Thank you to all of you who came out to celebrate the reopening of the Hayes Valley Playground. Many of our neighbors and supporters worked for years to pull this project together. We had fun celebrating the grand opening. Please enjoy using this great playground.
All photographs courtesy of Jamie Lopez!
Ribbon cutting including Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association President Karen Mauney-Brodek, District Five Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, members of The Trust for Public Lands, and others.
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!
By Karen Mauney-Brodek
This April-May issue of The Hayes Valley Voice and our upcoming meeting on April 28th are centered around environmentally focused organizations in the neighborhood.
Today, more and more people are coming to realize what many of us have known all along: Hayes Valley and other urban, dense neighborhoods like ours are of the greenest places you can live. The more we can get our needs met here, our parks, our food, our shopping and other needs – the more sustainable we will be because we can walk, bike and ride transit to shop, work and get around.
We need to continue to do things to improve our neighborhood – getting a full service grocery store and other needed retail. While we do complain about Muni, we do have good transit compared to many areas (that is why many of us live here) and by using transit and walking we are making healthier choices for our planet and ourselves.
Some organizations that are active in our neighborhood include: Project Homeless Connect Community Garden, Hayes Valley Farm, CommunityGrows Koshland Educational Garden, Urban Sprouts (creating learning gardens at our public schools), Neighborhood Parks Council, and Garden for the Environment. Our neighborhood works with other San Francisco environmentally- focused groups including: Friends of the Urban Forest, Public Utility Commission (reducing water use), Trust for Public Lands and the Recreation and Parks Department (which together are renovating the Hayes Valley Playground), San Francisco Parks Trust, and the Department of Public Works (helping turn concrete into planting beds and other projects).
Come to the next meeting on April 28th at the Korean American Center at 745 Buchanan Street, where we will have presentations by Garden for the Environment and Friends of the Urban Forest.
The mosaic tile installation at the Hayes Valley Playground with Laurel True, will no longer occur later this week.
The tile installation has been postponed and will now occur on Friday, April 8th, Saturday the 9th and Sunday the 10th from 10AM to 4PM each day.
Hopefully all current volunteers will be able to make these new dates. Also, if you are interested in volunteering, please email: madelinebb@sbcglobal.net
By Gail Baugh
Thanks to everyone’s hard work during the design phase in 2008-2009, Hayes Valley Playground is under construction!
Over the next few months you will see the clubhouse progress from rough framing to a finished building. The site work will start soon as contractors build the two play areas, fitness zone, plaza, lawn and landscaping designed by the community in the planning workshops. Construction will be completed after the new year.
Please look to the next newsletter for a schedule update!
There are two upcoming opportunities for involvement in December: a gardening/planting project and a mosaic tile project. Please call Jen Isacoff at the Trust for Public Land (415) 800-5304 for questions or more information. For gardening and planting project involvement please join our neighborhood group now. Email Gail Baugh,g.baugh@sbcglobal.net