Zoom: OmniRide Hispanic Council: UJFA-6532 - jstainsby@omniride.com

Participant: Wordly [W] English (US)
Participant: Wordly [W0] English (US)


[W] Very good morning to you.
[W] It's my distinct pleasure to be able to welcome you to the June 2026 edition of the Hispanic Council.
[W] As the virtual background says, my name is Joe Stainsby.
[W] I'm the chief development officer for Omniride, and this meeting is being recorded.
[W] It will be available on our Mobility Services page of our website, probably along with the transcript of this event.
[W] I think, Sarah, you were going to share a slide here in a minute.
[W] But just to give you guys a bit of a bit of a background, this this council is one of three that we have that is kind of form a three legged stool of outreach is the intent.
[W] These were formed a few years ago out of our strategic planning process, where it was identified that we could really do a better job of engaging with the people that we that we move and that we could move.
[W] And so the Vanpool Council, which did exist at the time, the Employer Council and the Hispanic Council were set up.
[W] Right.
[W] And they were set up so that we could have those better interactions with the people that we serve.
[W] So I thank all of you very much for being here.
[W] I think, you know, Sarah and Gabby for taking the time to put this together.
[W] And Meg and Carlos for doing all these wonderful things you will see on the screen in front of you a slide that directs you to, if you need it, to use our live translation, which we have, which is a piece of software called wordly.
[W] There is a link in the chat and you can click on that and it will open a window and you can translate into any one of, I think, 60 languages.
[W] Now it used to be 23, but it's 60 languages.
[W] And it does do a relatively decent job of, of live translating what we're going to go along here.
[W] So one final thing I do want to mention before I kick it back over to Sarah and Gabby to kind of whisk you through today's agenda is we did announce last night at our commission meeting that we will be providing free.
[W] That's very important to say that free transportation for folks looking to go into DC for the 4th of July for the special Extended America 250 Celebrations and fireworks.
[W] If you're on the eastern side of the service area, we have busses that will be leaving from the Stonebridge Garage on opiates.
[W] And if you're on the western side of the area, you will be able to be picked up from the University Park and ride lot, which is like a stone's throw off.
[W] I 66 out by Haymarket and Gainesville.
[W] Those busses will run from 3:00 in the afternoon in kind of a shuttle format.
[W] So like every 15, 20 minutes, ideally straight into the Pentagon, right, where you can then get off and get on the yellow line and go straight into DC and do as you please in the event that they need to use the Pentagon for, you know, pre-event staging and this, that and the other, our fallback plan would be the East Falls Church metro on the western side and the Franconia-springfield Metro on the DC side.
[W] So we'll get you in there.
[W] We'll give you a bottle of water, you can go see the fireworks, and then we'll bring you home.
[W] The shuttles going in will be from about three to about seven.
[W] And then on the way back, it's kind of like 9 p.m. through basically midnight.
[W] So I encourage folks to go to our Facebook page or reach out to Sarah, Gabby, or Kim after this event.
[W] And there's a link that you can go to, which is an eventbrite ticket so that you can get your tickets so that you can, you can show those to the operator when you get on the tickets themselves are free, but it gives us a really good way of gauging how much interest there is so that we don't laughably uncommit bus drivers and busses, and we don't massively over commit bus drivers and operators.
[W] So you're also limited to getting four tickets, right?
[W] Just in the event that someone decided they want to get 600 tickets and then didn't show up, that would kind of skew things.
[W] So we have limited it.
[W] But I do ask people to go and do that.
[W] They are available now until they are no more.
[W] They are limited, which I know sounds like a very kind of as seen on TV thing to say, but they actually are limited because we can only carry but so many people.
[W] So I encourage folks to go get them as soon as they possibly can.
[W] Again, I think that is it for me.
[W] I do see, just to mention, I do see supervisor angry on the phone.
[W] He's chair of our commission.
[W] So thank you for joining this morning.
[W] Supervisor angry.
[W] I'll hand it over to you, Sarah.
[>> W] Go right ahead. Great.
[W] My name is Sarah McGowan.
[W] I am the TDM program manager at Omniride.
[W] Gabby Serrato is also here with us.
[W] She's the TDM specialist.
[W] We are going to kind of facilitate this.
[W] First, we're going to talk to you just a little bit about what we can do for folks in the community, and then we will have a couple speakers lined up, which Gabby will introduce shortly.
[W] Essentially, we work with employers in Prince William, the City of Manassas and Manassas Park to identify alternative commuting options for their employees or their clients.
[W] Other than riding in a car alone.
[W] Prince William has some great options with its free local busses and Omniride Ride share program, which we'll get into in just a little bit.
[W] We really enjoy working with employers to figure out what strategies might work for them, and then we help to promote strategies to their employees and make it really easy for them to use.
[W] We do this through education, tabling and lunchtime presentations.
[W] Before we get into it, we will pause at the end of each presentation for a Q&A.
[W] Just raise your hand and we'll call on you and you can unmute yourself.
[W] All right, Gabby, you want to talk a little bit about our rideshare program?
[>> W] Yeah.
[W] Thank you.
[W] Sarah.
[W] Good morning everyone.
[W] My name is Gabby Serrato.
[W] I'm the TDM specialist.
[W] And one of the programs that I oversee is the matching program, which is one of the mobility services that Omniride offers for individuals who are looking for more sustainable and cost effective way to commute, as opposed to just type in Python.
[W] So the application, it is user friendly.
[W] It takes less than five minutes.
[W] So ideally, anyone who is interested can either submit an application through Omniride or commuter connections.
[W] Once an application is submitted, I use the Commuter Connections database to identify potential matches based on similar commuter routes, schedules, and also any other type of preferences than the individual might have.
[W] The.
[W] The goal is to connect the commuter with someone who can share, carpool or vanpool with them.
[W] So in a way that will be reducing the number of single occupancy vehicles on the roads, in addition to making those connections, we also provide commuters with information about available incentives, commuter resources, and transportation alternatives.
[W] Yeah, so that's one way to help individuals to commute from one side of the county to the city, or even within the county.
[W] So if anyone has questions about Ryan matching, send me a message or a comment and I will be more than happy to answer those questions.
[>> W] Thank you.
[W] In addition to the ride Match program, as I mentioned, we work with employers to kind of create and expand transportation options that they're able to offer to their employees.
[W] So whether that's identifying bus stops that are near their offices so that folks can use the free local busses, helping with ride matching or thinking through what a hybrid work schedule might look like.
[W] We're here to help you.
[W] Having these options really improves the workplace and reduces turnover and can assist with recruitment.
[W] We love working with employers.
[W] We usually work with the human resource staff to identify the options and then help promote them.
[W] And some of the ways we might help promote these options are through lunch and learns, health and wellness fairs, transit fares, Earth day events, employee benefit fairs.
[W] We're also open to working creatively with you.
[W] Here's some of our kind of partnership examples that we've done with businesses in the area.
[W] We've done travel training on our busses with beacon.
[W] We just did one two weeks ago where we actually will come to your offices and work with either your clients or your staff and kind of talk through how the schedules work, how to figure out where the busses go and how to catch them.
[W] We'll bring a bus out to your space where and people can get on the bus.
[W] I know it sounds crazy, but one of the biggest questions is like, how do you make the bus stop?
[W] And it's simply pulling.
[W] There's a cord above where you sit and you pull it.
[W] Our busses are air conditioned and heated in the heated in the winter air conditioned in the summer.
[W] A lot of folks, when they stop on their you know, it was a really muggy day when we went out to beacon and we stepped on the bus and it just felt wonderful.
[W] You can also see we partnered with Georgetown South.
[W] We're going to hear from Meg Carroll in just a little bit, where we did another travel training in the classroom.
[W] We also worked with the city of Manassas to do a kind of a ride along, where we met at one of the bus stops and took folks for a ride.
[W] And then we do some of that more traditional outreach.
[W] We work with Mason, George Mason University, for example.
[W] We did a tabling event at their welcome fair for staff and students, as well as tabled at different events.
[W] They have, like their meet the coaches.
[>> W] Night.
[>> W] In order to kind of highlight businesses that have implemented creative transit strategies, we are really trying to help push a nationwide designation called Best Workplaces for commuters.
[W] We're in our third year of promoting it locally.
[W] And in fact, this week, applications just opened and they run through December.
[W] What we do is we work with employers to get through the application process.
[W] It's fairly easy and there are lots of ways you can qualify.
[W] Hybrid and remote work.
[W] If you offer bike storage or bike showers, lockers, things like that.
[W] If you're near a bus stop and promote bussing, you can have us come out.
[W] That's one of the check marks for qualifying.
[W] Omniride pays.
[W] There's a membership fee we pay for the first two years, and we're we're really excited about it.
[W] It's quite popular in some of the other counties.
[W] Fairfax has a number of employers with this designation.
[W] So does Loudoun, Alexandria and Arlington.
[W] We also love to highlight these employers.
[W] This past March, we brought them to our board meeting representatives from the companies.
[W] And you can see these were our 2025 designees.
[W] You can see chair, angry and Bob all posing with them.
[W] But we're really excited about the program.
[W] And if you have any interest, just drop your contact information in the chat or follow up with us after the presentation.
[W] Also, just coming up, just as we do the Hispanic Council, we also have an employer council that's scheduled for next Friday, June 12th from 930 to 1030.
[W] We have two speakers lined up.
[W] Bobby Mahone, who is the business engagement manager at Virginia Career Works Northern, as well as Sergio Vaca.
[W] He is the recruiting business partner at Mueller.
[W] They will be discussing the strategies and needs for economic growth, as well as employment opportunities in Prince William and Bobby will talk about some federal grant opportunities that employers can tap into to help train their employees.
[W] So we're looking forward to that.
[W] And here's our contact information I'm going to stop sharing here.
[>> W] Let's see.
[>> W] Sharing.
[W] Anyone has any questions?
[W] Feel free to raise your hand.
[W] If not Carlos, I'm going to have Gabby go ahead and introduce our speaker, Carlos.
[>> W] Thank you.
[W] Sarah.
[W] So one of our first speaker is Carlos Castro, who is the owner and founder of those market.
[W] I believe he is in the room with us.
[W] So the floor is yours.
[>> W] Unless you're muted.
[>> W] Thank you.
[>> W] That's a great information.
[W] It's it's wonderful.
[W] I'm glad to to be here.
[W] I had to apologize for my attire, but I actually have confused the the meeting on the 12th with today's meeting.
[W] That was in the middle of getting my work out of the gym.
[W] So but this is, you know, my compromise.
[W] So I, I, I have to apologize for looking the way I do, but you know, I am.
[W] Happy to be here.
[W] And as president and CEO of the supermarket, which we founded back in 1990.
[W] So we have been in business for like a little more than 36 years.
[W] And.
[W] We got involved in our community from the get go.
[W] And I have seen the progress.
[W] I have seen how.
[W] We we have grown as a community and so have grown the needs.
[W] So.
[W] Omniride is providing such a great service and I know some of my team members enjoy it and definitely, definitely.
[W] I like to be.
[W] Involved in trying to to reach out to the user because a lot of people still, still don't.
[W] Know how we're growing and how you are reaching out to more communities.
[W] But.
[W] We, we in the service we do with the community, we are happy to, to distribute smart cards.
[W] I've been a user of those in the past and.
[W] Anybody that needs, you know, any, any card, we're available there from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. generally Monday to Friday.
[W] So.
[W] What can I say?
[>> W] I believe that you are the only distributor of Smartrip cards in the county, right?
[W] You would have to go in to get them, which is a great resource, right, for your customers.
[W] And having some of those resources is really helped kind of had brings in a lot of customers.
[>> W] Yeah.
[W] Thank you so much.
[W] Sarah.
[W] I, I didn't know that.
[W] That's pretty good to know.
[W] Definitely.
[W] And it is also very important that were here, all the information that you had this morning, because we as, as a company, we're working with the school system in a program that is called explore.
[W] So we have a.
[W] We actually built a classroom in the program of explore.
[W] It's been three years.
[W] We just graduated the third edition and the third promotion and excuse me.
[W] The idea is to, to help some kids that need some extra help to, to teach them live experience, work experience.
[W] And since we joined, there is three more companies that have joined.
[W] So actually four more companies that are helping this graduating high school students that need an extra help to, to fit in the community.
[W] And we are so proud to, to provide that service to, to provide that opportunity for our youth.
[W] And I think it's so important that we're talking today with you all because.
[W] They come from different areas.
[W] And sometimes, you know, they're going to need.
[W] To use the parent, their family are probably going to need to use a omniride services.
[W] So that's one of the program that I'm very proud of, which, like I said, last, this this week on Tuesday, we know Monday we did the third graduation and we had.
[W] A graduation event.
[W] We had a lot of people coming.
[W] A lot of the families.
[W] So a lot of good things happening.
[W] And we're proud.
[W] We're proud to do it.
[W] And I know that part of our moral obligation, civic obligation to be with the community.
[W] And excuse me, I see on the right I've been exactly that that that pillar that the community needs to really function, particularly nowadays under this, you know, economic condition that we're living.
[W] So I, I have to apologize.
[>> W] I didn't have anything like exactly prepared, but I'd be glad to answer any questions.
[W] And I can I, you know, we, we got to speak with you before this meeting.
[W] So I, I know there were some really things that piqued my interest.
[W] And one of the things was your community, your community engagement as a business.
[W] I don't know if you started like that or if it was intentional or if it just kind of was more of a kind of an organic thing that happened.
[W] Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?
[>> W] Yes.
[W] Thank you for reminding me that, because that brings me back to my father.
[W] You know, he was a community man and he was very giving, very kind hearted.
[W] And he taught.
[W] us to be of help, to be when people need us.
[W] And, and I enjoy that.
[W] So when I, when we open, my wife and I opened the store back in 1990, I, they will be supervisor came up and she said, she said, Carlos, this is wonderful.
[W] You're going to be the first, you know, little supermarket here and for the community.
[W] And she directed me to get involved in the community.
[W] And I tell you, I have enjoyed that so much because it's been a.
[W] A two way engagement.
[W] I learned a lot.
[W] I learned to, to speak in, in public and not being so afraid.
[W] You know, there's always nervousness and, and also I had connections that I made through the years.
[W] So I, I went in on all over direction.
[W] So I got involved with the schools.
[W] I got involved with the political establishment, which I really enjoy because I like.
[W] I like to think that I am the self-appointed representative of the Hispanic community.
[W] For many years now.
[W] We have a lot of great organizations that are joining us.
[W] But before before that, you know.
[W] We I was the only voice, you know, for many years back in the 90s, of course, and the community was still growing.
[W] So.
[W] Actually, I want to stress that out for the audience, you know, because one thing I admire of the American society from being a kid and seeing what they did in my country when I was a poor little kid.
[W] They always give back.
[W] They always get involved.
[W] They always are helping.
[W] And I learned that here.
[W] But with with with my new environment, you know, I, I, I am I'm migrated back in 1980, I was 25.
[W] So I've been living here more than my.
[W] The most part of my life.
[W] So the one thing I want to stress this morning is that giving back, getting involved with the community has been very enlightening, very fulfilling.
[W] But most important and very important, very productive because through this involvement, I have been able to.
[W] To make good friends, make good connections in different circles.
[W] And one of the great things that came to us.
[W] I was volunteering at United Bank before it was called.
[W] What it was called.
[W] Virginia Commerce Bank, and I, I got news that Morocco Plaza was sold to one of the executives at the bank, and this other executive said, you know, I think you need to talk to Jamie.
[W] That was that's the name of the the original owner, and I did.
[W] And that's how we landed on the Morocco plaza.
[W] That was actually an overnight success.
[W] And.
[W] And.
[W] I can't say it enough.
[W] You know, how well it has been, how good it has been to me and my family and my my team, my market.
[W] The fact that we got involved at the right time, at the right moment, and then through that, we have seen opportunities not only to get benefit of those opportunities, but also to participate, helping others and like I said to my friends, you know, when I die, the only thing I'm going to be proud of, what I did for my community, for I did for my family what I did for myself.
[W] Because the money and material things are just going to be left behind for somebody else to enjoy.
[W] So thank you for asking that question.
[W] You know, I have a lot to say because I'm so.
[W] I am so.
[W] Proud how this community took us in as a community, as a newcomers, and how we're working together to continue to be a great community.
[>> W] Wonderful.
[>> W] I.
[>> W] I, and that's one of the things that endears you to the community, right?
[W] I have another question, but I'd love if if others have questions, please feel free to raise your hand.
[W] See supervisor angry.
[W] You unmute.
[>> W] Hold on.
[>> W] I think you're unmuted.
[W] Supervisor.
[>> W] Yes, ma'am.
[W] Thank you, thank you.
[W] Hey, first of all, so, Sarah, Gabby, thank you for inviting me to be on this call.
[W] Carlos, I gotta tell you.
[W] So you're a definite leader in the community.
[W] And thank you for clearing it for me because I, too, just came from the gym.
[W] And so I think you're showing that physical fitness is also important to, to your mental health.
[W] And that's what we gotta keep doing.
[W] So I love to see that, man.
[W] It's perfect.
[W] Now look, I just, I really only have kind of not I don't know if it's a question or a comment, but, you know, I feel, you know, as you discussed how when you came into Prince William County, you've really been the leader of our Hispanic community.
[W] And really my first leader I met when I got into office 2019 was you.
[W] And we talked about you gave me a tour of the store.
[W] We talked a lot about the needs of the community.
[W] And really so I really appreciate all that.
[W] And I, I feel like seven years later, there's definitely more I can be doing from a, a conduit, I guess, you know, position because I didn't know about the Smartrip card and that you had them at your store.
[W] And first of all, thank you for this, this call because I learned a lot just in the short time just listening to this call, that I can be doing more through my office to really make some of these connections.
[W] I didn't know that.
[W] And look, I'm the chair and didn't even know that we were giving tours of the bus and literally riding people around because true enough, when I first rode the bus, back when I was in the Army, I didn't know how to stop the bus either.
[W] I thought you had to yell up to stop.
[W] But then there is this little button or pull thing that you can do.
[W] And so that's just interesting because there's so much you can know.
[W] So to the group, I really want to do more to kind of make the connection of bringing the community together to do some of these tours that you're talking about.
[W] Also, Carlos, to really identify your store as a location that folks can pick up these smartrip cards and really do more for you to do that.
[W] So, and also, I gotta get by to see you again so I can get another tour.
[W] We can catch up and see what's going on lately that we can do better with.
[W] So that's it?
[>> W] That'd be great.
[W] Yeah, that'd be great.
[W] It was actually to be to honor the person, you know.
[W] Hilda.
[W] Right.
[W] She's the one that pushed me to join the community.
[W] And she's great, great supervisor on her time.
[W] Yeah.
[>> W] Yeah, yeah.
[W] Well, thank you for everything you're doing.
[W] And thank you all for this call.
[W] I love this.
[>> W] Appreciate it.
[>> W] Thank you. Jeanette.
[W] I see you have your hand up.
[>> W] Can I ask you to unmute one?
[W] I want to say thank you so much for the presentation.
[W] As a long standing Woodbridge resident, I have seen both of your stores and been in both of them, and it led me to a question.
[W] I noticed that both stores are on Richmond Highway.
[>> W] Was that planned or was that just something that occurred?
[W] Yeah, that's actually something that occurred.
[W] We were in Alexandria, and then my wife was getting tired of the traffic.
[W] So we look at an opportunity in the town of Dumfries, and that's when we moved there.
[W] And then we sold the Alexandria store like 20 years ago.
[W] And then then we had the opportunity to move in into the new location where.
[W] River Oaks Plaza.
[>> W] And it.
[>> W] This is our third year in the community, but it's a great big store that we pretend to serve the entire community, which is very diverse and not just Latino.
[W] Do we have people from all over the world in that community, but the one thing that is I can say that it was planned, Jean, is that I love my community, I enjoy what I do, I enjoy my family, I enjoy.
[W] Having a life.
[W] So I have had opportunities to open in in Manassas, another location.
[W] And then I actually got calls from places at California and Texas
[>> W] Open todos.
[W] Store there but
[W] I thought that I wanted to have a size of the team or the size of a company where I can actually enjoy what I do.
[W] And I truly do.
[W] You know, I enjoy getting to any store and go to all the departments and say hello to everyone on my team members and in.
[W] And that takes a little planning because you can get pulled into into open more stores.
[W] And before you know, you're chasing dollars and then you're losing your life.
[W] That's all I can say.
[>> W] As a, as a former customer service agent, someone who was on the phone for a very long time, your markets have always been a staple in the Woodbridge community.
[W] So everybody knows Toto's.
[W] When I was on the phone taking calls, I could always identify like, okay, which Toto's are you at?
[W] Where are you going?
[W] So I want to say thank you because you have been a wonderful staple in this community.
[>> W] Thank you.
[>> W] Kim, you have a question.
[W] Ask you to unmute.
[>> W] Yes.
[W] Hi.
[W] Thank you, Carlos, so much for presenting today.
[W] And you had mentioned how influential your position is in the community and how thankful you are for the friends and the connections and the influence that your position allows you.
[W] But I think what you forgot to say was that you're providing amazing jobs for the community as well.
[W] I know on a personal level, my son in law has two brothers and they have both worked at your Toto's Market, and they helped to bridge that gap in their homes when they needed to make ends meet.
[W] So thank you so much for having those jobs and providing them to families to help them as well.
[W] So appreciate you.
[>> W] Yeah.
[W] Thank you Kim.
[W] And it's also you, you know, what, the part that I enjoy is that.
[W] I was.
[>> W] Given opportunities when I didn't have it back in the early years of my life.
[W] And we want to be that that if you go in and you talk to most of my managers, most of them have grown throughout the grant from the bottom up.
[W] So we want to make sure that not only those market is successful, but our team also has success.
[W] And now we're actually working with with we give opportunity to high school students during the school years and after.
[W] So it happened when in the past that graduation came and we lost the whole team, right.
[W] And now we we have a different approach.
[W] We start grooming them and finding what other capacities they had that we can use in our business and give them opportunity to grow.
[W] So, you know, like one of these students is now our internal auditor.
[W] And then there is other success stories, you know, their managers at the store.
[W] So it we want, we want to be known for being, providing those opportunities, but not only that, we have created a group of businesses by giving other people opportunity to put the small businesses on our stores, and that give the community sometime a one stop shop.
[W] But not only that, the the one part that I enjoy the most is that of giving other people opportunity to start their own business.
[W] And, you know, one of those is a barber shop that I met at the high school.
[W] And conversation and now he's own his own business and he's very successful.
[W] He, he used to be what they call the dreamers.
[W] You know, he's, he's part of that group.
[>> W] Oh, sorry.
[W] I think we have one more question.
[W] Gabby, did you have a question?
[>> W] I did or I do as part of someone was part of the.
[>> W] Gabby.
[W] I'm so sorry.
[W] I accidentally muted you.
[W] I'm so sorry.
[W] It's fine.
[>> W] Like I was saying, as someone who is part of the Hispanic diaspora, I do want to say thank you for being one of our strongest pillar in the community.
[W] And my question is, can you walk us through what other services we can find at your store?
[W] For instance, I know we have taxes, but I know you have more services.
[>> W] Wonderful question.
[W] Thank you.
[W] You know, we have a new addition, which is a.
[W] Driving school and it's very successful because there is a need of good service on that regard.
[W] We have a barber shop.
[W] They right now we actually became multicultural on that regard.
[W] We have a small shop of Muslim women dress.
[W] I don't know how to properly say it, but you know, Middle Eastern feminine attires and and we have a perfume shop.
[W] We have a clothing store and there is a lady that has the eyebrow eyebrows.
[W] We, we have.
[W] A couple of phone service providers and let's see what else all.
[W] Also on that, I would like to stress that we have an office that started from the get go.
[W] Right now it's our notary office, but it was my wife putting me to lining up people to come and ask me questions.
[W] At the end of the day, when they needed some help.
[W] And that turned out into it's not more like a business, it's a service.
[W] But if anybody in the community has any question about anything, we are there to help.
[W] We.
[W] If we cannot do it, we can find who can help them and.
[W] I, I think that that's about it.
[W] I had an immigration lawyer, but he recently moved out.
[W] I actually have a new company that is doing signs and they are very.
[W] They're very successful, but they move the business from their garage to Toto's market.
[W] And I asked them they have been there only like four since March, and I asked them the other day and they are so.
[W] Pleased with the results.
[W] So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a nice little thing, you know, that get people coming in.
[W] We have a travel agency also.
[W] Let's see, let me think what else
[W] I think that's it for now.
[>> W] You have community
[>> W] Rooms that could be rented out too.
[W] I think you might have mentioned.
[>> W] Yes.
[W] Actually, you know, that was my employee training room.
[W] It's a room that sits 75 to 100 people.
[W] And that was with that purpose.
[W] But during the pandemic, we became the testing ground.
[W] We became the vaccination place.
[W] And it has been there.
[W] We have allowed even the political establishment candidates or elected official to come in and join the community there.
[W] So if if you ever need it, just, you know, give me a holler and we'll make sure that it's available to you all.
[W] And actually, you know, talking about that, you, you brought a, a very important point.
[W] Are we doing enough for you or are we doing anything that we're not doing that.
[W] Please let us know.
[W] What can we do to help Omniride to become more known and to be so people know the great job that I know that.
[W] So people know the great job that you all are doing.
[>> W] I know we've been working with contact there to get our schedules out there, or at least a way for them to find them because they know that that's a question that comes up, is, how do you get to the hospitals and things like that?
[W] So, so we're working on it and, and maybe we'll take you up on, on hosting something in that room.
[W] I know we spoke about that earlier.
[W] That's why I knew about it.
[W] So anyways, we're going to wrap up.
[W] Thank you so much, Carlos.
[W] Really appreciate you taking the time to speak with us.
[W] We really, really appreciate it.
[W] Thank you so much.
[>> W] Yeah, thank you so much.
[W] One thing that I want to want to say is that I am I lost my assistant.
[W] That was kind of my schedule is kind of like on the shambles
[>> W] If you know anybody that y
[W] Would be great, but not necessarily.
[W] I am in the market to find not only.
[W] A system, but I'm trying to fill up the top position like assistant managers and managers for the stores.
[W] Thank you.
[W] I have to.
[>> W] Thank you so much.
[W] Gabby, would you like to introduce our next speaker?
[>> W] Yeah.
[W] For our guests, our next guest speaker is Meg Carroll, who serves as president of the Georgetown South community.
[W] And she also advocates for the Hispanic community in her town.
[>> W] I'm on right.
[W] So I'm Meg Carroll, I'm the community manager of Georgetown South, and I've been here 15 years now.
[W] Prior to that, I was a police officer for 26 years, and I retired from the city of Manassas after 21 years of service there.
[W] I have to say that being a cop and managing a community, or kind of the same.
[W] If you're a community advocate, and I was that when I was a police officer, and I am that now, our communities quite unusual and it's a bit unusual that I would be the the advocate because obviously my name is Meg Carroll.
[W] I'm of Irish origin, but our community is 95% Latino, 95% Spanish speaking.
[W] We have about 1100 school age children in our community.
[W] It's about 4500 residents.
[W] We, I think, have made it clear to people that we are very welcoming of immigrants.
[W] Like Carlos said, and I was glad to hear him say it.
[W] We also, if somebody comes to us with a question, my policy is you never turn somebody away and you don't just give them a number, you give them a number that you've already checked out and made sure that it works and that it's the right referral source for them.
[W] Because if not, then you've just fired them up in the mess.
[W] Again, I, I should point out also about our community and that because a lot of them are immigrants, we are facing some challenges right now, to be honest with you.
[W] We have a a shopping center that's very close to us.
[W] It's not ours.
[W] It's called the the Grant Avenue shopping Center.
[W] The patronage there is down because there are a lot of people that are just afraid in terms of immigration issues.
[W] And we have been facing that obviously since, well, since January, the first week of the third week of January in 2025, we that I know of have had about 45 people deported.
[W] We do try to support the families that are left behind because quite often they're left behind and there's no one to pay the rent, and there's no one to help with the kids.
[W] And, you know, there's sometimes we help with reunification as well.
[W] So I know it sounds weird because Georgetown South is actually an HOA.
[W] So why isn't an HOA doing all that?
[W] I think we're doing all that because it's the right thing to do.
[W] And I try to run our HOA like a community.
[W] I am very interested in how annual inspections go, because I want the houses to look good, because I want the neighborhood to be.
[W] It's a a sustained effort.
[W] We're a 62 year old neighborhood now, and and we still look good from the outside.
[W] And I want to keep it looking that way.
[W] We faced an uphill.
[W] I faced an uphill battle, I should say, when I came in, in that Georgetown South was once known more for its crime than it was for anything else, and that is simply not the case now.
[W] But there are still people who believe that, and I the only way I can get them not to believe it is to do what I do.
[W] If my Facebook post and to let people know that our community is open to so many other things.
[W] I'll give you an example.
[W] Next week we start a Stem camp.
[W] Three weeks.
[W] George Mason and micron are running it, but it's happening at our community center in our community room.
[W] The following week we start soccer camp.
[W] We usually get about 120 kids at our soccer camp.
[W] This year.
[W] Our foundation, which I created a nonprofit foundation so that we could raise funds for different things.
[W] Normally it's for camps and workshops, but this year we're adding to the mix something that's going to be a sustained effort for probably about five years.
[W] In that we want to build a professional sized soccer field in Georgetown South with lighting, with bleachers.
[W] Like we just want it to be a piece of home kind of.
[W] And, and in, in Georgetown, South Georgetown sounds kind of a, a little city unto itself, to be honest.
[W] Our residents don't leave very much when they do.
[W] We are trying to encourage them to go on. Omniride.
[W] And I think quite often our people fear the fear the bus system, because they don't know what it's like.
[W] So Omniride has been gracious enough to come out and do already one travel training.
[W] They're coming and doing another one at the end of this month, and then they're doing a ride along in June, and I'm really excited for our, our moms, particularly our moms who are kind of stranded at home during the day to be able to learn how to operate and get around and, you know, know no boundaries.
[W] Basically, I think that's what Omniride does for us is it breaks down boundaries because if accessibility is a boundary, well, Omniride takes care of that for us.
[W] This fall.
[W] We're going to start with English classes.
[W] Metz is already running English classes two nights a week.
[W] We're going to either try to run them on the other two nights so that people could conceivably get four nights of training, and the the idea and the motive behind that, to be honest with you, is whether if you have a school student or a student in school, we want you to be able to figure out how to speak at a parent conference.
[W] Speak for yourself, not have somebody translating for you.
[W] Not that there's anything wrong with that, but so much better if you can speak for yourself, advocate for your student.
[W] We all know things go better when you have an advocate and parents can be their children's advocates.
[W] We try to encourage that.
[W] We do a back to school supply distribution, and when we do that, they have to.
[W] The parents that register have to attend two meetings.
[W] One of them this year is going to be with the police to let them know, hey, this is what this is what we're facing in Georgetown South.
[W] These are our biggest issues.
[W] Guess what the biggest issue is this year?
[W] It's trash.
[W] It used to be drugs and now it's trash.
[W] And I'm so happy to say that, you know, because trash I can deal with, we already dealt with the drugs and we will continue to always monitor that situation that occurs in all communities.
[W] The other night is a back to school night where the schools that our kids attend come and present and do like a back to school night at our facility.
[W] We get normally between 150 and 200 parents to come out to that, which I think is a fairly excellent attendance rate.
[W] We do.
[W] We do so many things for for our people.
[W] Like this year, we're doing a career in confidence workshop series for, for young girls.
[W] We're doing Stem strategy, but using Pokemon to, to teach them Stem strategy.
[W] We're doing that in a computer lab that we have at our center that Kuma Labs put in for us.
[W] We have been very blessed by, I would say, almost like people like Carlos, but Carlos is on the East End, but people like Carlos, who see our community as a place where they can turn around and help other people.
[W] And so like next week, again, in addition to the Stem camp, we also have Chappell Springs holding a camp.
[W] Two weeks after that, we're starting something called the Mundialito, the Little World Cup, and that's going to be a soccer camp that we're going to run at Mayfield Intermediate so that it attracts all city residents, not just Georgetown South, but we're doing that, and then we're going to lead into a tournament at Osborn High School on July 13th, where we're also going to have a community resource fair.
[W] So Georgetown South, just and I don't mean me, my staff, my staff is, well, I'm the only native born American on it.
[W] We're all bilingual.
[W] And I think we have one Salvadoran, two, three Mexican people, two Peruvian, one Honduran.
[W] And so they they have such a wealth of experience coming from their
[>> W0] Also bring something that is very necessary in our job, and it's called compassion.
[W0] And I think being an immigrant in this country has its ups and downs.
[W0] And but a lot of times the downs can be overcome very easily if you just reach out and seek help.
[W0] And if you're reaching out to somebody like Carlos or you're reaching out to somebody like George South, where we help you find what you need, I think that's one of the best ways to go.
[W0] We get people from everybody from across the city of Manassas, even from Prince William County, coming in and asking us questions because we've become known for getting them the answers.
[W0] So I hope that I, I hope that I described us as well as I could, but if you have questions, fire away.
[W0] Oh, Gaby, thanks for all the applause.
[>> W0] Any questions?
[>> W0] Oh, Kim.
[W0] Hey, Meg.
[W0] Thank you for all that you do for the community and really kind of creating a community in itself.
[W0] What I've heard is that your community has a thing called rightarrow that helps people.
[W0] Informally get rides from each other.
[W0] Can you tell us a little bit more about that program that has taken off and really helped people within your community?
[W0] And if there are any other ways that people are bridging transportation gaps.
[>> W0] I think you're going to get here's the down and dirty explanation to that.
[W0] There are a lot of people that didn't feel it was safe to go to their jobs anymore.
[W0] And so they created ride services.
[W0] And so that provided a job for themselves to be able to provide rides.
[W0] They charge, obviously, and then it was also a safe ride for many people that didn't feel that it was their former mode of transportation was safe anymore.
[W0] So that's all I know about that.
[W0] It's not it wasn't like a, a grassroots effort or, or anything like that.
[W0] It was very organic the way it came up and it came up out of need.
[W0] And so now it's serving a need for employment for some people.
[W0] And then it's serving the need for transportation for others.
[W0] I personally would love to see a lot of the moms that are getting those rides, figure out how to get on the busses because they're spending.
[W0] It would be a fallacy to assume that these rides are cheaper.
[W0] They're not.
[W0] These people are trying to make a profit.
[W0] And so if we could get these moms and their kids on the busses, and I think that we're working towards that with the travel training, all of the people that were informed came to us for back to school supplies.
[W0] I think we have over 160 parents registered so far with their kids.
[W0] All of them are being informed of the travel training, so I'm hoping to get a lot of them to that to that effort.
[W0] On June 25th.
[>> W0] Meg, would it help if we we came out and I don't know what our schedules looked like, but would it help if we came out and tabled at that event?
[>> W0] Yeah, absolutely.
[W0] Sure.
[>> W0] Okay.
[>> W0] Yeah.
[>> W0] Because that's the kind of thing, like if we know about things like that, we can, you know, we can try and get out there and, you know, bring our tchotchkes.
[W0] Everyone knows.
[W0] Yeah.
[W0] We have new tchotchkes and our schedules and stuff and, and talk with people.
[W0] So we'll follow up with you on that.
[>> W0] I yep, I'll just shoot the dates to you.
[W0] July 22nd, August 5th, 6:00 at night.
[W0] And yeah, because it, it gives you access to over 160 people at the at one event.
[W0] That's fantastic.
[>> W0] Yeah, please do that.
[W0] Do we have any more questions?
[W0] I know we're getting close to our 1030 mark here.
[W0] See, I see someone's in the chat.
[>> W0] I think Carlos has his hand up.
[W0] Sarah.
[>> W0] Oh.
[W0] I'm sorry.
[W0] Where is it?
[W0] Who does?
[>> W0] Carlos.
[>> W0] Yeah, you're muted again, Carlos.
[W0] But I think I saw your real hand up, not your virtual one.
[>> W0] I can't, I'm just trying to.
[>> W0] Hello?
[>> W0] Can you hear me?
[W0] Oh, there we go.
[W0] There we go.
[W0] Sorry.
[W0] Yeah.
[W0] Thank you.
[>> W0] You know, I just didn't.
[W0] Couldn't figure out how to raise my hand, so I said, just want to really thank Meg Carroll.
[W0] She has been doing such a great job through the years.
[W0] We have connected in and out, but we're all busy in our on our own worlds in the days and the West.
[W0] But I tell you, I, I knew Georgetown South way before Matt Carroll took over, and it was scary to walk by.
[W0] Now, this is a very, very formidable community.
[W0] Thanks to all your effort, Matt.
[W0] Thank you so much.
[W0] That's all I wanted to say.
[>> W0] No, I, I that's a high praise indeed coming from you, Carlos, because I think you're, you're, you're the best role model in the world.
[>> W0] So thank.
[W0] You.
[>> W0] Meg and Carlos, thank.
[W0] You so much for sharing your time and energy and, and with us.
[W0] This has been really well, I've really enjoyed my time here.
[W0] But but thank you all.
[W0] We will have this recorded and up on our website shortly.
[W0] If you have any follow up questions, you know, please feel free.
[W0] Feel free to reach out.
[W0] But we'll give you, I guess, back our, our three minutes and your three minutes and have a have a great day, everyone.
[>> W0] Alright.
[W0] Thank you everybody. This was great