by Karen Mauney-Brodek

Thank you to the over 200 of you that came to our first annual Ham and Eggs Fire Breakfast on May 21st, adjacent to Patricia’s Green.  It was an overwhelming success.  Not only did it bring our neighborhood together, but it helped our Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA) to meet our fund-raising goal for this year.

By supporting HVNA, becoming a member, reading the Voice (online version right now!), or participating in our meetings – you help the organization to work hard to improve our neighborhood.

Your membership dues support the printing of our newsletters and meeting flyers, which are hand delivered by volunteers to over 3,800 homes and businesses each month.  In addition, your dues support on-going art projects in the neighborhood (for example art in Patricia’s Green), annual efforts to help those in our neighborhood who are less fortunate, and our efforts to make sure we have a voice in our neighborhood’s future.

Each month, the neighborhood association and its committees hold meetings and forums to discuss our concerns and identify ways to address important topics around safety, upcoming development, community resources, supporting local businesses, schools and the needs of our youth.  We encourage you to visit our website:  http://www.hayesvalleysf.org/  We are temporarily making the home-page of our website the blog which will allow you to see more up to date notices of upcoming events and meetings.  You can still access the newsletter, print edition version of the Voice at:   http://hayesvalleysf.org/voice/

Our latest neighborhood achievement: working with the city and the Trust for Public Land to rebuild Hayes Valley Playground. On June 11th we celebrated the opening of the new playground and park for everyone’s enjoyment.  On to the next challenge!

Please read the article by Jason Henderson here on the blog about the UC Extension Project.  It is a very important project in our neighborhood and it is going to continue to take a lot of the attention of our organization and all of you to make sure the project provides the community with community benefits we have worked for years to ensure, including affordable housing, open space and other public amenities.

Thanks again to those of you who came to the first annual Ham and Eggs Fire Breakfast fund-raiser.  It was great to see familiar faces and hear old memories.  It was also fun to see new faces and hear new perspectives.  The neighborhood association hopes to see you at our next meeting.  Thanks to those of you who are members and/or contribute in other ways: Your support of HVNA ensures that our community has a voice!