Garden in Transit | Ed Massey | Talks at Google

It's a pretty exciting thing. I'm not going to steal any of.

His thunder by telling you any of.

The details, but as you can see from his taxi cab that he brought in here, it's going to involve making the taxi cabs in New York look rather unique and it involves a lot of wonderful stuff involving a lot of kids. So Ed is an Angelino Californian, but he's doing a really wonderful thing with, with New York. So Ed Massey please. Thank you. Well, can you all hear me okay? I figured so. Okay, so it's great to be here, of course at Google New York and we are a California based organization and for about seven years we've been working with the city of New York to try to get something really unbelievable off the ground, which of course is called Garden in transit for the New York City taxi. The history of the taxi is that it has never been touched as far as appearances go aesthetically. So for the city to permit really an unprecedented event is really kind of a big hurrah for our program and for kids not only in this country, but globally because it is the first icon anywhere in the world that's actually being transformed for a period of time. So Mayor Bloomberg and his administration pushed hard with us to get this off the ground. And it is written in the, in the New York's laws that the celebration, which is happening now, 2007 marks the 100th year anniversary of the metered cab will be permitted to change for a short period of time. So September of this year coming up in just a few months through December 31, the New York City taxi is going to become what we call New York City in full bloom. Up to date we've painted and in the last few weeks, coming up in mid end of July, we will have painted enough material to paint every single yellow medallion taxi. The entire fleet, which is 13,080 taxis for the city of New York. Children in schools, after school programs and pediatric care units not only in New York, but also all the way from California throughout the states have painted close to 750,000 square feet of cut vinyl in a relatively very short period of time in just under 10 and a half months. So it is an operation that is massive in every form. The largest project up to date that Portraits of Hope has been involved in is the Americ West Orange Dreams airship which you saw, which is the largest passenger airship in the country and that was 40,000 square feet. Working with several thousand kids, we've worked right now with over 22,000 participants. You saw in the video that there are special brushes for certain needs for some of the children and adults that we work with. So we devise and have these wonderful patents now that make it all inclusive for anyone who would like to participate. So you saw the shoe brush, which makes it a very easy and fun activity for kids that don't have access to their healthy painting hand. We have the telescope paintbrush, which extends out to eight feet. And when the kids are painting, so they feel just as comfortable as the kids with their healthy painting hands. Like if you've ever seen a hockey stick. Have you ever held a hockey stick? You know, this paintbrush, in a sense, is like a form of not necessarily sports activity, but at least a physical, engaging activity where they can actually move the paint back and forth and it's a wonderful way for them to be incorporated. And then also the fruit flavored wrap, which we put on the ends of brushes for those children or adults who have very limited mobility below the neck. Again, we'd like to include every single participant. We go directly into hospitals, not only again here in New York, but elsewhere. We have access into dialysis units, ICU units. We work with chronic asthmatics, hematology, oncology, you name it. Unfortunately, the whole gamut of childhood diseases, burn, trauma, recovery, is big units that we work with as well. And it's a wonderful way for the kids to get and actively socialize because many of the kids are in isolation. So here's a fun activity. We don't come in to examine them. We're not taking or extracting blood from them. We come in with big smiles on our faces, usually very good music, or we bring in musicians as well. And it's just a fun, joyful activity. So we're happy to have the taxi here. It's the only taxi right now in the city that has actually the flower panels. And it's a huge effort, not only in the painting and getting all the kids involved, up to three sessions, seven days a week, we're functional seven days a week. We have a wonderful studio space that was donated on 32nd street at the Hotel Pennsylvania. It's this wonderful space. And of course, we welcome all of you to participate. So we have schools, after school programs coming. We have outpatients coming to us, and then we go directly into the facility. But aside from the actual painting of this project, there's a massive effort that will start September 3rd, 4th of this September in 2007. It's the actual application. There are very limited numbers of people around the world that actually are professional Applicators, it's one of those rare professions, whether they do race cars, Formula One or NASCARs or airplanes, such as in our airplane. It's not an everyday type of profession. So we have to attract professionals from the different associations from all over the country who will be flying in and many donating their services for about a three week period to be able to cover 24 hours a day while the taxis are in the rest position, which is again, not something that you see often. The taxis are usually going back and forth. We don't want to have the taxi drivers lose from the financial side, so we have to do it in holding centers where they, like at John F. Kennedy Airport, where it's this incredible facility. If you've ever seen thousands of taxis at one given period of time, after they drop off someone, they must do a loop back in the holding facility. So it's a wonderful opportunity for us there to get the taxi drivers to actually participate. And it's all voluntary. Our whole program is based on voluntary efforts. So again, not only do we have the element of going through the political process, of course, our fundraising efforts, getting all the kids and volunteers right now we've worked with thousands of volunteers from New York who come out in big numbers daily to work with the kids from the schools and after school programs and the hospitals as well. But then we have the taxi industry, who will voluntarily give the space. It's basically, we've done our share. The kids have done everything imaginable to make these panels look as beautiful. And now we have the taxi industry, which we say is almost like the museum walls. We've done our paintings, but we need somewhere to hang them or we need somewhere to lay them on. So we're rallying now the taxi industry, which has been extremely forthcoming and also getting the large numbers. And we're hoping not to see a yellow medallion taxi without a floral painting on there come September through December 31, which is the end of the exhibition. So come New Year's Eve, the yellow fleet of taxis will resume back to the yellow color. And again, some of the other projects that you had seen, the tugboat, which is here at Chelsea Piers, the airship, the airplane towers and so forth, they all have very lengthy processes to get off the ground. This one here again was really for us really the cream of the crop because it is changing the way the city's going to look for those four months. Whether you're uptown, downtown, east side or west side, you shouldn't see a taxi that doesn't have this vibrant colors Created by kids. And I'll talk a little bit more, but perhaps some of you have a few questions that you'd like to throw out.

How does the vinyl attach to the taxi?

Okay, so basically the vinyl is a large sticker, it's a decal. So when the kids are painting, they paint. And I'm going to talk about the painting process in one second, they paint on these large stickers and it has a removable backing. And then the applicators with volunteers will actually apply it on. And it takes approximately seven to eight minutes to apply a hood section of a New York City taxi. So it's fairly fast. A whole taxi would take under 20 minutes. If you were doing a hood, roof and trunk. For any of the taxis that have the ad space, which is about 6,000, 5,000 taxis, they will get no rooftops. It's just hoods and trunks. So we don't take away from the ads, advertisements. And one thing about the panels, and if you see and if you walk up closely to this taxi and you can do it in a little bit, the taxi itself has meticulous black outline, very defined lines. And when you're working with a three year old or a six year old, a child maybe that has spina bifida or whatever the ailment may be, where they may not have the mobility of their healthy painting hand, how do you get it to look like this? Have most of you seen the close up of the taxi? Okay, if not, come up here in just a few minutes. But you'll see that the lines are really precisely and defined black outline. So the way the process is here is that we have the kids paint and demolish the lines. We want them to paint freely. So we say, look, you pick your colors. We have about 14 different color palettes. Pick your colors and go to town. So they pick their colors, they paint. And we ask them to actually feel free to paint over the black outline, which is a little bit different than they may have been taught in art classes before, to stay within the lines. We say paint over the lines. The reason being is that we, we want them to feel comfortable painting. And at the end we ship all the panels back again. 750,000 square feet of vinyl get shipped back to California where one of our printing partners are, they re stamp the black outline and then they get an automobile varnish laid over it. So that's how the black outline looks as clean as it does. And all the participants, every single one, signs their name. So there's big autographs. So we're hoping coming two months, two and a half months, we don't want to see the congestion of New York City streets come to a standstill, but we don't mind if taxis are stopped and people are like looking and pointing out, let's see if that's one of their taxis. You never know. I mean, there's been literally 22,000 participants. From those 22,000 participants, family members, friends know that they've been involved, there should be at some point someone being able to recognize at least one of their panels. Did you have a question?

He answered. My other question, though is what's the question of getting it off?

Okay, getting it off. This particular technology for this vinyl is extremely low aggressive vinyl. And that had to be approved by the Texan Limousine Commission here in New York. So it's a very low aggressive vinyl. It comes off by just peeling it off with one person can do it. And we've done timing sessions to see and it takes under a minute per panel. Pull it off. And of course, we also had to make sure that it doesn't damage the taxi itself. So there's hundreds of varieties of vinyls and aggressive vinyls and so forth. A band aid, a child's band aid, has more aggressive adhesive to it than our vinyl, but this can withstand wind and rain and snow. This particular vehicle gets car washed two times a week, similar to a New York City taxi. Do you have a question? Two questions. One is, why are you taking it off at the end of four months and not leaving it on? It's so pretty. Okay, first question. It's a great question because we get asked that all the time. The agreement with the city of New York is that it's to celebrate the 100th year anniversary. That's how they permitted this particular project. So to celebrate the 100th anniversary, it can last through the years 2007. So September being one of the highlight months. September through December is really a wonderful time to be here in New York City. So by the 31st, we promised, and that's written now in the agreement that by the 31st or just prior to the 31st, these have to be removed. Second question is, how did you get involved in this? It's quite inspirational. How did you start your foundation or your project? The program was started by my brother Bernie and myself 12 years ago. My background is in art and mostly as sculptor and painter, but also children's book author. And I was invited to several pediatric care units to do book readings. I'd never been exposed to pediatric care centers Prior to the book readings. And it seemed that in the playroom facilities, children were painting on eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper, just the way we write. And just like the kids in the schools were painting on. So shortly after that, I didn't think much about it at that particular time. And a few months later, I went for a jog. And there was this tower in Los Angeles bordering Century City, if any of you know, the Beverly Hills Century City area, that was a decaying 170 foot tall tower. It was literally falling apart. It was this monolith and no one was doing anything about it. So we thought. And I approached the city officials and said, can't we get the art students in the communities, the colleges, to scaffold us in paint? And they said, no, you can't scaffold this structure 15 years before or 17 years before it was painted on the ground by commercial painting companies. So I said, okay. And I went for another run about a month later. And I looked up at it and I said, my goodness, the kids in the hospitals are painting on sheets of paper and you can't scaffold this building. And the engineers told me that this was painted off site. It's basically. If you saw the tower in the video, you may remember it's just this big no window building. It's the only building that we know of in a metropolitan area anywhere in the world that was removable. You could take the walls of the building down and bring it to the level of the children. And that's how this whole wonderful marriage of getting kids involved and incorporated in these high profile, one of a kind projects emanated. And it's exactly the same for the New York City taxi. Many of these kids cannot get to the Ford Crown Victoria. They just can't get to them. So what we do is we bring the hood section, the roof section, or the trunk section directly to their level and then they paint it. Same with the fuselage of the airplane or the blimp skin, where we basically take the outer skin to them and then they go and do their thing. Thank you. Any questions for.

Okay.

So I'm curious about the plane. How many pieces that skin in and what implications does that have when you're actually flying? Okay, thank you for that. Because it was. Again, a lot of people, when they see the final outcome, think that some of these projects are very easy to go about doing and working. We had to work. NASA had invited us to do something for the centennial celebration of flight at Kitty Hawk. And they said, well, maybe you can get your kids involved and paint a mural. And we said, well, a mural's okay, but tell us a little bit more about the centennial. And they said, well, look, John Travolta is going to be the emcee, the president will be there, and we're inviting 100 airplanes to participate. Historic airplanes. So we said, well, we want an airplane. And of course NASA and the FAA got involved and they're like, no way. How are you going to get kids to paint this? It's not going to happen. And again, we cannot oversee enough the children's paintings to make sure that we have perfectly thin coats of paint. We do our best, but at times a glob of paint is a glob of paint and it may not become airworthy. Well, doing a little bit more convincing, we convinced the FAA that this would be a wonderful opportunity. We worked with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, and there were some really go getters there. And they said, let's do it. Let's get the kids involved. So we got the approval to do it. And the way we did the airplane, if you saw the airplane, is that we gave little sections, different than this, of flowers. Then each flower was given to a child all around the country. Traveled from California all the way to Baltimore, New York, and it was all kids in hospitals. The kids painted the flower, then volunteers cut out each of the flowers. And then the installers for the airplane had to do a piecemeal of laying over. It's almost like a collage. So one flower would lay on top of another flower on top of another, and each one, because of the aerodynamics of the airplane, had to have a leading edge. So as the air would go in flight, one piece of panel wouldn't fly off of another. But the FAA was wonderful in that particular project and they were a little bit nervous. It was the first hand painted airplane ever done by children. And again it is. Both sides of the wings were done. You had the top and the bottom of the wing. You had the entire fuselage. And it's going. You know, we chose with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, the slowest plane we could find that had a big surface, which is the historic DC3, 1938. You know, is this wonderful airplane that flew very slowly, but it pleased the crowds. And of course, all the kids who had seen it, whether if they didn't get to the site at Kitty Hawk, they at least could see it on the big screens and so forth.

Did they peel the off plane or is it still.

No. Some of our projects are very short term. The agreement with the airplane was that it would fly for the centennial celebration at Kitty Hawk at Kill Devil Hills, and then after that, so it was removed. And that was an 18 day exhibition. So it flew for 18 days. And then we had the day of the ceremony, which was wonderful. We had the Tuskegee Airmen escort us in. So this beautiful, very culturally rich site having the Tuskegee airmen fly in with the portraits of hope airplane. So it was quite spectacular. And the blimp also. I'll just mention one thing about the blimp. The blimp, from an engineering standpoint, if you've ever seen one of these things, they actually fluctuate because of the helium inside. So how do you get a sticky vinyl to adhere to the outer skin of the blimp where the paint doesn't start peeling off and so forth. And that was supposed to be a three month exhibition. It lasted a year. The sponsor, Ameriquest on that one, loved the project so much and they were getting such good play out of it, just as a social responsibility and so forth, that they decided to keep it for a year flying and mostly from the southern and midwest, western region of the United States. And it was also something that was seen at the Academy Awards and the Emmys and Grammys because we were the blimp that hovered over and did all the aerial shots for the big events. So that was a fun thing also for the kids to see their work and point to it and say that they were part of it. And for the kids in garden, in transit and for the adults and to be really part of a historic event from our program standpoint is really a wonderful step forward to get kids involved in beautification processes, not only in this country, but globally as well. And that's our big hope is that kids, it'll plant the seed, forgive the pun. Plant the seed, though, for bigger projects to culminate around in international, different around the borders and internationally, this seems to.

Be part of a.

Theme.

There's a bunch of art that sort of comes and affects a big place and then goes away after a while. Like the gates in Central park that Christo does, stuff like that. Are you thinking about other venues for presenting this stuff or anything interesting coming?

Well, we always are thinking of the next one. We have something that will be an international project, but it will not culminate on earth. And as far fetched as that sounds, there's something very real that we've been developing that is actually for space. But working with kids around the world. And that will hopefully be one of our big next pushes right now. So it's very exciting. We don't talk about it right now, but know that it's something that would be done by children globally and then it would culminate outside of the planet. Sounds far fetched, but it really isn't. Did someone there have a question?

Yes. You said you were an artist before you started this. Were your paintings similar in nature to the ones we see?

No, not at all. Most of my work is. My sculpture is figurative. Children's books deal with social themes, but most of my personal work deals with social themes. And then some are much more hardcore driven subject matter. And again, I did not know, other than writing several children's books, I did not know that I'd be incorporating at all children in work that I would even be involved in at that point. But flower motif is definitely not something that is in the body of my personal work. And then with other projects like the Blimp and Chelsea Pierce the Tugboat, you'll see shapes. And the reason why we picked shapes was that working with this one particular company, who was our marquee sponsor, Ameriquest, for several projects, they were in the mortgage and home business. And so I had their board at a big table. There's about 20 people, my brother and I were seated and I asked everyone to take a sheet of paper again, an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper. I said, draw a house. And uniformly every single person drew a house very similarly, a square for typically the house part triangular shaped roofs, rectangles or square squares for the windows, the door. And I said, that's it, shapes. It's the universal. It's a theme that every child knows about from early sand drawings. When you're young, going to the beach and doing maybe a circular drawing that we would take shapes for the next element for portraits of hope. And the reason why the flower became such an important symbol going back 12 years is because many of the kids that we worked with faced very difficult either emotional or physical trauma. And in the hospital environments, I had seen that the kids didn't matter what nationality, what background, socioeconomic background. The flower was a common thread across all the kids drawings. You'd see clowns and rainbows and flowers and flowers and flowers. So it hit that that would be not only something that would be friendly enough for the children, but also something that the general public could associate with. And that's how the flower motif became part of our program and the symbol of life and the beauty of Healing of patience, renewal of hope, and especially when we're dealing with hospitalized children, when a child may be fighting a life threatening illness. To give life back on such a large scale meant great importance to the whole symbol of the program.

Very inspiring. Thank you.

Yes.

Are there any plans for a book to be created once all the apps are finished?

Well, we would like a book. I mean, photographically, we document almost every single day. So we have all the participants and they're very moving images and very uplifting images. And then of course, the unveiling, the months going through would only make sense to have a book. It's something that's been discussed, but nothing concrete yet. There is a documentary being produced right now. It's separate from Portraits of Hope. So there will be life after December with the Garden in Transit project because there will be a documentary that shows the entire process of garden and transit.

Is there a single point of view where you could photograph a taxi that would uniquely identify it?

You know, as far as who participated in which section or.

Yeah, I'm sort of, sort of groping for. I mean, you can imagine, for example, taking a photograph from above which you could automate relatively easily. And if you have the code number of the taxi with it, you could make a little database of those things. You could look up a specific taxi. You could say to a kid, your stuff was on taxi number, so and so and they could sort of look it up.

Well, it's a good point because we will document on the application part. That's also it's in a sense for the taxi driver owner to be symbolized next to their taxi with the panels. So we will photograph each medallion number with the panels. We will be setting up a database as well. We're hoping that kids will recognize which one because there's sometimes multiple signatures on them. So it may be difficult to know that that trunk section was painted by which three kids or four kids. But we'll do our best to definitely they will be documented. So hopefully kids will recognize which was their panel and then we'll go from there. But also the reason people had asked before, why the New York City taxi? And of course, it made the most sense. After we finished this California project, I traveled to New York and we're looking for next, the next big project. And all the walls in New York had been taken. It looked like there were commercial graphics everywhere, like we just finished a building. What could be next? And of course, as I was stepping down on the sidewalk, the sea of taxis were strolling by and we were like, my goodness, here's this potential moving canvas that could be this magnificent colorful artwork on taxis if it could be done. And because of the aerial nature, because of the buildings and the, the altitude of the viewership, in a sense it made sense to go for the hoods, roofs and trunks. Most people would say, why do that section do the sides that are more visible? Well, you know what, in New York City it really makes sense to have that elevated view from above. And of course, we've taken aerial shots already just to see what they look like. And it's quite spectacular when you back up a little bit and you're on the 20th floor or something of a building and looking down. Do you have a question? Yes.

So did anyone ever tell you why they wrote a law?

Well, no, it was wonderful. And again, this whole process, this has been a seven year long process. So we worked with Giuliani's administration and of course Mayor Bloomberg, and we're trying creatively, as you just mentioned, how do we get this, there's this precedent issue. How do you permit a program like this to exist and not permit every single other wonderful organization, whether it's child related or what have you to also come on and say, well, now we want to do ours. So the only way that creatively, you know, the heads of City hall could figure out the potential for this was to combine it by chance with the 100th year anniversary of the New York City Taxi. So how long was written for you for this project? Now also one thing is with this particular project as well, the beauty of this is that the Ford Crown Victoria will no longer be in existence for New York City Taxi. You probably all heard that most of the taxis in the next few years will start becoming hybrids. So the Ford Crown Victoria is going to be leaving, which is this classical from a visual standpoint, maybe a fairly regular looking vehicle, but it still has that classical New York City taxi look to it. It's big, it's for us, it's a wonderful size for the actual canvases or vinyl that the kids are painting. And it's also low profile to the ground. So when you're sipping your cup of coffee at a coffee shop and you're walking outside or you're leaving your brownstone steps, you can easily see the full design element and the color of the taxi because it's so low profile. So it's just happened to coincide with so many good things. It's the 100th year anniversary, it's the last of the Ford Crown Victorias and it Just all of that meshing in together. And we wanted a few years to do the project, but we received one year to do it. So that's why it's this hustle to get everyone to participate in full force. And also in September, something for all of you here at Google is that in September it's going to be very hands on. We are a volunteer driven organization. So if any of you have interest to help apply the children's paintings with the professionals, it's something that we're going to ask in full force. It's going to be accessible 24 hours a day, will have different locations in different parts of New York City. So if that at all interests you to be part of the project and there's still some painting going on all the way through July 21st. July 21st will be an open paint day for the general public to get their last opportunity to actually paint a New York City taxi. We invite all of you to come out and you can look us up@gardenintransit.org and sign up. July 21, July 21, our last day of physical painting. Yes.

So you're anticipating that these cabs are all going to get replaced. What's going to happen?

My understanding with the four with the taxi fleet is that after several years of usage, depending if it's part of a fleet or individual, the Tax Limousine commission limits it to several years that.

Are painted are clearly, oh well, this.

Is all going to be removed. But we appreciate that. We feel so too. But come December 31, the yellow taxis will become yellow again. So. Yeah.

What do you do with all the artwork?

We're going to offer the artwork back to the taxi drivers who volunteered their autos. Many of them can be salvaged also and given back to the institutions who participated. So there's agreements with some of the larger fleets that they'll give back some of the panels, but they can be, if people take them off with care, they can be salvaged and then they could be a collector's item for definitely the taxi owners or drivers who participated. That's somewhat of an incentive. Participate. You're doing good and you get a painting at the end.

What was the most challenging part? Getting this put together sounds like an immense effort. What was the hardest part?

Marisa Joseph, you're here. Well, I think that the political process is always. There's some heavy work involved in that, but a seven year long process is really fairly short for the magnitude of this project. I mean, you spoke about Christo earlier. That's 20 years or something to get Central park or the Reichstag or other big projects. The political process is definitely a challenging one, but I think part of it, and then again, incorporating so many thousands of participants in a short period of time was another challenge that we faced that was, can we really do it? Can we hit our numbers that we like? Can we get the support from corporations and foundations? Each element is like that. And then because we're very much a grassroots effort, and then the final stage is still to come is how do we get the taxi owners to say, sure, do it now? We feel that we're going to have pretty much a full participation. We've had great meetings and dialogue with the big fleets and many of the individuals. But it's still. How do we get someone who's not familiar with this type of a project say, sure, take my taxi. You know, it doesn't take time. You know, is there something else going on? So that's the next step. But I think New York taxi owners, drivers are going to rally behind the project. It's again the only time in their lives, it's the only time in all our lives that we'll see the New York City streets look like this. So it's very special time for all of us to really come out. And it's time to bring your friends and family and so forth from wherever they are and say you want to see New York look very different. It's going to be very colorful, very much I keep referring to it, it's almost like Disneyland. For me personally, what I can envision this to look like because no one's seen more than one or two taxis with flowers ever on the city streets. So how's it going to look when you have these fuchsias and lavenders and purples on a gray day, you know, with the concrete, cement and steel that you see daily? It should look very fantasy like. And that's what we're hoping for. We hope that the taxi owners and drivers kind of just rally behind it, as do general public that say we only want to take the taxi that supports, you know, the program that gets kids involved in high profile projects.

What percentage of kids?

Well, we've painted. By July 21, we'll have painted 750,000 square feet, which can cover every single yellow medallion taxi. So we're hoping to go for the home run, as in all our projects. We've had other projects before where people say, well, limit it to this part and limit it to this part. And why do you have to do this part? We're like, no, we want the whole thing. So the city's given us the opportunity to do the whole thing and now we're almost there. We'll be there in a couple weeks. So we're hoping that the taxi owners and drivers say go do it. And again, it's just coming up after seven years, it's just eight weeks away. It's like that for us. Very excited by it and a little bit on edge too. A little bit nervous to see how the outcome will be, but it'll be really wonderful. And the whole month of September is really our application period for the taxis. So again, I can't strive enough. If you feel like coming out or no, friends that feel like they want to stretch a little vinyl for an hour or so, come out with us because it's going to be very participatory, to say the least. And a good time. Yeah, well, we're working on a Manhattan site right now. We don't need a very big space. We'd like definitely the presence in New York City, right in Manhattan because it makes the most sense and people can come in and see what's going on and the word of mouth will be there. We're looking for a location in Manhattan. If you know of one, we'd like to know about it. We just need a. Not very, you know, it could be a six stall open space that we can just set up. It's a very. The way it's applied is very easygoing. In fact, going into places like jfk, they want to make sure we're not bringing big equipment. It's no equipment, basically. It's very low tech on the application. It's basically putting a sticker on a car with two people. You wipe it down very quickly. There's no water. So we would like a Manhattan place and we're working out some details to see if we get a Manhattan. There'll be some in Queens, some at the big garages, but most definitely we will have something in Manhattan. I'm sure of it. I just don't know where yet. But if you ever go onto our website, there's an area that says taxi. And one of our biggest pushes will be for all the volunteers to learn more about where they can get involved. And then we'll have list of locations and so forth. It's very hands on project. If I haven't said it before, it's so hands on that we really, we depend on people to get involved on these projects. And so don't be shy about coming out or Contacting us to get involved, because it's. Even if you've never done anything like this before, no one has. So it's all new to all of us.

Is there still an opportunity to help the kids paint?

Absolutely, we paint. In fact, we paint every single day. So it's seven days a week. If you'd like to come out, you just put in that. You just say that you heard about it today, Google, and they'll get you into either our facility, which is on. We're at 149 West 32nd street at the Hotel Pennsylvania. We have this wonderful 18,000 square foot studio. It's the old Grand Ballroom where Count Basie orchestra and all these jazz legends used to perform. So it's a wonderful space to paint. And then also we go out. We go out tomorrow to a hospital. So if you want to come to a hospital and experience that, you just have to tap in online. And from now till July 21, the 20th is our last session with kids. And then the 21st is an open session. We'll have kids and adults and the general public coming. So, yeah, please get involved if you'd like to come out to work with the kids. We really appreciate this. How big is your organization, people? I mean, people. In New York, we have 24 at the top, which is fairly small. California, about seven, and then thousands of volunteers on top of it. But in California right now also, I forgot to mention, we're just completing the first federal air traffic control tower ever to be hand painted, especially by kids. So travel JetBlue, you go to Long Beach, California, at all that air traffic control tower there is going to be very colorful. It's going to be very colorful. The kids. And that one was really neat because we had high schoolers design the entire pattern and then young kids and kids in hospitals picked all their color choices and then they filled it in. But that was completely created and designed by high school students. Similar to one of our Chelsea Pierce projects, where the kids, we gave them templates, about 40, 50 templates, and then they put the foreground and background in and designed the whole thing. So it was really neat. No one's sleeping yet, right? Any last. I don't know what the time's like. Any last questions? All right.

Oh, Marissa, is the color palette the same from project to project?

It varies a little bit. We like very joyful colors. We did a project in Japan where it was a very difficult situation where children had been killed. Actually, it was a murderous attack in a public school. And it was the first project of its first situation like that. And it happened in Osaka, where eight kids were killed, and they did not want the color red to be in the color palette, so we took the red out. But other than that, it's usually very vibrant colors, and there's usually about 14 of them, but they vary because we mix them by hand. So, you know, one of our staff or volunteer may mix a green slightly different than someone else. We have some of the ingredients, but we don't follow the rules that often. As long as it's what we call kind of a poppy color, we like it to be vibrant as possible. And you're welcome, please, to look at the taxi again. You'll see them in full force in a few months. But this is the one that's here right now. This has been out, if some of the varnish looks like it said, this has been out for about six and a half months right now. But the ones that are coming up, they're crystal clear. They look really magnificent, and I think that's about it.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.