Second Gentleman Pool Reports of August 4, 2022

SGOTUS pool report #1 — AmeriCorps green space

Good morning from Baltimore, MD, where Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is scheduled to visit an AmeriCorps community green space development at 10:30am, where he’s expected to discuss the importance of improving community infrastructure and making them more climate resilient.

Stay tuned for additional background from the White House, color and quotes from Mr. Emhoff, and, as always, feel free to ping me directly with any questions.

SGOTUS pool report #2 — event background

Passing along from the White House:

Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff will travel to a Civic Works site in Baltimore, MD to meet with AmeriCorps members and assist them in building a green space as part of their work to strengthen the city's climate resiliency infrastructure. He will be joined by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, AmeriCorps CEO Michael Smith and Civic Works CEO Dana Stein.

He will hear from AmeriCorps members about how Baltimore is experiencing the impacts of climate change – including flooding, extreme weather and high temperatures – and how restoration projects, like the one they are working on, can help mitigate them.

While in Baltimore, Mr. Emhoff will also highlight the Biden-Harris Administration's work across the board to make communities across America more resilient to climate change, especially as millions of Americans live under heat advisories, wildfires threaten communities across our nation, along with the plight and uncertainty associated with drought, and communities across the country face flooding from a season's worth of rain that falls in a matter of hours.

Background on the Biden-Harris Administration's Commitment to Making America Resilient to Climate Change
This week, Vice President Kamala Harris was in Miami, Florida to announce over $1 billion for 53 states, territories, and D.C., to improve their infrastructure and make communities more resilient, with an emphasis on increasing resilience to combat the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. These awards, which will be distributed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program, are double the funding from last year's historic $500 million. Next year, this funding will more than double to $2.3 billion, boosted by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

President Biden and Vice President Harris further secured historic investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for clean energy, wildfire mitigation, legacy pollution cleanup, ecosystem restoration, and resilient infrastructure. These investments create jobs and build a clean energy economy that's resilient to climate change and revitalizes our domestic manufacturing base.

BACKGROUND ON THE SITE
AmeriCorps and Climate Change
AmeriCorps has provided significant funding to support conservation, renewable energy and community resilience projects for nearly three decades.
In 2021, 16,000 AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers improved more than 400,000 acres of parks and public lands; treated 14,500 miles of trails or rivers; weatherized or retrofitted more than 7,000 homes or public structures; protected or restored nearly 1,000 structures after natural disasters; and provided environmental stewardship education and training to more than 200,00 individuals.

AmeriCorps and the America the Beautiful Initiative
The America the Beautiful initiative is calling for more of this great conservation work, which means creating a pathway to more jobs in restoration and resilience, and AmeriCorps is well-suited to helping meet the call for more conservation and building a pipeline to these types of jobs.

Civic Works
Civic Works was founded in 1993 in Baltimore. Their mission is to strengthen Baltimore's communities through education, skills development, and community service. Each year, 100 AmeriCorps members, 100 job trainees, and 2,000 volunteers come together to "Build Brighter Futures" through workforce development programs and operating a public high school; grow Healthy Food and Green Communities through community landscaping and farming; and create Safe and Affordable Homes for older adults who want to age in place and families who want to save energy.
Since Civic Works first received AmeriCorps funding in 1994, they've provided service opportunities for 5,798 AmeriCorps members. This year, 104 AmeriCorps members have served with Civic Works.

Civic Works' Energy Programs also connects Baltimore area residents to free and reduced-cost home energy efficiency and solar energy programs. Since 2014, Civic Works has strengthened the finances of over 3,500 Baltimore households by providing access to comprehensive weatherization services that lower utility bills by an average of 12.5%. We've also made low-cost energy improvements, such as LED lightbulbs and hot water heater wraps, and educational outreach, for 17,892 low-income Baltimore households.

YouthBuild
YouthBuild trains Baltimore City youth (ages 18 – 24) for careers in construction and healthcare and helps youth who have not completed high school earn a GED. AmeriCorps members learn job skills, complete community construction projects, and leave the program with industry-recognized certifications like the Home Builders Institute's Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (HBI-PACT) and the Maryland State Board of Nursing's Certified Nursing Assistant/Geriatric Nursing Assistant (GNA/CNA). Two AmeriCorps members volunteering at the Ramsey Street Project serve with Civic Works' YouthBuild program. Two AmeriCorps members volunteering at the Ramsey Street Project serve with Civic Works' YouthBuild program.

During the 2021-2022 program year, 45 youth have participated in the program, 40 have earned at least one certification, and 11 have been placed in full-time jobs.

Event Participants

• Michael D. Smith, AmeriCorps CEO
• Dana Stein, Civic Works CEO
• Brandon Scott, Mayor, City of Baltimore
• 8 AmeriCorps Members

SGOTUS pool report #3 — arrival and tour

The SGOTUS motorcade arrived at the development at 10:34am. Mr. Emhoff, wearing a blue polo shirt, quickly hopped out of his vehicle and began visiting with Mayor Scott and AmeriCorps team members.

"I love AmeriCorps," Emhoff joked. "Please, call me Doug."

SGOTUS spoke with AmeriCorps members at 3 separate garden sites: small flower planting, form garden pruning, and tree planting.

He donned black and yellow gardening gloves at the small flower station, which included irises and more.

One team member noted that today's lot is one of roughly a dozen others across Baltimore, which are aimed at promoting urban farming and climate resilience.

Following the brief conversation, Emhoff grabbed a pickax's letter before exchanging for a shovel. Mayor Scott and AneriCorps members joked that the ground was baked out and Emhoff "might be setting yourself up for failure" — prompting SGOTUS to grab the pick axe and break up some earth (will send pics in a later report)

More to follow…

SCOTUS pool report #4 — more tour

Doug and his pick axe:
https://twitter.com/tocradio/status/1555203395295789056?s=21&t=Y5J0Dp9mrVohN5k5qedFzg

At the second gardening site, team members explained how roadside planters protect against storm runoff. SGOTUS asked one member how he became involved in the project, and the pair shared a laugh about growing to enjoy gardening after being initially skeptical.

The tour continued on to the teee planting site, where Mayor Scott switched out sneakers for boots. One team member told SGOTUS that, growing up in Baltimore, he didn't use to see green space like todays site, and that it's been a major improvement for the city. A number of AmeriCorps members talked about how the program is helping them develop skills for the workforce.

Emhoff assisted the team in planting a tree. He poured new soil in a pre-dug hole, and then he and Scott lowered the tree in together.

Asked by the pool what the last time he planted a tree, Emhoff responded simply, "it's been a minute."

More to follow…

SGOTUS pool report #5 — team huddle/Emhoff gaggle

Following the tree planting, Emhoff again visited with the whole team.

"People like you who are helping the communities," SGOTUS stated. "That's what we need."

One team leader led the group in a chant — "READY TO WORK! READY TO SERVE!" — before team members introduced themselves to SGOTUS and Scott.

Emhoff made brief comments, again thanking everyone for their participation in the program.

"I just want to thank all of you for all that you do… for all the work you have been doing and will be doing."

"One of my favorite things about being second gentleman is learning about all the programs we have… like AmeriCorps."3

I'll do "anything I can do to lift up" and publicize these programs… "it's incredible"

Emhoff further asked team members why they got involved with the program and what they get out of it.

He also spoke out against food deserts in urban areas following one team members reaponse: "it's not right and it's not fair" and called for more small businesses and large corporate grocery stores to invest in community nutrition.

Emhoff gaggled with pool and local press for roughly 5 minutes following the event… standby for full quotes

More to follow…

SGOTUS pool report #6 — gaggle quotes/audio

SCOTUS mingled with team members and took individual photos for another 10 minutes or so before the motorcade departed at 11:23am.

See below for Otter and quotes of SGOTUS' gaggle... that's all from me, y'all. Have a great Thursday.

C
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GAGGLE AUDIO: https://otter.ai/u/qex_z-vb9nEji_30n3bFr40VO20

Q: Thank you for being here on this sweltering day, I just have a really simple question. Second Gentlemen. Explain how this is a new idea of infrastructure.

SGOTUS: We need to rebuild all of our communities, and if you think about infrastructure, even planting trees and having clean air and clean water, places for people to actually congregate, and that's what's so amazing about what we learned here. We are reclaiming this vacant lot. You're gonna have a bunch of trees here. You're gonna have benches, you're gonna have water flowing through, so this is part of an investment into all of our communities to make them healthier, safe, and you heard about the urban farming so we can eliminate the food deserts that we have in some of our communities. So this is all kind of writ large, to rebuild our country.

Q: How do we accomplish that?

SGOTUS: On a large scale, we all need to come together, and as second gentleman, I've had the privilege of traveling to, I think, almost 40 states. And what I see around the country is people who are coming together in our communities, whether it was COVID, whether it is the spirit of safety, whatever it is, it's like bringing our communities together. And what I'm seeing here today is, it's just a small example of what we can do around the country, just bringing our young people together, and some of the older people to do a project that just makes where they live better. And if we can just keep replicating that around our country it's going to help.

Q: What role does the federal government have in making that?

SGOTUS: Well, the federal government through the bills that we passed, the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure law, some of the other things that are coming up, I mean, we're doing everything we can with good public policy that's designed to help. It's designed to tackle the issues that need tacklin, and here, it's just rebuilding our communities, as the mayor said, literally getting your hands in the ground and building your communities just from the ground up, and inspiring young folks to just get involved. So this is great. And we can use these microphones and the resources that we have, programs like AmeriCorps, to just bring these communities together. So I'm going to do everything I can, as a representative of the government to just keep talking about this,

Q: Sir. on that note, how important are the climate provisions in the reconciliation package for advancing sites like these and working on expanding the work that the bipartisan bipartisan infrastructure
law set out last year?

SGOTUS: Everything that we can do as a federal government to help clean our environment is critical. It's one of the few things we can't change, but we must change. So this is an environmental crisis. It's not climate change. It's a climate crisis. We need action, we need urgent action right now. So you're seeing in the bill that's coming up, that is a start, but it's by no means the end. We need to just keep investing in things that are going to protect our world, because we just have one world and it should not be controversial. Clean air, clean water, places that are not super hot. I mean, this is not controversial. We all need this, and the more the federal government can do just for local and state governments and communities, we're going to do. That is the right thing to do.

Q: Anything else you want to add on today?

SGOTUS: You saw what I saw, I love America, I've been traveling around the country doing AmericaCorps events, and to see again, young people getting engaged in their community with the support of America, and local partners, and it's just it really makes me happy. So anything I can do to lift up America, I'm gonna do that. And here we're talking about the environment. Again, I'm going to keep talking about we need clean air and clean water. We need to do everything we can to combat what is a climate crisis. And I'm going to keep working with AmericaCorps on projects like this and other projects that they do throughout the country.

Q: Can I ask one more question about food deserts? For a different piece I'm working on. This is a big problem in a lot of cities, as you had mentioned. So what's being done to address that issue, because it does affect health, it affects levels of obesity, which means heart problems and diabetes.

SGOTUS: So the — from prior bills and money that we've already put into local governments can be used to just lift up a community, so it's really a myriad of issues. Economics, and you know, we need to address those root causes. So the more money that we can invest in all communities to rebuild the economic infrastructure and give people who want to open small businesses the opportunity to get those funds to open businesses, which include markets. We also need to have some of the bigger markets, make investments in all communities, not just certain communities. And the more we can do that, it's not only going to make people healthier, have more food and good food available, but it's going to provide economic relief, it's going to build those communities not having food and other essential small businesses. Because it's not just food, it's gas stations, it's all kinds of things. We will then be able to build up communities so it's just again, it's just the right thing to do.