets to interact and teach kids besides their own child. This is why it's so important that -- that we use every opportunity not only to collaborate but to also stretch the visibility of fathers being on this -- this screen today is a way of articulating that. Every time we have an essay contest, every time our child gets in front of other people, reads about their dad. They are in a sense, ed phiing if -- edifying, talking about what it's like to have their dad, grand dad, older brother in some cases impacting their lives, preparing them for higher education. That's why the focus of this year's program is what is my dad doing to teach me math so that I can succeed as a student? We are going to have hands on activities at this program on -- as part of our rally, so it's not just celebrating and having banners, it's dads and kids engaging each other in mathematics, those kinds of activities which carries with it all other kinds of things, communicating, bonding, learning, preparing for that future that we are all concerned about and we are raising the banner for through these kinds of organizations and their entities. I want to thank you very much for the time to speak and your support.
>> thank you.
>> thank you for your time.
>> if we fail, then what happens is the county have -- have the burden of the juveniles and if we don't succeed in getting dads more involved and families strengthened we will pay the price. You will pay the price, we will pay the price. Not only at the county lively, but at the federal level as well. We're going to unfurl something and then be on our way. This banner will be the lead banner at the parade.
>> I want you to notice hate a clock on there. One of the skills that the teachers are telling me that the kids are not learning is how to tell time. In addition to how to
>> [indiscernible] so it's symbolic that this clock represents both the importance of fathers being visibly present to their kids, but also a very important skill that kids need to be learning and that dads can help a lot with.
>> right. So lisa and I just came back from perez elementary school where we addressed an assembly of about 700 children. And we all chanted tick-to come, dads on the clock, spend time with me. Because we asked the children what do you want from your dad? We thought they were going to say over the years, I want him to take me to schlitterbahn, buy me a new bicycle. What they said was I really want time with my dad. So dads, tick-tock, dads on the clock, spend time with your child, this is going to lead our parade.
>> I might add, the high school freshmen when I asked them that same question, what can your dad do to make you successful, they will say very basic things, talk to me, teach me right from wrong, help me deal with things when I知 having a hard time, home work, monitor me even though I say I don't like it. They don't do want to have somebody caring enough to say how are you doing in school. Very basic things.
>> and say I love you. It doesn't cost anything.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 12:51 PM