Bridgeview Garden grows, community celebrates

About fifty Bayview neighbors and their friends gathered on Saturday April 16th to celebrate progress on the new gathering space and entryway to the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden.

Annette Smith, Quesada Gardens Initiative’s co-founding gardener and the organization’s board of directors Chair Emeritus, began the event with an invocation. She thanked all those who support the Quesada Gardens Initiative, the grassroots group that coordinates what has become a network of gardens, gathering spaces and public art projects in Bayview.

Annette and Jeffrey Betcher, Quesada Gardens Initiative organizer, presented Professor Seth Wachtel, from University of San Francisco, the Karl Paige and Annette Smith Community Leadership Award.

“I feel like I should be giving you an award,” Seth said to the group. “USF students learn about designing public spaces by beginning with the people who live nearby. They just don’t experience that approach anywhere else.”

Seth was the first faculty from the university to make contact with the Quesada Gardens Initiative, through a since-graduated student, Dionisia Montanez, who returned to the project she had worked so hard on in prior years so that she could applaud her former professor. Many current USF students helped with the event, including service-learning student liaison Brandon Oldham who talked about how meaningful their months of service in the community had been.

Joel and Mary McClure, Bridgeview Drive residents who have led the Bridgeview project for many years, and who sit on Quesada Gardens Initiative’s board of directors, talked about how their project got started when they saw what was happening a block away on Quesada and asked neighbors for help.

“Quesada Gardens is our mooring,” Joel said. “It’s been a lot of work to create this garden and gathering space, but these things can’t happen without the support of organized neighbors.”

Ralph Schardt, Executive Director of the Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, the group that footed the largest part of the materials bill for the Bridgeview Garden, spoke at the event.

“The Quesada Gardens Initiative is a good investment,” he said. “Communities have an important role to play in defining their own environments. Groups like this accomplish just that for pennies on the dollar.”

Organizers who contributed to the event include Corine Pettus who made two of her famous pies, sweet potato and buttermilk, Tony Tarket who shared garden education materials, Jacob Watta who promoted the group’s volunteer program, and Tom Galante who organized the food and lemonade tables.

Jim Ansbro, a leader with the Latona Garden group, contributed Easter gifts for young visitors. Irene Molinari and Bob Grover, also from Latona, attended.

Balboa High School student Hean He, who volunteered with the Bridgeview Project many times, passed out brochures. Will Campos, a young photographer in the neighborhood and frequent volunteer on Quesada, took pictures.

Bayview contractor, Vidal Perez, who built the new gathering space with his team, also attended the event.

Big doin's on Bridgeview

Neighbors near the Bridgeview Community Teaching and Learning Garden on Bridgeview Drive at Newhall in San Francisco's Bayview neighborhood have been watching a new publicly accessible gathering space take shape just outside the existing garden.

Under the care of extraordinary project leaders, Joel and Mary McClure, who live next to the garden, dozens of pro bono contributors and other volunteers have been engaged in the new work.

Vidal Perez, a Bayview contractor who lives with his family on Thomas, is leading the actual construction of the gathering space, bringing to life a concept that emerged from many community events at the site. The project includes permeable landscaping, a community notice posting board, and a new garden gate that will make the existing garden more accessible for everyone.  The work has been slowed by the rain, but it's still moving forward. Pavers will be installed next, and the new gate and posting board just after that.

An accomplished sculptor who lives nearby is working on concepts for a unique bench for the publicly accessible sitting area ... so that we can all enjoy the view and have a place to rest when we're climbing up from 3rd Street. He will be introduced, along with concepts for the bench, at a celebratory gathering at the site on Saturday, April 16th.

Quesada Gardens has raised funds for this new work from Michael Lee Environmental Foundation, SF Environment, and SF Community Challenge Grant Program. Pro bono design work has been provided by Seth Wachtel and his students at University of San Francisco. Massive volunteerism from many other groups and involved residents is ongoing.

Please watch for details about the Saturday April 16th celebratory event to "launch" the new project. We hope all our neighbors and allies will join us as a show of support, and showcase the Bayview "can-do" approach to community self-definition.

Find more about the history of the Bridgeview Garden project (going back to 2007!) online.

Please join in the fun happening on Bridgeview and Newhall. (There's gardening space available!) Everyone involved is doing this for our community, and loves working and playing alongside neighbors. Donations are needed, will put your or your family's name on the supporters list, and help pay for the bench.

Pictured: Students share design ideas with residents at a community gathering last year.

New Bayview gardens!

The community-builders associated with the Quesada Gardens Initiative have been hard at work bringing together residents of Bayview to define the place they call home by designing and building gardens, gathering spaces and public art in the heart of the neighborhood.

New projects now emerging include a redesign of the 3rd Street end of the Quesada Gardens median strip (top 2 drawings), an additional public gathering space at the tip of the Bridgeview Teaching and Learning Garden (3rd drawing), and a kitchen garden on Key Avenue to serve the Old Skool Cafe program (4th drawing).

Students from the University of San Francisco have attended community gatherings for each of these projects, recorded the consensus of the groups, and created drawings for the community and governmental agencies who must approve the designs. Highly involved project leaders include Carla Eagleton and Will Allen at Quesada and 3rd, Joel and Mary McClure at Bridgeview, and Teresa Goines and Lisa Kemble at Old Skool. As always, Professor Seth Wachtel is leading the way on the USF end of a longstanding partnership between QGI and the university.

The drawings you find here communicate the vision of Bayview residents working to create a beautiful and safe place for all those who live, work and play in the heart of the neighborhood...a place where people know one another by name.

Coming soon! Look for new work at the Newhall end of the Quesada Gardens median strip, on Palou and Phelps, and at the Latona Community Garden above the 3rd Street Youth Center. Even more projects are on the drawing board, as more Bayview groups join the grassroots change movement connecting people to place, and addressing problems through the social and environmental strengths that have graced Bayview all along.