"Robo" and "syzurp," new threat to youth

The Bayview Police Station newsletter reported recently that several arrests for illegal possession of Promethazine-Codeine Syrup, a Schedule V narcotic, have been made. Community young people are vulnerable to this highly-addictive drug.

According to the newsletter, "What is of particular concern is that many youth and young adults are abusing the narcotic which is commonly referred to by the street names: "robo" and "syzurp." The drug is frequently mixed with 7up or Sprite and has a heroinlike effect"

Click for more information regarding Promethazine-Codeine

Bayview Station School Resource Officers will be meeting with school administrators over the next few weeks to raise awareness about abuse of the narcotic.

Palou neighbors mix wood, poetry & community

by Peg Conley

 

In San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood, creativity, connectivity, ingenuity and perspiration are ingredients for building community and, in the case of Sarah Stangle and Chris Buck, fences.

Last April, Sarah and Chris sent a letter to their neighbors about replacing the dilapidated fence located at 1665 Palou Avenue just off 3rd Street near where the couple and daughter Taylor live.

Tapping the goodwill they had built up over the years, these highly involved community members brought neighbors together to procure materials, and to build and paint the fence. They solicited donations to cover other costs.

Once the fence was in place, the organizers embellished it with a quote, “Good fences make good neighbors!” from a poem written by Robert Frost (American poet born in San Francisco) titled “Mending Wall”. The entire poem is also on 2 slats of the fence.

Though the project is finished, and the neighborhood is benefitting, the organizers have another $150 in costs to cover. It's easy to donate online, or drop by with a check (note “fence project”) or cash to 1657 Palou.

Youth discover opportunity in agriculture

Frequent Footprints contributor and food correspondent Kenneth Hill had an externship this summer at Northridge Coop Community Garden. He offers us a glimpse of his experience, and thanks everyone who made a meaningful field trip possible.

 

by Kenneth Hill, Food Guardians

I’m working with youth in an attempt to inspire them to take part in some form of agriculture with the underlining motive of getting the youth to eat healthier and be physically active as a daily part of their lives.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of taking the youth on a trip to Tarlesson Family Farm in Capay, California where they not only got to see produce produced on a larger scale, but also saw potential career opportunities in the agriculture business. Rev. Tarlesson led us on the tour of his farm, and did a great job of conveying the potential career opportunities to the youth in a way that was engaging, relevant and fun.

On the fun side, I believe taking this trip has left a meaningful impression on the youth. They got to see many fruits and vegetables they’d never seen or heard of, interacted with livestock like goats and chickens, and drank water from a well. Lastly, yet most importantly, the youth saw another aspect of life.

New Bayview jazz ensemble

Garrett Kobsef

Bayview resident Garrett Kobsef and the new Garrett Kobsef Bayview Jazz Ensemble will perform for the first time this Saturday at noon in the heart of the Bayview neighborhood on 3rd near Palou Avenue. The performance is part of the Mendell Plaza Presents events series.

Garrett is a highly-accomplished musician, composer and educator who earned the support of key community leaders in forming the jazz ensemble.

He has been a San Francisco resident since 2007, studied jazz music at the University of Southern California, and honed his craft in Los Angeles where he lived for nine years.

While his musical voice is fueled by the jazz tradition, Garrett is equally at home playing reggae, salsa, funk and hip-hop. While touring internationally, he co-founded the inimitable horn section Celebrity Hornz, and played roots reggae with Mikey Dread, The Abyssinians, Don Carlos, The Melodians, Leroy Sibbles, Cornell Campbell, Johnny Clarke and Sugar Minott.

Garrett has worked with many of Hollywood’s greatest voices including Bonnie Raitt, Michael Buble, Patti Austin, Kurt Elling, and Tierney Sutton. Legendary composers Gerald Wilson and Bill Holman sing Garrett’s praise.

His mentors include some of the most accomplished sax players of our time. He has contributed to countless recordings, appeared on television, and played some of the world’s grandest stages ... such as the fabled Glastonbury Festival, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Find more information online or call the Bayview Opera House at 824.0386.

Salesforce.com grants $10

Sue Amar, Salesforce.com Foundation, and
Neil Passero pause during a volunteer
day at McLaren Park last Tuesday.

As part of its Dreamforce conference, Salesforce.com announced $10 million in grants to five organizations.

According to a Salesforce.com Foundation press release, the grants are intended to bring a focus to San Francisco's District 10, the political district which includes the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, by funding "anchor institutions,” and accelerating the District’s transformation.

Salesforce.com Foundation Executive Director Suzanne DiBianca was quoted in a press release as saying the intent of Salesforce.com's model of philanthropy is "to improve the lives of people in our backyard."

While sorely needed funding will benefit a range of issues and San Francisco organizations, the backyard connection Salesforce.com hopes for may not be clear to District 10 residents who are unlikely to recognize some of the recipient organizations. The Bayview YMCA, which has carried the moniker "anchor institution" for years, did not make the list, and organizations usually associated with transformation in the Southeast were not mentioned.

The recipients:

Perhaps the least surprising recipient is the Southeast Health Center which is located in Bayview and serves residents here. The Center’s history of service to the community is widely-known, as is the need for massive improvement to the aging building.

San Francisco General Hospital Foundation and the hospital itself are located on the western edge of District 10. The hospital sees large numbers of District 10 residents along with patients from throughout the City. The grant builds on an extraordinary gift from Salesforce.com founder Marc and Lynne Benioff to the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, under construction in Mission Bay, just north of the District.

The website for a more mysterious recipient, Campaign for Hope SF, proves to be that of the Hope SF program from the Mayor's Office of Housing. Some residents will remember the program by the older name, but may have thought that program had vanished in a cloud of public housing construction dust.

Locals can probably name several youth skills training organizations in the area, but will not recognize Year Up, a national organization with local offices downtown.

The Exploratorium, a well-known San Francisco brand, is also a grant recipient. The organization is moving to Pier 15, on the Embarcadero at the end of Green Street.

While Salesforce.com’s grantmaking and rhetoric may not perfectly align, the corporation seems to be showing it wants to be a good corporate citizen in San Francisco. $10 million sure is a great start, and builds on previous gifts.

What may ultimately prove more valuable to Salesforce.com and the Southeast Sector of San Francisco is a related pledge the corporation has made to deliver 100,000 hours of employee community service to District 10.

If successful, the philanthropists may become better acquainted with the District’s organizations that are contributing to the transformation of the Southeast Sector, and Southeast Sector change-makers may yet receive a practical contribution.

Community meets at new Bayview biz

Quesada Gardens Co-Founders Corine Pettus and Annette Smith. 
Photo: Craig Cannon

Without much advance notice, residents of Bayview and their friends turned out last night for a community event organized by Quesada Gardens Initiative at Boudreaux's Cafe in the heart of San Francisco's most rapidly-changing neighborhood.

 

Tunisia Boudreaux and Bob Baum welcomed over a hundred new friends and potential customers into their retail space on 3rd Street at Quesada Avenue.  Their hybrid business, which will include cafe and business services alongside sales of vintage clothing and collectibles, was set up as a preview of what customers can expect when Boudreaux's Cafe opens officially in a couple months.

 

D10 Supervisor Malia Cohen was in crowd along with representatives from many community-based organizations in the neighborhood.

 

New Bayview Station Police Captain, Lt. Robert O'Sullivan, was introduced and took a few questions.  He responded to questions about his stand on "Stop and Frisk" (a bad idea that won't be implemented in Bayview) and police use of tasers (better than guns but we all need to talk about it more before setting policy).

 

One resident asked about crisis intervention training as a preventative strategy. 

 

"In Bayview, we need to be social workers as much as enforcement officers," Lt. O'Sullivan said.  He explained that officers with crisis intervention training wear badges that bear the letters "CIT."

 

Music from local DJ's, spoken word, and vocal performances punctuated the evening.  Highlights included "Wade Into The Water," by Antique Naked Soul, and a young spoken word artist sharing an empowering letter to herself.

 

Quesada Gardens Initiative offered a tasting of jams and honey made in the neighborhood.  The organization is developing a product line that will become a Quesada Gardens General Store "pop-up" within Boudreaux's Cafe.

 

Food from the soulful local eatery, Let's Eat, provided food for the event.

College Track opens windows on Bayview

The windows on most 3rd Street buildings still have bars over them. The old branch library didn't have windows at all, by design. Bucking that trend is the newly remodeled building now housing College Track.

Bucking that trend is the new College Track location on 3rd at Jerrold, a building which once served the neighborhood through the Bayview Hunters Point Foundation for Community Improvement. The extensively remodeled building now boasts huge windows newly installed on two sides.

College Track is a national education nonprofit that serves students from underserved communities with a goal of advancing them toward a college degree.

Photo: Footprints

Boudreaux's Cafe comes to Bayview

Elizabeth Skow interviewed Tunisia Boudreaux about her new business, Boudreaux's Café, then tried to describe what she heard. That proved harder than she thought. Part community meeting place, part coffee haunt, lunch spot and second living room...Bourdreaux's Cafe is hard to define.

 

Welcome to a hyperlocal world. Professionals choose between multiple business cards depending on who they are networking with. Nonprofits develop products while for-profits launch community-serving projects. Under-one-roof concept businesses proliferate, as do collective approaches to pretty much everything.

 

Boudreaux's Cafe, which is opening soon on 3rd Street at Quesada Avenue in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood, faces a branding challenge advertising executives couldn't have dreamed of twenty years ago. But, as Elizabeth found out, the woman behind the business is up to the challenge.

 

by Elizabeth Skow

Boudreaux knows that businesses on 3rd have had mixed experiences, some closing their doors for lack of traffic. She also knows that antiques alone are unlikely to draw enough customers. So she looked around her new commercial location with an eye for what services are missing.

 

New Bayview resident and entrepreneur Tunisia Boudreaux is a woman of many interests. But it was her lifelong love of antiques that led her to Bayview. For years she was a vendor at the Alemany Flea Market where she met a fellow antiques lover with a line on affordable commercial space on 3rd.

The business plan that resulted includes notary and fingerprinting services that the community needs, and a café and retail store that gives service-seekers a reason to stay. It's a unique mix, but Boudreaux puts a community focus on it all.

 

"I really want this to be a space that anyone can just walk in and feel comfortable, and where people know they are welcome," Boudreaux said.

 

She plans to offer sandwiches and salads, as well as the usual café fare. She hopes customers will drink coffee while browsing antiques and collectibles, and products in the community pop-up stores she hopes to host.

 

Boudreaux was influenced by her great-grandmother, a fiery woman who came from the Jim Crow South to Los Angeles where she made herself a small fortune in real estate, maintaining properties full of old things. In her great-grandmother's wake, Boudreaux became hooked on antiques. In high school, she started her own business making and selling jewelry, and learned it was possible to find creative ways to make ends meet.

 

Boudreaux came to the Bay Area to attend UC Berkeley, and has been here ever since. After years of following her antiques and flea market passions, she now has her sites set on opening her 3rd Street business in the next few months.

 

She can often be found working at the developing space located at 5030 3rd Street (next to the empty lot by the BofA), and invites everyone to "pop by" and say hello!