Michael Hanks:

Hello. Welcome, everybody, to today's webinar. We are going to get started in about one minute, just one minute, as everyone is attending. So we'll see you in just a second.

All right, let's go ahead and get started. Welcome to today's webinar, Creating Safer Community Spaces. We are really excited to talk about this really fun use case. We have a really fun invitee, Hillary Whittaker. I'm going to introduce her in just a second. But first, I'm going to talk a little bit about LiveView since you all came through one of our platforms, probably. We are an enterprise-grade platform, meaning we can service any small business to enterprise businesses, getting units out to all of you at any time as quickly as we need. Our units work on no power, there's no Wi-Fi required. We're active to turn and send out alerts as needed. Our security system is really robust there. We focus on real-time data and forecasted data. We have 24/7 advanced support, and we're always learning and growing and finding really fun new use cases like what we're going to talk about today. LiveView Technologies is based out in Orem, Utah, but we're nationwide.

That's enough about LVT. Let's get into our speaker today. Hillary Whittaker, she's from Community Action Services. I've been able to chat with her a few times. She's wonderful. But Hillary, how about you take a few minutes and introduce yourself and a little bit about your background.

Hillary Whittaker:

Okay. So I'm Hillary. Hello. I've been working for Community Action starting in May of 2020. When COVID had hit, I was helping run a car dealership, and it just wasn't doing well, and so I moved over to this nonprofit, and it's been incredible. So about a year into working as the volunteer coordinator, they asked me to also be the community garden manager, which has been extremely fun.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah. And we worked together, you got our unit, was it in March, I believe, so you've had a unit since March?

Hillary Whittaker:

I believe so, yes.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah. If I remember. Yeah. So you've had this last season of all the fun growth. We're going to talk about that here in a little bit. So today's agenda, everyone, we're going to start with the importance of community spaces, dive into keeping community spaces secure, and then strategies for creating community spaces as well. And after that, we're going to open it up to questions. Anybody that has any questions for LVT or for Community Action and Hillary, feel free to put those questions anytime during the webinar into the questions tab that you see over on your screen, and those will pop up and we'll answer those as best we can.

So first off, the importance of community spaces. So Hillary, walk us through, you've been with Community Action for a couple years now. You're loving it, it's been a great opportunity. Tell us a little bit of why they are so important to have in our culture.

Hillary Whittaker:

Okay. So Community Action isn't just a food bank. We have a food bank and we have a food pantry, and we are able to help different members of the community who are struggling with food insecurity. But we don't just help with that, Food and Care Coalition, who's also in Provo, they'll come and shop at our food bank so that they can provide hot meals for the Food and Care Coalition clients. We have a family development program which will help with food, UTA, bus vouchers, motel vouchers, utility assistance, helps with a bunch of stuff like that. We have our housing and financial learning center, so anybody in the community who is interested in purchasing a house for the first time, a lot of times you don't really know what to do, you don't know what to expect, so you can come in and you can take a class. You get a certification that you can then take to the bank, and you do get some sort of down payment credit while you're purchasing a home. So it helps you, as you are getting ready, to really understand the whole process.

Michael Hanks:

That's awesome. Just for the first home or anybody could go do that?

Hillary Whittaker:

As far as I know, that's for the first-time home buyers. But the Financial Learning Center will teach you about your credit, about budgeting, about savings. So when you come into the financial learning center, you'll see all of the vision boards hanging up around. So it's really inspirational to see that these people are not just wanting to live their life how they've lived it for so long, they want to make changes and they want to learn things, like how to do a budget or how to grow vegetables so that they are able to provide those fresh fruits and vegetables for their families that can be expensive.

Michael Hanks:

Awesome, that's so great. Well, that kind of leads us into where you and LiveView Technologies partnered up about these little gardens that people can rent. Tell us a little bit more about those.

Hillary Whittaker:

Yeah. So for $20 for the garden season, you are able to rent a garden plot. And in the garden plot, we provide the land, the water, the tools, even some seeds, and then you as the gardener would be in charge of taking care of the crop, of making sure that you're cleaning up after yourself. It's been really fun to see everything grow and to get to know all of the gardeners and also find out what some of their own concerns were, which is why we have made a connection when we realized there were some issues going on in some of the gardens.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah. That's awesome. So let's dive into that a little bit. So what were some of those concerns and issues that they kept bringing up and why LiveView Technologies was a potential outcome to help with that?

Hillary Whittaker:

So we had multiple gardeners coming up to us and letting us know that in the years prior, there were fruits and vegetables that were being taken from the garden. And these aren't just a couple tomatoes that continue to grow; these are all the ripe watermelon and all the pumpkin, all the ones that take a really long time. Not only that, but at one point, a gardener went out, and in our greenhouse they found a child sleeping out there. That was a big concern and to not knowing where this kid came from. Luckily, we got everything taken care of, but to maintain the safety of animals coming in, there was a dog that kept breaking in and scaring the gardeners, to help keep the accountability for not only the gardeners but for the community surrounding it. It's really helped, and we've had a lot of our gardeners feeling a lot safer being in there. We have single moms that go in there with their kids, and so just to create a safe environment was very important to us.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, totally. I can only imagine if families that are wanting to rent this space and grow their gardens, how devastating it must be to come and find all the work that they've put in is gone.

Hillary Whittaker:

Yeah.

Michael Hanks:

So that's actually, when you heard that, you guys started looking for a couple of options. Tell us a little bit about your planning process of, were you going to hire a security guard versus were you going to something like what LVT is, like this mobile unit that could just be there? Tell us a little bit about that process.

Hillary Whittaker:

So when I brought this up to Karen, who is the executive over at Community Action, she actually let us know about your company because she had been introduced to you and had heard great things. So she had said, "Let me reach out to them and see if we can come up with a solution." So we had been talking about putting up dummy cameras, we've been talking about, are we able to put gates up? This land is given to us by Provo City to have the community gardens, and so there's certain rules where we can't put up anything permanent because there's a potential that the garden could be sold. So having something ... And on top of that, we don't have access to electricity or anything like that. So we knew that what we needed needed to be something mobile and something that could be done with solar or something battery wise, something that wasn't plugged into a wall.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, totally. Well, that actually leads into a question that we just received. Usually, I would wait till the end, but you were just hinting on it so I want to ask this question because it was a really good question. It says, has your organization been working with your planning and zoning departments to encourage these spaces in apartment complexes to improve food security with so many food across the country? So does that make sense?

Hillary Whittaker:

Yes. So we-

Michael Hanks:

Have you been working ... Great.

Hillary Whittaker:

Right. So we do work with Provo City. These gardens have been in the same area for the last few years. So as Provo City has smaller plots of land that they're not going to do anything with, they will kind of offer them up. Most of the gardens are in what would be considered a lower income area. They're mostly between 8th North and Community Action in Provo, all on the west side of university. So we get a lot of families. One of our gardens, we've partnered with Utah Valley Refugees, and so that's a newer partnership that we're building and growing. Excited to see them kind of take over one of the gardens and bring in different community aspects to that as well. So yes, we always are looking for the areas to help those people, to help the people who would need it the most, who are living in the apartments that don't have access to a large plot of land to grow.

‍Michael Hanks:

That's awesome. Thanks for answering that. I hope that answers your question, Deb, who asked that. So let's talk about how the summer went. You were telling me earlier that it was a good growth season, all the gardens grew quite a bit. So my question is, with the implementation of one of our units, did that secure all of the things that you were hoping to accomplish?

Hillary Whittaker:

Yes. So yes, at that garden, we have seen a tremendous difference. Being able to see if anything strange was happening, if a gardener was like, "Hey, I wasn't sure. I saw somebody weird here," to be able to go back in and just be like, "Okay, that was okay," or just to be able to have the camera up is a big deterrent anyway, so we didn't see theft like we did the previous years. So I would say that it's been a successful growing year on all the gardeners. We're extremely happy.

Michael Hanks:

Awesome. Yeah, I would say with most use cases that we have, the deterrent factor is the huge drop. It's not like they catch any crazy crime or anything, which we do, but for a lot of times, it's this really great deterrent factor that you were saying, that there's been issues of vegetables being stolen. So it sounds like none of that really happened where this unit was able to be placed.

Hillary Whittaker:

Right.

Michael Hanks:

So, really great. Let's move on. Let's talk about some strategies for building these community spaces. So as you go out and continue finding good spaces or working within the community to build these community spaces, what is it that you're looking for? How do you go about accomplishing that? Anyway, let's talk about that a little bit.

Hillary Whittaker:

So for me, because I've only been the garden manager, this is my first year doing it, for me it was important to just making sure that I'm talking with everyone to know what they're looking for, talking to neighbors so that they can see why the garden is important. Sometimes we get some pushback. There's a lovely older woman who owns an apartment complex next to one of the gardens and the weeds will grow under the fence sometimes and she gets a little bit upset, but just talking to her with kindness and just saying, "Hey, I understand your frustration. Let's see what we can work together." I feel like this year she's been enjoying that garden a lot more. She'll send me emails and say, "Hey, it's looking really good."

So I think helping other people in the community see why the garden is beneficial and just to let them know that it does exist, that anybody can sign up. You are able to grow with a neighbor. If you are wanting to get to know your neighbors better, you could grow everything yourself and donate it to some, keep it for yourself. So there's lots of things that you can do to help create that community bond in the garden and just to work together and to grow all these amazing fruits and vegetables that you can then share. It just helps instill the sense of community with everybody when we're all just working together, and that's really the most important thing with anything with Community Action.

‍Michael Hanks:

Yeah, totally. I can't agree more with you. I used to work with Community Action back in the day, helping with their PR, and they do so many fun initiatives. Just allowing the sense of community and that bond that comes when we focus on it is just so wonderful. You were mentioning a little bit before with the refugees and stuff, and one of our bullet points, you're just focused on diverse functions. So as our state begins to bring them in and we start including them into our culture and our society, you said you were working on a couple of things there. Do you want to expand on that a little bit?

Hillary Whittaker:

Yeah.

‍Michael Hanks:

Just a little bit more about that.

Hillary Whittaker:

Yeah. So something that's really fun with the refugee garden is, there's a lot of different vegetables and herbs that are being grown, that maybe you and I might not think about growing. So something we want to do, because we are in an area right there where it's by a couple elementary schools, so we actually want to tag the plants so that they're in English, Spanish, and in Swahili, so that anybody who comes into the garden can know what it is, they can learn a little bit about it, they can learn how to say it in a new language. We would like to kind of make it an educational garden that the local elementary schools could walk to, they could learn a couple things. We want to plant native plants to Utah and then just label everything. So yeah, that's one idea that we have in creating art projects in the garden as well to make it just an area where people want to spend their time.

Michael Hanks:

That's so great. I love that. That's actually, I'm going to go walk down there and learn some Swahili.

Hillary Whittaker:

Right?

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, that's really awesome.

Hillary Whittaker:

Yeah.

‍Michael Hanks:

We had another question come in, and this one I can help answer too, but I'll let you answer as well for your use case. But with these units, did you experience anyone trying to steal or vandalize the unit while you've had it?

Hillary Whittaker:

No. As far as I know, I think it'll notify or it'll do this zoom down so you could catch the person. So we didn't deal with anything. I think at one point I was like, "Oh, is somebody there?" But then it was maybe a shadow or something. But it was cool to find out that if somebody was trying to take it, that camera is going to capture you.

Michael Hanks:

Yep, totally. And just to add on to that, obviously this is a big question a lot of potential new customers have, and I'm not going to say that they've never been vandalized or stolen, but it is very rare. But the thing is, just like Hillary was just saying, once someone is close, the camera zooms in on them, they're able to receive the alert. And if they know that it's being tampered with, the authorities will be contacted really quick. And if they are able to remove them, hitch them up, which it's really hard to do, there's a lot of security measures to it, it's really hard to start stealing it. But, there's GPS trackers and we're able to just know anywhere, wherever that unit is.

So we don't have to ... I would say, rarely ever any vandalization or stealing of the units. It does happen, but anybody that does get it, it's insured, it's taken care of. We replace it really fast if anything does happen to it. But that shouldn't deter anybody from ever wanting to get one because we take a lot of security measures for sure. And I didn't mean to digress there. Was there anything else, Hillary, that you wanted to talk about with this building community spaces that I maybe didn't allow you to talk about before we move on?

Hillary Whittaker:

No, no. I think we are learning every day what else we can do to help our community. So I just think having an open mind and being accepting and being willing to learn about other people and what their needs are, what their struggles are, helps us to focus on those diverse people, the diverse issues, and again, just can create the sense of community that so many people long for and that is needed.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, I can't agree with you more. The one thought that I've been having as a personal thing is, as society today, it is just so easy to just get in your own little world. You can have food ordered, you can have movies in your house. There's almost no reason to leave your house anymore. So when I see stuff like this where it's just like, that bond, that society, that community is such a huge importance of who we are as individuals and the humanity, that I love seeing stuff like this. So thank you so much for everything that you and Community Action is doing to help those in need and provide so many resources to so many people. It's just so wonderful to see. And I'll speak on behalf of LiveView Technologies that we've loved partnering with you, being able to provide just a little bit of security and whatnot to help those gardens thrive. So it's been a really fun summer, and we're looking forward to continue working with you all. It's been really great.

So I just want to open up the last couple minutes to any questions that anyone else might have. One question came in. PTZ cameras, yes, we do. For the units, every unit is configured a little bit differently depending on the needs of your situation, but we typically, our main unit does have two PTZ cameras, and then also we put a thermal camera on there. So you can able to see at nighttime a little bit better and all that fun stuff. So another question is, a lot of subdivisions have entrance competitions where different landscape companies will sponsor and take care of those spaces. Has Community Action considered anything like that for your community gardens?

Hillary Whittaker:

No, but that's a really, really good idea. Haven't even thought about that, but I'm writing that down because that's a good idea.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, I just love that. We actually work with a lot of construction companies and a couple of landscaping companies, so that actually might be something that all three of us could partner up with and keep pushing. So that's a great question. Another one is, where does all the produce go? I think people rent it. Is it usually just for personal use? Or does a portion of this ... I'm just expanding on this potential question because all it says is, where does all the produce go? But does some of it go back to your food bank, et cetera?

Hillary Whittaker:

So most of the plots are rented by individuals or families. We do have some where, like the Utah Valley Refugees one, they all work on the plot together and so they share all of the harvest. There's some people who are growing with maybe members of their ward or something like that so that they are all working on it together, but most people are just growing for themselves. We do have a rule that nobody can sell any of the produce for any profit. It just defeats the purpose of what we're trying to do. And then we ask for any of the extra just to be donated back to the food bank or to somebody that can use it.

So I would say that there's never been a lot of excess. A lot of people will find homes for what they have, but we are trying to come up with other ideas as well on what we do with all the extra tomatoes. We don't want them to rot, so we want to give them to somebody. So having volunteers to help us harvest so that we can get those fresh fruits and vegetables back into the community is always important as well. So I would say most of it, probably 90% is individuals and families renting, and about 10% is given back.

Michael Hanks:

Next question, how many gardens does Community Action have?

Hillary Whittaker:

So we currently have four. We have one that's connected to a Provo housing senior apartment complex. So they will get first dibs on that garden. And then if there's any extra room, it's surrounded by BYU Apartments, so that one is always filled very quickly because there's tons of students who are excited about growing new things. We have one that's just a couple blocks away from Community Action. The one that you guys are helping monitor is close to Center Street. And then there's ... I'm trying to think. The North Park one is near Doctor's Park. It's kind of just down the street from the hospital a little bit. So currently four. There's potential for more. One of my last meetings with Provo City, they were asking if we were interested in another area. So we just say, "Yes, let us have what you want us to have and we'll make it work," because there's a lot of people that are interested.

Michael Hanks:

Yeah, awesome. Well, cool. Well, we're coming up on the half hour. We do have any questions, reach out to sales@liveviewtech.com. There's our phone number. What we should have done though is how to reach out to Community Action if you have any questions. Hillary, how about you just tell people what's the best way for them to get involved? How can they reach out to you? Best email or website? What do you want to share with everyone?

Hillary Whittaker:

Yes. My email address, which is always a great way to contact me, it's volunteer@communityactionuc.org. So you can also just reach out to Community Action through their website. If you're asking questions about volunteers or gardens or anything, they can send it to me. Our website is communityactionprovo.org.

Michael Hanks:

Perfect. Well, I encourage anyone to reach out to them if they have questions, if they want to get involved in the local community here in Provo and Orem. If you are across the nation, find your local outreach center similar to our Community Action. I'm sure you have one close. We love everything that we've talked about, of just creating a safe and fun environment for the whole community is so important. So Hillary, I want to just give you a huge thank you for joining us today. This has been wonderful. I love getting to know a little bit more about Community Action and what you guys are all doing over there. It's been wonderful. Thank you so much for joining. Is there anything else you want to shout out to the world before we go ahead and let everyone get back to their day?

Hillary Whittaker:

Just if you know of anybody who's struggling, send them in. We want to help everyone. Everyone hits a rough time in their life. We want to get away from the stigma of when you need help, ask for help, and we're here. So I encourage anybody to find out what resources you have in your local community, what you can do to help and give back. But also if you need help, please reach out.

Michael Hanks:

I love that. I reiterate as loudly as I can, that is so important. Thank you for that message and thanks again for joining us today. We look forward to continuing our relationship. And everybody else, I hope you all have a good day. Yeah, take care, everyone.

Hillary Whittaker:

Take care.

Michael Hanks:

Thanks for joining us.