So today's theme, Perseverance Rewarded.
It's a powerful theme and one I can relate to on so many different levels.
I find myself persevering against policy and practice in my work every day in the California
State Senate.
As a member of the state legislature, I've worked hard to develop legislative packages
that focus primarily on eliminating poverty, creating equity and access to resources, and
tackling the implicit bias, sometimes inherent in so many of our systems.
And that value package does not come without its share of difficulty or delay.
But it's not just about policy, it's also about practice.
It's about how we encourage employers to hire men and women with records.
It's about how we train people to gain useful skills that will make them attractive to the
workforce.
It's about how we rethink our own bias to have a more complete and nuanced understanding
of people who've been impacted by the criminal justice system.
PV jobs like other groups are doing phenomenal work.
It's always refreshing to see that we have a lot of support from the community, especially
the business community, to do the work we do because it can't be done without support
from everybody.
These problems we're trying to address are problems that aren't solved by a single project.
But it takes everybody, it takes multiple projects, it takes commitments from multiple
people, from multiple organizations to address these problems.
It's truly been a blessing to be under Ernest's tutelage for the past eight months.
Ninety-nine percent of our conversations have not been about how to do the day-to-day work,
not about the relationships, but it's really about driving home the mission of this organization.
And he has been truly passionate about not just these relationships that he's built over
these 19 years, but the people that he has helped.
And so I've just been so honored to be working under him and I continue to want to do the
same work that he's done.
Over the past eight years, California has enacted over $244 billion in new taxes.
And the one thing I realized after being in tax policy for over 32 years, the taxation
does not create a job.
What creates jobs is what every individual at PV Jobs wakes up every morning and does.
It's their enthusiasm, their encouragement, their willingness to do one of the greatest
service that you exercise is that you can ever do.
And that has been down and helped someone else up.
It builds muscles for that individual, but it lifts up other individuals in our society.
We had a vision for Playa.
Randy had it.
I caught the bug and so did a whole lot of other people in this room.
And it was a simple vision.
And that was that we wanted people who lived at Playa to love where they live.
And we wanted not only those lucky people, but we wanted the neighbors around Playa to
say we're glad that Playa happened.
We hold PV Jobs up in our industry as an example of what our industry can do to give back more.
Candidly, if I'm critical, I don't think our industry does enough.
I think it could transform itself by merely playing a more active part in jobs and the
recruitment of at-risk individuals in the communities that we build in.
So here's to us doing more and using PV Jobs as the example.
I appreciate very much the award.
It's the topping on the cake.
We appreciate the working with PV.
It was a great, great experience.
We're working with other similar organizations as PV, and I can tell you that our experience
with PV is the best experience that we have.
First of all, I'm kind of nervous.
I've never been in a situation like this.
I want to thank everybody for honoring me for this award.
Out of all of this, I want to be more like an inspiration for the next cat that might
see me and think, you know, man, I can't do it.
I can't make it, but, and my boy Tank doing it, you know, I might do it.
So my main thing is to be an inspiration to the next cat that might want to follow in
these steps.
Thank you all of our wonderful sponsors.
