Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group

Vision

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In the near future, all residents of the Hayes Valley-Western Addition, regardless of race or class, will value, use and care for their parks with renewed enthusiasm, realizing the importance these green spaces play on the health and well-being of the community.

Mission

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We are an ethnically and economically diverse group committed to bolstering neighborhood participation, pride and environmental stewardship or the parks and recreation areas in the Hayes Valley-Western Addition of an Francisco. We accomplish our mission through programs and projects hat empower all residents, youth and their families to be healthy, safe and to positively impact their community. Our programs engage, recreate and educate children, families and other residents.

Contact Us

2008-10-14T19:08:51Z

HVNPG

300 Page St, San Francisco, CA 94102-5649
(415) 431-8112; (415) 431-0148 Fax
e-mail: hvnparks@hotmail.com

KOSHLAND PARK AND COMMUNITY LEARNING GARDEN

Nora Brereton, Environmental Educator/Coordinator
415-424-5770; noraborealis@juno.com
http://www.koshlandgarden.blogspot.com

ROSE-PAGE MINI PARK

Shelly Burton 415-621-0319; shelleyburton@earthlink.net
Lynne Creighton, 415-621-5432; LinOnOak@aol.com

HAYES VALLEY PLAYGROUND & CLUBHOUSE

Recreation Director:
(Fidel) Joshua, 415-554-9526; creesproject@msn.com
Beautification Committee:
Jim Warshall, 415-265-1699; jimwarshell@yahoo.com
Gail Baugh, 415-265-1699; g.baugh@sbcglobal.net
Hayes Valley Community PARTNERS:
Richard Johnson, 415-252-9644; rlj415@sbcglobal.net

PAGE STREET GARDEN

Michael McCauley, 415-865-0455; mccami@covad.net
Zo McFee, 415-814-3197, zomcfee@yahoo.com

PATRICIA'S GREEN IN HAYES VALLEY

Madeline Behrens-Brigham, 415-863-2514; adelinebb@sbcglobal.net
Russell Pritchard, 415-255-9307, russellsf@earthlink.net

Hayes Valley Playground & Clubhouse

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In 1996 our organization began its work with Mayor's Office, Police and Recreation and Park Department, EOC Head Start, housing development managers, residents, merchants to open the clubhouse after years of being shutdown. We've collaborated on many Summer Safety Programs, a Drug Free Zone installation, a Head Start start-up, and the demolition and redevelopment of a housing project across the street from the Playground/ Clubhouse.

We secured over $100,000 in Open Space Funds from the Recreation and Park Department for renovation of the clubhouse. Finally, we were instrumental in bringing Operation Contact-Safety Network offices into the Clubhouse, to develop an after-school tutoring program, computer labs, sports teams, and CREES job opportunities programs.

Our Parks

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Koshland Park, which is under an acre in size, has no recreation center or director and serves over three hundred youth. It cries out for programs. To keep children safe, out of trouble, and engaged, the Community Learning Garden provides recreational and enrichment activities for their growth and development.

Rose-Page Mini Park and Community Garden was completed in 1999, built in partnership with the community, the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. The Park includes a community garden with fifteen beds, wheelchair accessibility, a terrace apple orchard, seating, a walk through path at both Rose and Page Streets, and an attractive six foot high wrought iron fence set back into the park. Workshops in composting, vermiculture, and gardening are offered on a regular basis. Local dog owners have begun maintenance of the park.

Hayes Valley Playground and Club House - In 1996 our organization began its work with Mayor's Office, Police and Recreation and Park Department, EOC Head Start, housing development managers, residents, merchants to open the clubhouse after years of being shutdown. We've collaborated on many Summer Safety Programs, a Drug Free Zone installation, a Head Start start-up, and the demolition and redevelopment of a housing project across the street from the Playground/ Clubhouse. We secured over $100,000 in Open Space Funds from the Recreation and Park Department for renovation of the clubhouse. Finally, we were instrumental in bringing Operation Contact-Safety Network offices into the Clubhouse, to develop an after-school tutoring program, computer labs, sports teams, and CREES job opportunities programs.

Page Street Garden is the oldest community garden in our neighborhood, started in 1973. A group of devoted neighborhood gardeners tend 25 large plots.

Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley, located at Octavia Boulevard, was completed in 2005, as part of the rebuilding of the earthquake-damaged central freeway. With this new park, the neighborhood received a beautiful plaza that is close to the heart of San Francisco, its cultural and eclectic center. We are sponsoring workdays in the Green, getting to know neighbors and merchants, and helping to create a group of stakeholders for this park.

HVN PARKS Group Programs

2008-06-23T04:34:11Z

In addition to the advocacy and fundraising undertaken by the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group in its history, it currently oversees four major initiatives, and is planning to introduce a fifth. All of its programs and activities are structured to meet its mission and to empower all residents, youth and their families to be healthy, safe and to positively impact their community.

Project Parks-Green Connect

This project is the umbrella for all of the community building and stewardship development activities of the HVNPG. The goal of Project Parks-Green Connect is to build community ownership and pride in Hayes Valley parks by involving and empowering diverse community members to become actively involved in their parks. Through this project we serve over 1,000 residents, families and youth. We do this through:

Holding and participating in regular community meetings to discuss park needs and activities
Organizing monthly work days in the parks
Coordinating Tai Chi Sundays, to provide a healthy activity, especially for seniors
Collaborating with city departments, schools, senior centers and other organizations to ensure that parks are meeting the community's needs
Sponsoring neighborhood walk-through nights with the police
Organizing community celebrations and events

The Koshland Park Community Learning Garden

In what was once a derelict park, little used except by drug users and prostitutes, the HVNPG has created a vibrant Community Learning Garden, the crown jewel in our efforts to revitalize the neighborhood. Under the direction of a full time garden educator, HVNPG's Community Learning Garden serves over 500 neighborhood students and residents. Three hundred and fifty of them are elementary school students and their teachers from John Muir Elementary School and International Academy, fifty are community garden members, and over one hundred are residents, families and seniors.

The primary goals of the Community Learning Garden are to help at-risk youth in the community to develop an understanding and passion for nature, to build core academic and interpersonal skills, and create a sense of community and caring between neighborhood youth and adults. In order to accomplish these goals, HVPNG and its staff oversee a number of programs and activities:

Summer Seed to Table Camp and Cooking Classes
Brigade of Environmental Educator Teens (BEET Brigade), in partnership with Walden House
Nutrition Education in partnership with the Department of Public Health
Park Work Days, monthly, in partnership with the International School
Bi-Monthly community education workshops
Internships for youth and for students from the Garden for the Environment
Community events such as a Safety Fair, neighborhood BBQ's and holiday celebrations

The garden educator works with schoolteachers to complement the California Core Academic Standards with garden lessons that teach science, math, language arts and literacy. Practical skills such as food production and composting are learned as well. Social skills like teamwork and respect for living things are continually practiced. During the day, students gather in the garden to learn about growing plants and vegetables, write stories, measure seeds and plots, discuss native cultures, create a reggae musical on Tom (Jack) in the Beanstalk, discover birds and insects, and explore with each other the intricacies of life and nature and how they are a part of the dynamic balance.

Community Peace Empowerment and Tile Making Project

This project, active since 1998, brings together over 1,000 people, members of churches, schools, and community based organizations to learn a peace empowerment process as they paint tiles of what peace means to each person. Through the integration of the visual arts, a curriculum and program was taught that focused on tolerance, understanding, and non-violence, and collectively learned ways to develop positive and proactive solutions to resolving conflicts and defusing anger. The project has been developed and implemented by residents for residents--a true community endeavor.

As a result of this project, children, residents, and seniors, many living in public housing and high crime areas of the Western Addition, designed over 1,600 tiles. Our final steps are to employ the services of a tile setter to put the tiles and signage on a large wall of the Daniel E. Koshland Community Park. We are currently fundraising for the completion of this project, which will happen on Mother's Day, May 13, 2007. Begun in 1999, and funded in part by the San Francisco Foundation, the World Wall for Peace, San Francisco Beautiful, and the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Beautification-Community Challenge Grant, this HVNPG project has raised over $120,000.00.

Eco Rangers

This is a new project which will aim to empower and train a group of diverse teens to provide stewardship over five Hayes Valley parks, as they become "park rangers," under the guidance of our trained staff. The goals of the program are to reach at least fifteen at-risk, ethnically and economically diverse teens from the community, and provide them with opportunities to engage in meaningful community service, develop a wide variety of skills and leadership qualities. This project has the potential to engage over 250 individuals, residents and City leaders.

Their role will be to care for the parks, and to serve as ambassadors to the community through a variety of communication strategies. They will also help to grow food in the gardens and distribute it to the needy of the community.

John Muir Elementary Green School Yard Project

The John Muir Green Schoolyard Project, begun in the summer of 2003, will transform the school's large cement yard into a thriving green space for play and beauty, with grass, trees, plants and play structures. Ideally, this area will allow over 350 children (K-5th grade) to play in ways that enhance their learning and satisfy their sensory-motor requirements.

We estimate this project will cost $200,000, and will take 3-5 years to complete. We are in the beginning stages of fundraising.

Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group Partners

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Funders:

The Koshland Family
The San Francisco Foundation
The Rose Foundation
Northern California Environmental Grassroots Fund
The Stewardship Council
Marin Community Foundation
San Francisco Parks Trust
Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Beautification
Community Challenge Grant
Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice
Mayor's Office of Community Development
Department of Children, Youth & Families
Department of Public Works
Department of Public Health
Recreation and Park Department
San Francisco Beautiful
San Francisco Art Commission
San Francisco Education Fund
Center for Ecoliteracy
Hewitt Foundation

Schools:

John Muir Elementary School
International High School
Gateway High School
Megan Furth Academy
John Swett Elementary

Churches:

San Francisco Zen Center
Hand 2 Heart Mission
First Baptist Church
The Buddhist Peace Fellowship

City Wide:

Neighborhood Parks Council
Green Schoolyard Alliance
SFGRO
Urban Sprouts
World Wall for Peace
YMCA

CBOs:

Mo' Magic
Goldman Institute
On-Lok Center
Ella Hill Hutch Center
African American Arts & Culture Complex
Western Addition Drill Team & Drum Corps
Walden House

Housing

Hayes Valley North & South

Developments:

Neighborhood Organizations:
Hayes Valley Neighborhood Associaiton
Lower Haight Association
Hayes Valley Community Partners
MO Magic
Haight Street Merchants
Hayes Street Merchants

LINKS:

SFGRO
Urban Sprouts
RPD
NPC
ACGA
PPS

Koshland Park Community Learning Garden

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Summer Seed to Table Camp and Cooking Classes
Brigade of Environmental Educator Teens (BEET Brigade), in partnership with Walden House
Nutrition Education in partnership with the Department of Public Health
Park Work Days, monthly, in partnership with the International School
Bi-Monthly community education workshops
Internships for youth and for students from the Garden for the Environment
Community events such as a Safety Fair, neighborhood BBQ's and holiday celebrations

About HVNPG

2008-06-17T11:50:06Z

Our mission

The Hayes Valley Neighborhood PARKS Group (HVNPG) is an ethnically and economically diverse group committed to fostering neighborhood participation, pride, and environmental stewardship for the parks and recreation areas in the Hayes Valley-Western Addition of San Francisco. We accomplish our mission through programs and projects that empower all residents, youth, and their families to be healthy and safe, and to positively impact their community. Our programs engage, recreate, and educate children, families, and other residents.

Our history

Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group (HVNPG) was founded in 1994 in response to a mandate from the State of California to organize a comprehensive response to substance abuse. At that time, Hayes Valley had the highest crime rate in the City. Drugs and prostitution embedded themselves in three local parks: Hayes Valley Playground and Clubhouse, Rose-Page Mini Park, and Koshland Community Park.

In the following decade, HVNPG mobilized the community to reclaim and restore these public parks. We worked with Police and City agencies to secure funds for park design and renovation, and to develop programs building ongoing community stewardship. Today, HVNPG has over 300 volunteer park stewards, and maintains a strong network of local partners.

Beyond gaining public recognition for beautifying and revitalizing existing areas, our efforts have also secured additional open space for this dense neighborhood. In 2005, HVNPG prevented the sale of Page Street Garden to developers by persuading the Recreation and Park Department to acquire this land. That same year, a new plaza on Patricia's Green was opened following seven years of HVNPG advocacy.

HVNPG programs, which celebrate our culturally and economically diverse neighborhood, address safety, health, environmental awareness, life-long learning, and recreation. Past programs have worked towards eradicating childhood obesity, lowering the African American infant mortality rate, and coordinating environmental field trips throughout the Bay Area for our local youth.

In 2006, we introduced an annual LetUsGrow! Summer Camp for elementary students, the Brigade of Environmental Educator Teens from Walden House, and the ever popular Seed-to-Mouth Cooking Classes in public housing, which advocated healthy eating.

This year, infrastructure projects are slated for Koshland Community Park, including the design of a Performance Stage by architecture students at the University of San Francisco. Construction of the Koshland Park Peace Wall, which received over $250,000 in support from a Mayor's Office Community Challenge Grant, San Francisco Beautiful, and the San Francisco Foundation, will include over 1,800 tiles painted by residents following participation in non-violence workshops held at every church, youth-serving agency, and community-based organization in the Western Addition.

Since its inception, HVNPG has raised over $2.5 million for park renovation and program development from various City agencies, local foundations, and private sources. As a result of our great success, the HVNPG is in a time of transition, moving from a period of intense activism to one of stabilizing and strengthening long-term programs.