SPEAKER_00 0:39

Thank you for joining the forty-five minute town hall series created and produced by HIV Possible Empower HIV Health and the Black Public Health Academy.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

So how has your week been? It has been amazing. It has been such a wonderful time playing. They did that. When I tell you you know me, I'm always getting lost. But once I found the VU, it was beautiful. And the name of it was and it was actually a youth facility for young boys there in uh Gainesville. Yes. Yes. And do you know when I was talking to um Mr. Darry? Am I saying it wrong? Don't let me pronounce the man's name. Darry Lloyd. Mr. Darry Lloyd, he said that this is special because they do not rent that venue out. That is not something that they do. How special is that? That's right. Right to know people. It is great to know people. I'm telling you, and the connections that we are making, oh my goodness. Connections that can last a lifetime. Yeah. So let's jump right into it. Let's jump into it. First of all, when I got there, the caterer was already there. Yes. Who did we have? Caribbean. Caribbean spice. Oh my goodness. That food was so good. It was. It was absolutely amazing. Y'all, we just gonna rub it in. We had oxtails, stewed chicken, jerk chicken, yes, pea beans and rice, cabbage, sweet corn bread, sweet corn with corn in it. Now that was that was a treat. Jamaican. Yes, he threw down. Yes, indeed. So with that, you know, we got the tables set up and and everything, and then the people started coming in. It was like just kept coming. The representation was awesome. When we looked up, we had every table full. Each table had somebody at it. Yeah. Had more than somebody at it. We had a packed house. And let's see if we can recall. And now you're gonna have to help me with this, Danny. We had the Sigma. Yes, the five beta sigma chapter. Come on now. And we also had we had an Omega brother. An Omega brother. And then we had the beta five Zeta. I hope I'm saying that right. Hope you say it's already the sister chapter. Yeah, it was. We had the divine nine up in the house. And then we had a gentleman who name is Mr. Jackson. He was running for commissioner, was it? Yes, I think two. Two, yeah, district two. District two commissioner of Gainesville. We also had the was he the chief of homicide or the chief investigator. State chief investigator for the state of Florida. For the state of Florida was in the building. And not only that, we had youth in the building. Yes. We had youth in the building, and this young man, I mean, just impressive. Yes, he was. He said, Yes, ma'am. Oh, yeah. His parents did good. His parents did a great job. Yes. I missed that. Right. Yeah. His baby said, Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Thank you. He told me to got it. You eat. I'll take care of you. Yes, sir. Okay. Yes. Shout out to that young man. What a beautiful young man he was. And he was very interested in the conversation. Yes. Thank was Patrick. Patrick, yes. We also had some peers in the building. Um, we definitely had a superstar on the rise, Miss Tori Samuel, who just received her award of Advocate of the Year. Advocate of the Year, yes. Amazing was that. Yes. And she is so into it. I mean, her passion, everybody's passion was just on point. You know, they came out and we got things going on time, and the 45-minute tour has wait, no, you can't. We had other representation now. Oh, yeah. We had NAACP. That's right. We did have NAACP in the house. We had a uh city leadership. Come on, how you know? We had SOS. Yes, we did. SOS was in the house. Strong, yes. We had the Florida harm reduction. We sure did. Florida harm reduction. We had a natural, I want to say um natural herbalist, I believe. And she was a part of the Black Nose Nurses Association. Yes. So we had some representation. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. The conversation was beautiful. Yeah. Can I go to that part now? Yeah. Okay. I just didn't want to leave anybody out. We did not want to leave anybody out. It was actually absolutely beautiful. We were able to make connections and identify some grassroots organizations. Um, basically, just what the title was entitled, saving ourselves, putting um connections to right there in the room together. People, some people didn't even know about some of the services that were right there in the room. Exactly. Exactly. That network was amazing. It was, it was absolutely amazing. I'm so honored. We had a good time, we ate well. Um, the the men didn't allow us to have to even clean up. It was a beautiful thing. Yeah, they took care of everything. We got to lift the finger. That's it. That's from Sigma Bros. It was wonderful. So we are so so excited. The connections we made there in Gainesville, and we will be coming back. They've asked us to come back already. Yeah. What do you think about that? Oh, anytime. Anytime. Anytime.